E-commerce and retail
Retail and e-commerce founders do everything: buying, marketing, customer service, shipping and the books. The business grows until those jobs collide. We build the team around the founder: a growth team for traffic and conversion, an operations lead for inventory and fulfilment, finance alongside your CPA and automation for the repetitive hours.
How the work gets done today
- Margin lives in buying and inventory turns, and dies in markdowns and dead stock
- Acquisition cost rises as channels mature, so repeat purchase decides profit
- Customer service volume scales with sales and swamps small teams in peak seasons
- Cash is tied up in inventory months before it becomes revenue
The moves we make
- Build a growth team that owns traffic, conversion and repeat purchase as one scorecard
- Put an operations seat in place for inventory, fulfilment and supplier management
- Automate customer service first replies, order updates and review requests with human review
- Install a cash and inventory forecast with your CPA so buying is decided months ahead
Seats usually missing
A growth lead who owns the whole path from traffic to repeat purchase, an operations lead who owns inventory, fulfilment and suppliers, and a finance seat that forecasts cash against buying. The founder holds all three and does customer service in between. Our growth team, operations team and fractional CFO support fill those seats on an outsourced basis, and we help you hire permanent people as volume and margin support them. Conv.ca, Ali's conversion practice, publishes an average 40% increase in conversion rates for clients.
Getting the founder out
Customer service and order handling first, through automation and written processes that a part time person or an agent can run. Fulfilment second, through an operations seat and supplier processes, or a fulfilment partner if the numbers favour one over your own warehouse. Marketing execution third, through a growth team working against a scorecard the founder reviews weekly. The founder keeps product, brand and buying, which is where the taste and the margin live, and stops answering the support inbox at midnight.
What to outsource first
Conversion and repeat purchase work, because it increases revenue from traffic you already pay for. Then customer service automation, because it saves hours immediately and improves reviews. Operations and inventory forecasting follow, with your CPA involved in the cash side and the buying calendar. Paid traffic expansion comes last, once conversion and retention make each new customer worth more than they cost. Product safety, consumer protection and tax matters stay with your lawyer and CPA, and we check with them before a new category launches.
Questions from e-commerce and retail owners
Do you run our ads and store?
Our growth team runs paid, organic, email and conversion work against a weekly scorecard, and our technology team maintains the store. Accounts and data are in your name.
Can you help with physical retail too?
Yes. Local search, reviews, in store processes, staff playbooks and inventory systems are the same disciplines. For multi location retailers, the org design and SOP work matters most.
How do you handle peak season?
We plan it a quarter ahead: inventory forecast with your CPA, temporary staffing playbooks, customer service automation tested before volume arrives and a daily scorecard during the peak.
Tell us which seat is empty.
A 30-minute call with Ali about the business and the people running it. You leave knowing which role to fill first and whether fractional, outsourced or a hire is the right answer, whether or not we work together.