How a 40-Year-Old Fishmonger Became One of the UK's Fastest-Growing DTC Seafood Brands

For nearly four decades, Regal Fish has been doing something quietly remarkable: delivering high-quality seafood directly to British doorsteps, long before “DTC” was an industry buzzword.

“It's quite original that it's been direct to consumer for 40 years,” says Steve Stansfield, CEO of Regal Fish. “When you consider, particularly in seafood, delivering to the consumer 30, 40 years ago — it's quite an entrepreneurial concept.”

Today, the brand offers around 200 varieties of responsibly sourced fresh and frozen seafood, ordered today and delivered tomorrow. But when Stansfield's team acquired the business in 2022, one thing was missing: a true ecommerce engine. Working with BigCommerce, PayPal and Agency 51, Regal Fish set out to change that — and the results speak for themselves.

From brochure site to growth engine

Regal Fish's original website wasn't built to sell.

“The old website was more of a brochure website than an ecommerce platform,” explains Hani Girgis, Ecommerce Manager at Regal Fish. “While there was an opportunity to scale that platform, it would have taken a lot more resources, and it wouldn't have delivered anywhere near the results that we get with an actual ecommerce platform.”

Since replatforming to BigCommerce, the numbers have moved fast: 27% revenue growth in 2025, with a further 25% year-to-date on top of that. A key driver has been average order value, powered by upsell, cross-sell, and spending-goal capabilities.

“By increasing the average order value, hitting those growth numbers wasn't too difficult at all,” says Girgis. “Increasing average order value has been critical, and we wouldn't have been able to do that without BigCommerce. That wasn't really an option in the old platform that we were using.”

Trust at the checkout

A crucial piece of the DTC experience is the moment of payment — and for Regal Fish, offering PayPal has paid off. A little more than a fifth of transactions now go through PayPal.

“We decided to offer PayPal due to the trust behind the brand,” says Girgis. “For customers, it's a much easier and much more secure way to transact. Rather than giving their credit card details, all they need to do is log in with their PayPal account, and that's it — transaction done.”

That mirrors what BigCommerce sees across its merchant base. “When merchants offer PayPal, we consistently see 10 to 20% of checkout volume go through PayPal Wallet,” says Michaela Weber, SVP of Product at BigCommerce, who leads the company's payments business. “That's because consumers trust PayPal as a payment method, and it's really important for merchants to offer the type of payment methods that consumers want to use when they're shopping online.”

Bringing a consumer-grade experience to B2B

Regal Fish chose BigCommerce for a specific reason: it needed one platform that could serve households today and wholesale buyers tomorrow.

“The main reason we chose BigCommerce was due to its B2B capabilities,” says Girgis. “While we were assessing other platforms, direct to consumer was fairly similar across all platforms, but BigCommerce shined in B2B. It positioned itself as the platform we need to deliver the growth we need in both areas.”

With BigCommerce B2B Edition, Regal Fish is bringing the same convenience its consumers enjoy to business buyers — from company account structures and customer-specific pricing to tools that let field sales staff close deals on the spot.

“BigCommerce and B2B Edition allow Regal Fish to both grow their direct-to-consumer business, which is a really important aspect of their growth, and also to manage the complexities of their B2B business,” says Weber. “Custom quoting, complex workflows — all the things they need to do to manage and grow on the B2B side.”

Running both channels natively on one platform keeps the experience fast and the operation lean. “It avoids the patchwork of third-party apps,” says Girgis. “We don't have to worry about the load time because it's all built natively in there.”

A model built to travel

Regal Fish is owned by Flatfish, part of Nissui, the second-biggest seafood manufacturer in the world — and the ambition doesn't stop at the UK.

“The ambition for Regal Fish is to take a successful model and replicate it in other markets,” says Girgis. “I see BigCommerce plus PayPal as a successful model to replicate in other international markets.”

For Stansfield, the lesson for other heritage brands still weighing up ecommerce is simple: “Don't leave it too late. You can't change the way shoppers are going to buy. The longer you leave it, the bigger the gap will be.”

Want the full story? Watch the Regal Fish video and read the complete case study to see how BigCommerce, PayPal, and Agency 51 helped a 40-year heritage brand build its digital future.