Everything between a customer clicking "buy" and them opening the box — fulfillment, inventory, shipping, and returns.
"Operations" means everything between a customer clicking "buy" and them opening the box. Pack orders yourself (cheap, slow, doesn't scale), or outsource to a 3PL (third-party logistics — they hold inventory, pick, pack, ship). Most 3PLs have minimums that don't make sense until 50–100+ orders/month, so plan to self-fulfill at first and migrate when packing eats more than 5 hrs/week — or understand that you'll be operating at sub-optimal profitability until volumes come up. Operations ties directly to marketing spend: match your marketing spend to the operational setup and vice versa — though marketing is the leader. For a service, "operations" is provider onboarding, quality control, dispute handling, and payouts.