
Inside Commerce · 2026-06-23 · 46 min
"Scaling ecommerce fast means moving from heroics to systems - otherwise growth just exposes every weakness you’ve been carrying. Once you hit hyper-growth, the small process gaps stop being small. They become the things that break the business.” This episode explores the hidden challenges brands face turning high-pressure moments into commercial opportunity, while also building the operational discipline needed to scale. Our guest is Chris Sheard, Director or Ecommerce at sports brand Fanatics. Chris has an interesting background, having previously been Ecommerce Director for Castore and Head of Ecommerce at CurrentBody during its rapid growth from £5 million online revenue to £50 million plus. We cover three key growth topics: Key learnings from managing hype cycles around major sporting events like World Cups From £5m to £100m: what breaks when ecommerce scales & how do you handle this effectively? The ecommerce team nobody sees: how to build an operating rhythm that actually drives revenue. And of course, AI is mentioned Fanatics operates a vertical commerce model.