The first hundred orders

For six weeks the store sold four or five things a day and I thought that was the shape of it. Then one listing — a set of stainless steel storage jars — appeared on a deals page and I had sixty orders before lunch.

The problem was not demand, it was packing. I had been wrapping each jar by hand, which took four minutes and looked lovely, and at sixty orders it simply could not be done. Two parcels went out under-wrapped and both arrived broken.

What fixed it was boring: pre-cut card inserts, one box size, and a rule that nothing ships that I have not shaken gently first. Packing dropped to ninety seconds a parcel and the breakages stopped entirely.

The hundredth order went out eleven days after the sixtieth. I still use the same insert, and I still shake every box.