You can acquire all the customers you want. If your operation can't support the growth, more customers just means more problems.

In this episode, Keith Dupres and Dan Culverhouse get into the conversation most founders aren't having — the one about what's quietly bleeding your business while you're focused on the next campaign, the next launch, the next market.

Fulfilment costs have overtaken marketing as the biggest barrier to growth for UK e-commerce businesses. Not because founders are failing. Because the environment has changed faster than anyone's operation could keep up with.

We talk about what's actually going wrong inside scaling businesses, why hiring a six-figure ops director isn't always the answer, and why the fractional option — the one that gets you experienced hands in weeks not months — is still the best kept secret in e-commerce.

If something in your operation doesn't feel right and you can't put your finger on it, this one's for you.

What Happens to a Return After the Customer Drops It Off?

A customer drops off a return. A few days later, a refund lands in their account. Simple, right?

Behind that simplicity sits an entire industry most customers never think about. Dan Culverhouse and Keith Dupres pull back the curtain on what actually happens to a return once it leaves the customer's hands, the sorting, the grading, the decision on whether something can be resold or has to be written off entirely.

They cover the real cost of a return, often as much as 60% of the product's original value once everything is accounted for, the rise of bracketing and serial returners, and whether AI grading, better sizing tools, and store credit can genuinely move the needle.

They also disagree. Should retailers be allowed to charge for returns, or does that just punish the customer for a problem the industry built? And is the resale and vintage boom the quiet solution nobody's properly capitalised on yet?

No tidy conclusion, just an honest conversation about an industry that's been allowed to grow unchecked for years, and is finally being forced into the spotlight.

Do you know what you are buying? — Brand, trust and the supply chain you never see

Keith bought a Sony TV from Argos. He thought about the South London depot. He thought about Sony. He stopped there.

He didn't think about where it was assembled, where the screen came from, the chips, the rare earth metals in the components. He's spent 30 years in supply chain and he stopped at the depot.

In this episode Keith and Dan get into the question most of us avoid: do we actually know what we're buying — and does it matter?

They cover the brand as a proxy for everything we don't ask about, the £8 dress paradox, what happens to the return you sent back without a second thought, and the Digital Product Passport — the legislation that by 2027 will legally require brands to make their supply chain visible after 30 years of designing it to be invisible.

They also disagree. Dan thinks the consumer has a responsibility. Keith thinks that's a comfortable story that lets everyone off the hook — and that policy and producer accountability are the only mechanisms that create change at scale.

No tidy conclusion. Just an honest conversation about something neither of them fully lives up to either.

In this episode Keith and Dan confess to being the blocker - the very thing standing in the way of their own teams and projects.

Every leader thinks they're helping. Most don't realise when they've become the problem.

From staying at the office until 11pm answering questions nobody else could, to taking over an entire operation across another country for three months and not knowing how to stop - this is an honest conversation about the moments that taught them the most.

When does micromanagement have its place? What does it take to let go? And is walking away ever the bravest thing you can do?

If you lead a team, run an operation or work for someone who won't get out of the way - this one will feel familiar.

AI is coming for every industry. But is supply chain really at risk or is that just noise?

In episode three of Under the Pallet Wrap, Keith and Dan get into the detail. What automation can and can't replace, why the humans who've done the job will always matter, and what the next generation of supply chain professionals actually needs to learn.

If you work in ops, logistics or eCommerce - or you're just wondering whether your career is safe - this one's for you.

Supply chain. Everyone talks about it. Few people agree on where it actually starts and ends.

In episode two Keith and Dan get into the detail — unpacking one of the most misunderstood questions in ecommerce and operations.

Dan breaks it down to three questions every founder and ops leader should be asking before anything else: when, what and how much. Get those wrong and everything downstream suffers.

If you're running an ecommerce business, managing procurement, or just trying to get your operation under control, this one will make you think differently about where your real problems begin.

Here, Keith and Dan get into the conversation they’ve been meaning to have for decades.

They unpack the experiences, lessons, challenges, and moments across their careers that shaped how they think about supply chains, operations, leadership, and business today.

It’s an honest, insightful, and grounded conversation about the realities behind the industry, the people within it, and why these discussions matter now more than ever.

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