Projects/GoStockUp
GoStockUp
Operations, scale and growth of an e-commerce grocer
Since February 2025 I have led operations at GoStockUp, an online supermarket of Eastern European food with a store in Oceanside, New York, and shipping to every state. In 20 months, starting from manual processes and someone else’s software, I led the build of a complete operating system: 34 projects across catalog, inventory, warehouse, shipping, finance and growth.
A fast-growing grocer
4,000+ products online and in store. Local delivery in New York, nationwide shipping including Hawaii, perishables in cold-chain packaging.
Manual and scattered
Stock lived in someone else’s software, the catalog was noisy, the warehouse could not be measured, and payment terms were tracked by hand.
Rules first, then systems
Define the problem, write the business rules and checkpoints, turn them into requirements, then accept the result with each team.
End to end
Suppliers and containers, retail and B2B inventory, warehouse fulfillment, perishable shipping and integrations.
Median order-to-fulfillment, Dec 2025 → Sep 2026
Staff time to clean one tag across ~5,000 products
Up to fewer “Where is my order?” requests
About fewer complaints on condition after the 10-zone model
Internal portfolio estimates. Order cycle is end-to-end, not packing time alone.
Before → after
Built from zero, while the business kept running
What GoStockUp operations looked like when I joined, and what works today.
| Area | February 2025 | October 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inventory | Kept in the parent company’s software, in fractions of a case | → | Own system, counted in units, retail and B2B separated |
| Catalog | Duplicates, inconsistent names, ~7,900 SKUs | → | 4-level shopper taxonomy, ~2,500 active SKUs, one-click tools |
| Warehouse | Manual picking, no way to measure it | → | QR pick tickets, bin locations, order logs, box control |
| Customer updates | Support answered “Where is my order?” by hand | → | Own tracking on real statuses, up to 98% fewer requests |
| Shipping risk | 5 standard carrier zones for perishables | → | 10 internal zones and ZIP blocking, ~50% fewer complaints |
| Payments | One “Paid” status for every supplier | → | Per-supplier terms, release rules, mixed containers |
| Order cycle | 82 hours median | → | 19 hours median |
| Decisions | Intuition and habit | → | Models built on 12,000+ real orders |
Timeline
20 months, step by step
Each project made the next one possible. Here is the order in which the operating system was built.
- Feb 2025Catalog deduplication, start of the operational rebuildDone
- Spring – Summer 2025Shopify transition, catalog and SKU standards, store policiesLive
- 2025Customer tracking, 10-zone shipping risk model, ZIP eligibilityLive
- Dec 2025 – Jan 2026Migration to our own inventory systemLive
- Jan – Feb 2026Warehouse app with QR and packing workflowBeta
- May – Jun 2026Season Pass loyalty programPrototype
- May – Sep 2026Shopper taxonomy, category builder, tag cleanup, SKU optimizationLive
- Jul 2026Unit-based inventoryLive
- Sep – Oct 2026Payments and accounting in Airtable, mixed containers, Go+ readinessIn progress
- Oct 2026Free-shipping economics modelAnalysis ready
How projects connect
From problem to system
Not a list of separate tasks. Each early step led to a system-level fix.
| Business problem | First step | System-level step | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noisy catalog | Deduplication and title rules | Taxonomy → category builder → tag cleanup | Stable product IDs, tags and collections |
| Stock doesn’t match | Inventory review across stores | Own inventory → unit-based → B2B rules | Fewer rounding and double write-off errors |
| Warehouse can’t be measured | Order statuses and tracking | Warehouse app, QR, logs, box count | Visible fulfillment for team and customers |
| Products arrive damaged | Own 10 shipping zones | ZIP eligibility and perishable rules | Risky product/ZIP combos blocked before payment |
| Unclear shipment readiness | PO, invoice and payment rules | Airtable accounting → mixed containers → shipping | Payment terms enforced before release |
| Retention | Season Pass economics | Free and Go+ tracks, prototype | Gamified progress and reward mechanics |
| Expensive shipping | Local delivery cost analysis | Margins, abandoned checkouts, threshold model | Threshold and carrier chosen on data |
As Head of Operations I find the problem, define the business logic and requirements, run the launch and control the result. Engineering, marketing and customer support do their own parts of the work.