3PL onboarding: the ninety days nobody plans for
The integration is the easy part and it is the only part on the plan. The data, the physical move and the exceptions are where the quarter goes.
CATEGORY
Operations posts
Everything we have written on operations, 28 posts, newest first.
28 posts on operations
CategoryOperations
Black Friday: the changes to make and the ones to postpone
Whether a change is safe before Black Friday has almost nothing to do with the change and almost everything to do with the month you make it in.
Choosing a returns platform, and when Shopify is enough
Shopify’s built-in returns do more than most stores realize. Three gaps justify buying a platform, and here is the arithmetic that tells you when.
Fraud, chargebacks and the orders worth canceling
Shopify tells you which orders look risky. The part nobody decides in advance is which ones you are willing to lose.
Fulfillment SLAs and what your storefront should promise
Your warehouse contract and your product page are two different promises, made by two different people, to two different audiences. The gap between them is your support queue.
Gift cards, store credit and the refund you would rather not make
Store credit is a fair offer where the return is your goodwill and a bad look where the customer has a right to their money. The mechanics decide which one you are running.
Half-year review: the metrics worth reporting upward
Six to eight numbers, each with its definition written next to it and a decision attached. Most ecommerce board packs are twenty charts and no decisions.
Inventory forecasting for a store with seasonality
Every default inventory metric assumes a flat sales rate. On a seasonal catalog that assumption is wrong in exactly the weeks the decisions get made.
Live monitoring: the dashboard you need for four days
Peak monitoring is not analytics with a faster refresh. It is four signals, a written threshold under each one, and a named person whose job is to say something out loud.
Loyalty and retention: what actually brings people back
Points schemes mostly reward people who were coming back anyway. The things that genuinely drive repeat purchase are duller and harder to install.
Loyalty tiers and the math behind them
A tier is a discount you have promised in advance to the people most likely to buy anyway. Work out what it costs before you name it after a metal.
Modeling made-to-order and lead times in Shopify
The hard part is not taking the order. It is making one number (how long this will take) true on the product page, in checkout, in the confirmation email and on the phone.
NEXT STEP
Free store audit
A senior Shopify engineer reviews your storefront, theme performance and checkout, then sends a prioritized list of fixes.
