Growth & Strategy
Personas
Ecommerce
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Last year, I watched a promising ecommerce client struggle with what they thought was a supply chain problem. They had decent products, growing demand, but kept running into fulfillment bottlenecks. Sound familiar?
Here's the thing – most businesses think supply chain scaling is about logistics, warehousing, and inventory management. But after working with dozens of ecommerce stores and SaaS companies, I've learned something counterintuitive: the biggest supply chain bottleneck isn't your warehouse or your suppliers. It's your distribution strategy.
While everyone obsesses over optimizing their backend operations, they're missing the fundamental issue: you can't scale what people can't find. Your supply chain can be perfect, but if your distribution sucks, you're just creating an efficient system for disappointment.
In this playbook, you'll learn:
Why traditional supply chain thinking kills growth
The distribution-first approach to scaling
How to build antifragile supply chains that thrive under pressure
Real strategies that work when demand unexpectedly spikes
Why most ecommerce scaling strategies focus on the wrong metrics
Reality Check
What the supply chain gurus won't tell you
Walk into any supply chain conference, and you'll hear the same tired advice repeated ad nauseam:
"Optimize your inventory turnover." "Implement just-in-time delivery." "Automate your warehouse operations." "Find cheaper suppliers." "Use predictive analytics for demand forecasting."
This conventional wisdom exists because it's measurable. CFOs love metrics they can track. Warehouse efficiency, cost per unit, delivery times – these are concrete numbers that look great in quarterly reports.
But here's what nobody talks about: all of this optimization assumes you have predictable, steady demand. The moment your marketing works too well, the moment you go viral, the moment Black Friday hits harder than expected – your perfectly optimized supply chain becomes your biggest liability.
I've seen too many businesses nail their logistics only to discover they can't scale customer acquisition fast enough to justify their infrastructure investments. They build beautiful, efficient systems that serve... nobody.
The supply chain industry sells you tools for the wrong problem. They optimize for efficiency when you need to optimize for growth and adaptability. They focus on cost reduction when you should focus on revenue multiplication.
Most supply chain strategies fail because they treat scaling like a linear engineering problem instead of what it really is: a distribution and customer acquisition challenge that happens to involve moving products around.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
OK, so here's my controversial take on supply chain scaling: most businesses are solving the wrong problem entirely.
I've worked with ecommerce stores that had perfect inventory management, lightning-fast fulfillment, and cost-optimized suppliers. But they were still struggling to grow because nobody could find their products. They had built a Ferrari engine for a car with no wheels.
The real insight came when I started treating supply chain scaling as a distribution problem, not a logistics problem. Instead of asking "How do we move products faster?" I started asking "How do we make sure products reach people who actually want them?"
This mindset shift changes everything. When you think distribution-first, you realize that your biggest bottleneck isn't your warehouse capacity – it's your marketing channels. Your constraint isn't supplier reliability – it's customer acquisition costs.
I remember working with an ecommerce client who was obsessing over warehouse automation while their customer acquisition was completely broken. They could fulfill 10,000 orders per day but were only getting 100 orders per week. Classic supply chain thinking had them optimizing the wrong end of the funnel.
The breakthrough came when we flipped the approach: instead of building capacity and hoping demand would follow, we focused on building sustainable demand and let supply chain decisions follow market reality.
This isn't about ignoring logistics – it's about recognizing that in today's market, distribution beats optimization. A slightly inefficient supply chain serving 10x more customers will always outperform a perfectly optimized supply chain serving few customers.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Here's the framework I developed after seeing too many perfectly optimized supply chains fail to drive growth:
Step 1: Audit Your Real Constraints
Most businesses think their constraint is warehouse space or supplier capacity. But when I audit ecommerce operations, the real constraint is usually customer acquisition bandwidth. Before you optimize fulfillment, make sure you can actually generate enough demand to justify the optimization.
Step 2: Build Distribution Channels First
I always tell clients: optimize for getting found before you optimize for getting shipped. Your supply chain should follow your distribution strategy, not the other way around. If you can't predictably acquire customers, all the warehouse efficiency in the world won't help.
Step 3: Design for Demand Spikes
Traditional supply chain optimization assumes steady, predictable demand. But modern businesses need to handle viral moments, influencer mentions, and unexpected traffic spikes. I design supply chains that can handle 10x demand overnight, even if it means slightly higher costs during normal periods.
Step 4: Implement Feedback Loops
Your supply chain should inform your marketing strategy and vice versa. If certain products have longer lead times, adjust your ad targeting accordingly. If certain regions have shipping challenges, modify your geographic targeting.
Step 5: Focus on Customer Lifetime Value
Instead of optimizing for lowest cost per unit, optimize for highest customer satisfaction and repeat purchases. Sometimes paying 20% more for faster, more reliable fulfillment increases customer lifetime value by 200%.
The key insight: supply chain scaling isn't about moving products efficiently – it's about moving the right products to the right customers at the right time in a way that maximizes business growth.
This approach requires close collaboration between marketing, operations, and customer service. But when it works, you get a supply chain that actually drives revenue instead of just managing costs.
Demand Mapping
Start with customer acquisition channels, then build backward to suppliers and fulfillment
Channel Integration
Sync inventory visibility with marketing spend to avoid overselling high-performing ads
Spike Planning
Design systems that can handle 5-10x normal volume with 48-hour notice
Feedback Systems
Connect fulfillment metrics directly to customer acquisition cost calculations
When you flip from logistics-first to distribution-first thinking, several things happen:
Revenue becomes predictable. Instead of hoping demand materializes, you build supply chain capacity based on proven marketing channels and customer acquisition funnels.
Growth becomes sustainable. You avoid the classic mistake of building expensive infrastructure that sits empty while you figure out how to fill it with customers.
Crisis becomes opportunity. When demand spikes unexpectedly, you have systems in place to capitalize rather than disappoint customers with stockouts or long delays.
The businesses that get this right don't just scale their supply chains – they scale their entire revenue engine. They use fulfillment as a competitive advantage rather than treating it as a necessary cost center.
Most importantly, they avoid the trap of over-optimizing operations while under-optimizing customer acquisition. Because at the end of the day, the best supply chain in the world is worthless if nobody knows you exist.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
After applying this framework across different types of businesses, here are the most important lessons:
Distribution bottlenecks kill growth faster than fulfillment bottlenecks. Fix customer acquisition before you fix warehouse efficiency.
Predictable marketing channels enable predictable supply chain planning. Invest in marketing systems that let you forecast demand accurately.
Customer satisfaction trumps cost optimization. Slightly higher fulfillment costs that improve customer experience usually pay for themselves in repeat purchases.
Flexibility costs less than you think. Building supply chains that can handle demand spikes often requires minimal additional investment.
Most supply chain problems are actually marketing problems in disguise. If you can't predict demand, logistics optimization is premature.
Integration between teams matters more than individual optimization. Marketing, operations, and customer service need to work as one system.
Scale your constraints, don't eliminate them. The goal isn't perfect efficiency – it's profitable growth.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS companies, apply these principles to your customer onboarding and support infrastructure. Scale your support capacity based on user acquisition channels, not just current user count. Ensure your onboarding process can handle traffic spikes from successful marketing campaigns.
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores, sync inventory planning with marketing calendar. Plan fulfillment capacity around promotional campaigns, seasonal peaks, and influencer collaborations. Don't let supply chain limitations cap your marketing potential.