Act 5. Scaling and Direct
The First Hire
Fulfilment, ops, or nobody, decided with numbers.
Every hour spent packing candles is an hour not spent making, marketing, or planning the next range. The economics of the first hire are simple: at UK real-living-wage rates (call it $15/hour), a four-hour fulfilment shift costs $61. If that shift covers thirty orders that otherwise ate a full working day, you have bought back six hours at a net of a few pounds per hour after employer costs. That is the trade you keep making until the shop hits a real ceiling.
First-hire decision matrix
- Fewer than 30 orders / week
- Do not hire. Compress packing to one afternoon per week with a batched-shipping calendar.
- 30–75 orders / week
- First hire is a fulfilment assistant, 6–10 hours / week. Keep making and admin on your desk.
- 75–150 orders / week
- Fulfilment assistant to 15–20 hours / week or a 3PL trial for a subset of SKUs. First maker apprentice for pouring days.
- 150+ orders / week
- 3PL for standing SKUs, in-house team of 2 for new launches and wholesale, you focus on product and channel.
Source:
30orders / shift
Break-even shift for a first fulfilment hire (UK, £12/hour)·
Pre-hire discipline checklist
- Order volume tracked weekly, not monthly
- Fulfilment time per order measured with a stopwatch, not estimated
- Employer's National Insurance and pension costs modelled before hiring
- Written pick-pack-ship SOP in place before the assistant starts
- 3PL quotes gathered at the 75-orders/week band, held on file for later
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix | Prevent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assistant is hired but the founder is still packing evenings. | No written SOP: the assistant packs the easy orders and hands the awkward ones back. | Write a one-page pick-pack-ship SOP covering fragile vessels, gift wrap, and address exceptions; hand every order to the assistant for one full week. | Draft the SOP before the first shift and review it every 90 days; track the ratio of orders the founder still touches as a hiring KPI. |
| 3PL trial produces more customer complaints than in-house fulfilment did. | 3PL is picking generic bubblewrap and skipping the care card. | Move the care card and any inserts into a pre-kitted mailer that the 3PL cannot deviate from; audit the first 20 orders visually. | Ship the 3PL a locked pack spec plus pre-kitted mailers; mystery-shop one order per week for the first quarter and log unboxing photos. |