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Scale Without the Chaos: Growing Your Online Business
HGA Takeaway
Scale Without the Chaos: Growing Your Online Business
More orders are great. More customers are even better. But what happens when the operation behind your online business starts struggling to keep up? We joined Barry Tong, Founder of Sol Retail, to look at how better fulfilment, smarter use of space and joined up systems can make growth much easier to manage.
Growth is exciting, right up until you realise you have nowhere to put the stock.
For an online business, success can create a whole new set of problems. More orders mean more stock, more boxes, more picking and packing, more deliveries and, inevitably, more opportunities for something to go wrong.
For businesses across the Home & Gift industry, where seasonal peaks, new collections and multiple sales channels are often part of everyday life, getting the operation behind the business right can make a huge difference.
We joined Barry Tong, Founder of Sol Retail, for the Business Growth Service webinar Scale Without the Chaos. Barry shared his own journey from starting with £10 and a handful of eBay listings to building an international business, along with some very practical lessons about fulfilment, warehousing, 3PLs and the systems needed to support growth.
The big message? Don't wait until growth creates chaos. Build the foundations that allow your business to grow without everything becoming harder to manage.
From £10 to growth
You don't need the perfect set up on day one
Barry's own story is probably reassuring for anyone currently surrounded by boxes.
Sol Retail started in 2011/12 with £10, a few eBay listings and stock being managed from Barry's flat. As the business grew across marketplaces and its own website, the operation grew with it.
The first "warehouse" didn't look much like a warehouse at all. From there came hired space, larger premises, more sophisticated systems and eventually an operation capable of serving customers around the world.
Your operation doesn't need to look impressive. It needs to work for the business you have today and be able to evolve for the business you're becoming.
Takeaway 1
Fulfilment is part of your customer experience
It is easy to think the customer journey finishes when someone clicks "buy". In reality, that's only half the job.
Your beautiful website, brilliant photography and carefully planned marketing have convinced someone to place an order. What happens next can determine whether they ever buy from you again.
Picking the correct product, packing it properly, dispatching it on time and getting it safely into the customer's hands are all part of the experience of your brand.
The sale is the promise.
Delivery is where you keep it.
Takeaway 2
Fulfilment is much more than picking and packing
When fulfilment works well, customers probably don't think about it at all. Their order simply turns up when and how they expected it to.
Behind the scenes, though, good fulfilment supports some pretty important parts of the business.
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Customer Experience & reputation Reliable fulfilment helps customers trust your business and protects the reputation you've worked hard to build. |
Growth Repeat purchases & scalability A good operation makes it easier to keep customers coming back and handle more orders without everything grinding to a halt. |
Takeaway 3
There isn't one "right" way to fulfil orders
As your business grows, the question isn't simply "who is going to pack all of these boxes?"
The better question is: what operating model makes sense for the stage we're at now?
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Option 1 Keep it in house You retain maximum control. This can work well while order volume, space and complexity are still manageable. |
Option 2 Use a hybrid model Keep your core operation in house while bringing in outside support for particular channels, services or busy periods. |
Option 3 Use a 3PL Outsource fulfilment to a specialist with its own capacity, systems and carrier networks to support your growth. |
And remember, the answer can change.
The model that works perfectly for your business today doesn't have to be the model you use forever. Your operation can evolve as your volume, channels and ambitions change.
Takeaway 4
Before you get a bigger warehouse, squeeze what you've already got
Running out of space doesn't necessarily mean you need to immediately sign a lease on somewhere bigger.
Before taking on more space, more overheads and more commitment, Barry's advice was to really challenge the operation you already have.
Ask yourself:
Can we make more space?
Look at your racking, layout, mezzanine options and any areas that aren't being used effectively.
Can we hold less stock?
Look at slow movers, buying patterns and reorder points. Are you paying to store products you don't actually need yet?
Can we use our time differently?
Earlier starts, later finishes or split shifts might create extra capacity during busy periods.
Can we improve the flow?
Review pick routes, packing benches and replenishment. Small operational changes can sometimes create a surprising amount of extra capacity.
Sweat the space first. Then decide whether you genuinely need more of it.
Takeaway 5
Okay, you've squeezed everything you can out of it. Now what?
Sometimes you really have reached the limit. At that point, there are still several ways to create the extra capacity you need.
Barry highlighted three common routes: moving into a bigger warehouse, outsourcing fulfilment to a 3PL or adding hired space.
A bigger warehouse gives you the most control and allows you to build the space around your own operation, but it also comes with the biggest fixed commitment and leaves you responsible for the people and systems behind it.
A 3PL can give you faster access to capacity, technology and carrier networks with a more variable operating model, although you naturally give up some day to day control.
Hired or overflow space can offer greater flexibility and lower commitment while allowing you to keep fulfilment in house, but managing multiple sites can introduce its own complications.
The question isn't simply "which option is best?" It's "which option gives us the capacity we need without taking on more commitment than we need?"
Takeaway 6
More sales channels mean more moving parts
Your own website. Amazon. eBay. Etsy. TikTok Shop. Wholesale customers. Maybe a few more thrown in for good measure.
Selling across multiple channels can create brilliant opportunities, but every new channel adds another layer to the operation behind the scenes.
Stock levels need to stay accurate. Orders need to reach the right place. Fulfilment needs to know what to pick. Reporting needs to make sense. And ideally, your team shouldn't have to spend half the day manually copying information from one system into another.
A joined up operation can help you:
Sync inventory across your sales channels
Reduce manual work and avoidable errors
Improve visibility across orders and stock
Respond more quickly when something changes
Build an operation that is much easier to scale
Takeaway 7
Your systems need to talk to each other
This becomes increasingly important as your business grows.
When your website, marketplaces, inventory, orders, fulfilment and reporting are operating separately, somebody usually ends up becoming the human connection between them.
That might work at 20 orders a day. It becomes a very different story at 200, 2,000 or during your biggest seasonal peak.
Think connected
Website → Marketplaces → Inventory → Orders → Fulfilment → Reporting
The more effectively information can move between each part of your business, the less manual intervention you need and the easier growth becomes to manage.
For Home & Gift businesses
Plan for the peaks, not just the average Tuesday
Our industry has an extra complication: demand isn't always neat and predictable.
Christmas, gifting occasions, trade show orders, successful product launches and sudden viral moments can all create huge spikes in demand.
That means thinking about capacity before you desperately need it. Could temporary hired space help during your busiest months? Could a hybrid fulfilment model take some of the pressure? Could better stock visibility help you plan purchasing earlier?
Growth should be good news.
If a successful product, brilliant trade show or sudden increase in orders sends the whole operation into panic mode, that's probably a sign the foundations need some attention.
The HGA Takeaway
Scale the business, not the chaos
1. Treat fulfilment as part of the customer experience, not simply a job that happens after the sale.
2. Choose an operating model that suits the stage your business is at now. That could be in house, hybrid or outsourced.
3. Before taking on more warehouse space, look at whether your existing space, stock and processes could work harder.
4. If you genuinely need more capacity, compare the commitment and flexibility of a bigger warehouse, hired space and a 3PL.
5. Make sure your systems can keep up as you add more sales channels.
6. Connect your inventory, orders, fulfilment and reporting wherever possible to reduce manual work.
7. Review where the biggest bottleneck is today and start there. You don't need to overhaul everything overnight.
Your next step
Start with the thing that's currently causing you the biggest headache
You don't need a shiny new warehouse, a completely new tech stack and an outsourced fulfilment partner by next Tuesday.
Start by looking honestly at your current operation. What's working? What's slowing you down? Where are mistakes happening? What becomes difficult every time orders increase?
Then identify the biggest opportunity across stock, space, delivery or systems and tackle that first. Small improvements can create the breathing room you need to keep growing.
This HGA Takeaway is based on the Business Growth Service webinar "Scale Without the Chaos", presented by Barry Tong, Founder of Sol Retail. We've pulled out the points we felt were particularly useful for businesses across the Home & Gift industry.
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