Pets at Home has appointed Matthew Stead to the new position of director of multichannel as the retailer strengthens its etail.

Stead, who starts on September 3 and will sit on the retailer’s operating board, was previously marketing director at furniture and clothing retailer The White Company.

The hiring is a key step in Pets at Home’s attempt to turn a primarily bricks and mortar retailer into a true multichannel player. It already has a transactional website.

Stead, who has also worked at Marks & Spencer and Littlewoods, will be charged with bringing a multichannel perspective to Pets at Home and will look into the potential launch of services such as order online and collect in-store.

In May, Pets at Home chief executive Matt Davies said the retailer is also looking at building social networking capabilities into its site. The retailer aims to treble its online sales in the next three years. At the time, Davies said the website, which was relaunched last year, “is already a top 10 store”.

In the 52 weeks to March 26, Pets at Home’s pre-tax profit before exceptional items and goodwill amortisation rocketed 29% to £40m. Like-for-likes jumped 7.5% while total sales climbed 14% to £404.3m.