CASE STUDY — OPERATIONS
The Context
The client was a D2C skincare brand selling through their own website and marketplaces like Amazon and Nykaa. In under a year, they had grown from 200 to 2,800 monthly orders.
But as order volume grew, so did the chaos — missed deliveries, returns piling up, no inventory visibility, and customer support breaking down. The backend wasn’t built for scale. Founders were firefighting daily.
They reached out to us to build operational systems and vendor processes that could support their next phase of growth — without burning out the core team.
The Challenge
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No Inventory Control: No live view of what was in stock, what was in transit, or what was stuck in warehouses.
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Frequent Delivery Errors: Courier partners weren’t synced; wrong items or duplicate shipments were common.
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Return/Rejection Mismanagement: Returns and RTOs were not being recorded or analysed — leading to loss leakage.
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Customer Support Breakdown: No SLA (Service Level Agreement), no ticket system, and replies were being sent from founders’ phones.
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Zero Process Documentation: Everything was being handled ad hoc — no SOPs for warehouse, orders, or support.
Our Approach
We focused on creating lightweight but scalable ops systems — combining process maps, vendor coordination flows, and internal SOPs. No heavy tech stack — just clarity, accountability, and consistency.
What We Did
1.
Inventory & Order Flow Setup
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Mapped entire flow: supplier → warehouse → order pack → delivery → return.
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Built a shared Google Sheet to track real-time inventory by SKUs, warehouse, and channel.
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Introduced barcode-based inwarding and dispatch SOP to avoid errors.
2.
Courier & Fulfilment SOP
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Audited existing courier partners and mapped SLAs, RTO rates, and success ratios.
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Set up city-wise logic for default partners (faster and cheaper in key zones).
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Created a courier issue log and escalation tracker to fix repeat delays.
3.
Return/Rejection Tracking
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Separated returns into 3 categories: damaged, refused, non-deliverable.
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Created refund + restock workflows per type.
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Set up a monthly returns report with category, reason, and resolution TAT.
4.
Customer Support Workflow
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Shifted support from WhatsApp to a shared helpdesk email.
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Built templates for top 10 queries: order delay, returns, refund, product queries, etc.
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Created a 24-hr SLA with tracking of response and resolution rates.
5.
Internal SOPs & Training
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Wrote SOPs for: inventory update, courier assignment, return processing, and support response.
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Trained their operations assistant + warehouse team in 3 onboarding sessions.
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Conducted process audit weekly for 1 month post-deployment.
Services Provided
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Order & Inventory Flow Design
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Courier Partner Audit & SOP
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Return/Refund Workflow Setup
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Customer Support System + Templates
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Internal Process Documentation
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Staff Training & Weekly Ops Review
Results (After 6 Weeks)
What Worked
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Simplifying tools (Google Sheets + barcode SOP) worked better than overcomplicated software.
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Categorising returns helped reduce loss and identify repeat issues by SKU or location.
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Bringing structure to customer support improved brand trust — and reduced refund escalations.
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Documenting the process gave new hires a playbook to follow, not guesswork.
Key Takeaways (For Us)
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Most D2C brands scale fast on the front end — but ops gets ignored until it breaks.
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Real-time tracking doesn’t need expensive tools — it needs discipline and visibility.
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Courier logic and return patterns can improve margins more than a discount ever can.
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Training ops teams on SOPs is what keeps systems alive after setup.
