Blog
Writing about the back office
Long-form pieces on the parts of an online shop nobody sees — item data, carrier choice, packing accuracy, returns. Every figure is cited and dated, and anything we could not trace to a primary source was left out.
- Fulfilment operations
I built OrderKrab because I was the developer who sometimes packed
I was a developer at an e-commerce company, and now and then I packed orders too. The shop packed both of the usual ways, every label printed at once or every order opened in its own tab, and I saw what went wrong with each. What a small Chrome extension did differently once it went live, and what it taught me about where a shop's reputation is really decided.
Read the article8 min read - Returns
A return does not cost you 30 euros
The return label is the part of a return you can see. The rest is the outbound shipping you already paid, the payment fee the processor keeps, the weeks the item is unsellable, the minutes at the receiving desk and the customer who reads your policy before ordering again. The full bill, with the EU rules that shape it.
Read the article13 min read - Inventory and catalogue
Why every product needs a SKU
SKUs are optional right up until they are not: a fulfilment service, a Google feed, a marketplace listing or a 3PL onboarding will each ask for one. What they buy you, and how to design codes that survive.
Read the article11 min read - Shipping and delivery
Why one shipping carrier is never enough
The average EU country has 19 domestic parcel operators and the average online shop displays nine. A single-carrier checkout is the outlier — here is what it costs in coverage, price, uptime and repeat custom.
Read the article12 min read