Founder, CMO @ AMZ Prep | Fulfillment for Global Merchants | Follow me to watch us build a 100M Company

At AMZ Prep, our daily mission is to work towards our bold vision: To propel sellers and brands to amplify their global eCommerce footprint through the seamless integration of logistics, fulfillment, advertising, strategy, creativity, and growth within a single, unified solution. 

Our vision may seem audacious to some, but at AMZ Prep, we thrive on embracing challenges, particularly the ambitious and audacious ones. It's this unwavering spirit that has catapulted us into becoming a retail powerhouse that's been quietly making waves.

If you're seeking to be part of a team that's committed to achieving remarkable accomplishments, we invite you to join us on our journey. We're constantly on the lookout for exceptional individuals to become a vital part of our team. Whether your expertise lies in Operations, Finance, Customer Experience, Business Development, or Software Engineering, please don't hesitate to connect with us for any career-related inquiries.

Blair Forrest

I'm 28.

Started AMZ Prep® from my basement at 21. Made every mistake you can imagine along the way.

Here are 9 lessons I wish I knew back then:

(For context, we are blitz-scaling to be a 9 figure business next ~30 months Im in full founder mode within the company). 

And yes, this photo was before the world of logistics aged me like fine wine.

1. Saying yes to everyone will break you.
Early on, we took any client with a pulse. It nearly killed us. A defined ICP makes everything easier. Sales, ops, support. We ended up firing customers we never should have taken.

2. Hiring before you feel ready is the move.
I waited too long because I was cheap and thought no one could do it better. That stubbornness led to burnout. The right people are not an expense. They are the best investment you can make.

3. Bad revenue is more expensive than no revenue.
Saying no to money that does not fit feels reckless at first. But chasing the wrong deals costs you time, focus, and the clients you actually want.

4. FOMO will cost you more than patience.
I wasted $500K on a sales team because competitors were ramping outbound. The ROI was not there. Content and referrals worked better. Stop reacting to what others are doing.

5. Owning 100% is worth the middle seat.
VCs wanted in. I said no. Now I fly economy while competitors fly private. But every dollar of growth is mine. That discomfort is temporary. Giving away your company is forever.

6. Rest is a growth strategy.
I used to grind 7 days a week and thought I was winning. I was not. Taking Sundays off made me sharper on Monday. Exhausted founders make expensive mistakes.

7. Admitting what you do not know builds trust faster than pretending.
I lost clients early on because I faked expertise. The ones who came back did so because I started saying "I don't know, but I'll figure it out."

8. Your team is everything.
A players hire A players. B players hire C players. The minute you compromise on talent is the minute you start failing.

9. Show up in person.
A $400 economy flight turned into a $2.4M contract. Emails do not close deals like handshakes do. Get on planes. 

Most of these I learned the hard way. Hopefully you do not have to.

What lesson hit you hardest in your twenties?

Blair Forrest 

I need to hire 100+ people in 2026.

Not because we're chasing growth for growth's sake. Because the demand for AMZ Prep® is insane right now.

We're watching two massive shifts collide:

1. Ecommerce is exploding faster than brands can operationally keep up.

Order volumes are up. SKU counts are up. Customer expectations are up. But most brands still run ops like it's 2019. Small teams. Manual processes. Systems held together with duct tape and spreadsheets.

They can't scale fast enough to match their own growth.

2. Companies are finally ditching in-house ops for outsourced fulfillment.

For years, brands held onto their warehouses like it was a competitive advantage. Now they're realizing it's a liability. The math doesn't work. The headaches don't stop. And every hour spent on logistics is an hour not spent on product, marketing, or customers.

So they're handing it off.

These two trends are feeding each other. More brands need help. Fewer want to build it themselves.

That's why we're hiring. Warehouse staff. Ops managers. Account leads. People who want to build something real in a space most people overlook.

If you're looking for work or know someone who is, DM me or drop a comment.

We're just getting started.

We are hiring a senior copy writer who has built newsletters in the past. 

DM me if you know someone!

Most brands default to UPS or FedEx without thinking twice.

We had a client shipping heavy goods to the Midwest. Their national carrier rates were eating into margins. Every shipment felt like a slow bleed.

We ran the numbers on a regional carrier for that specific zone.

20-30% cheaper. Same delivery windows. Sometimes faster.

The difference wasn't service quality. It was geography.

National carriers price for nationwide coverage. You're paying for infrastructure you don't use. Regional carriers specialize in specific lanes. Their trucks are already running those routes.

Where this works:

- Zone 2-4 shipments where regionals dominate
- Heavy or oversized freight where national surcharges stack up
- Consistent volume to specific regions

Where it doesn't:

- Scattered, low-volume shipments across the country
- Time-sensitive orders where tracking integration matters
- Brands without the ops bandwidth to manage multiple carriers

The brands saving the most aren't loyal to one carrier. They're running a blended network. National for reach. Regional for margin.

If you're shipping 500+ orders a month to concentrated zones and haven't tested a regional carrier, you're probably leaving money on the table.

What's your current carrier mix look like?

2 years with Arishekar N on the team. 

When he joined, we were figuring out how to tell our story. Now we have a brand people actually recognize.

He's built our marketing from the ground up and our entire India operations. The content, the campaigns, the positioning. All of it runs through him. And he does it without needing constant direction. He sees what needs to happen and makes it happen.

That's rare.

The best people don't just execute. They take ownership. Ari treats our marketing like it's his own company. That mindset is why we've grown the way we have.

Two years in and he's just getting started.

Grateful to have him.

And no, you can't recruit him.

Congrats Ari! We’re lucky to have you growing the business.

Uncomfortable reality:

The cheapest 3PL is usually the most expensive.

Most brands shop for fulfillment partners by comparing rate cards. Pallet-in, pallet-out. Pick and pack fees. Storage costs.

They pick the lowest number and call it a win.

Then the invoices start coming.

Here is what you can do about it:

1. Ask about chargebacks.
Who owns accountability when a retailer issues one? A mislabeled case or missed appointment can cost $100K. If they dodge this question, that is your answer.

2. Get real on-time fulfillment numbers.
Not the number on their sales deck. Ask for merchant references. Call them. One missed delivery window can damage a retail relationship that took years to build.

3. Check their integration capabilities.
SPS Commerce. EDI. Your ERP. If they fumble this answer, expect manual work and errors. Clean integrations prevent chargebacks.

4. Ask where their clients have been burned.
The best partners will tell you honestly. The wrong ones will pretend it never happens.

5. Look at retailer compliance.
Every retailer has different requirements. If they cannot walk you through how they handle Target vs. Walmart vs. Costco, that is a red flag.

The rate card is the last thing you should compare.

Execution gaps and hidden fees will eat the savings you thought you were getting.

What is the biggest surprise you have found on a 3PL invoice?

Tough news out of Quiet Logistics today going under

If you were impacted by this, we are hiring 20+ roles at AMZ Prep®

Any time a logistics business restructures, it is the operators, account managers, warehouse teams, and support staff who feel it first 

If you were impacted or know someone who was, we are actively hiring across sales, client experience, and operations right now and I want to help 

Dozens of roles. Real work. Fast moving teams (and BIG impact)

Logistics talent is hard to find and even harder to replace. 

If you care about execution, ownership, and building something meaningful, there is a seat at the table

DM me or comment and I will connect you with the right person 

$5000 bonus if we hire someone you introduce 

Like and share this post for reach and find someone find their next home

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Making logistics sexy for modern brands

Amazon Seller Central has free tools most sellers never touch.

I talk to brands every week who pay thousands for data they could pull themselves.

Here's what's sitting in your account right now:

Brand Analytics
Search frequency rank, top clicked ASINs, conversion share. This tells you exactly what customers search for and who's winning those clicks. Most brands never open it.

Search Query Performance
Shows your impressions, clicks, and purchases for every search term. You can see where you're losing customers in the funnel. Free if you're brand registered.

Inventory Performance Index
Amazon scores your inventory health. If you're not tracking this, you're probably paying excess storage fees without knowing why.

Voice of the Customer
Aggregates negative feedback and return reasons. Instead of guessing why products come back, the data is right there.

Manage Your Experiments
A/B test your titles, images, and bullet points. Amazon will tell you which version converts better. Most sellers just guess and hope.

The brands that win on Amazon aren't guessing. They're using the data Amazon already gives them.

If you're paying for third-party tools before maxing out Seller Central, you're leaving money on the table.

What's the most underrated Seller Central feature you actually use?

Every founder has a breaking point.

I hit mine about a year into building the company.

I was doing sales, ops, customer support, warehouse visits, and still answering emails at midnight. I told myself it was temporary. That I just needed to push through.

The work kept expanding.
I kept shrinking.

I stopped being sharp in meetings.
Started making small mistakes that cost us time.
What I was building began to feel like something I was surviving.

So I made two changes.

First, I hired.
Not when it felt comfortable.
Before that.

I brought in someone to own operations so I could stop being the bottleneck on every decision. It felt risky. It was necessary.

Second, I changed how I worked.

I stopped measuring effort by hours and started measuring it by output.
Fewer late nights.
More focused mornings.

I built structure around the chaos instead of reacting to it.

The company didn’t slow down.
It sped up.

A founder running on empty isn’t a competitive advantage.
It’s a liability.

The breaking point isn’t failure.
It’s a signal.

The founders who scale are the ones who listen to it and adjust.

Shipping from the wrong warehouse kills margins.

Most sellers think fulfillment is about speed. It's not. It's about placement.

If your inventory is sitting in one location and you're shipping coast to coast, you're paying for zones you don't need to touch. Every extra zone adds cost. Every unnecessary mile eats into margin.

The fix is simple but most brands skip it.

Position inventory closer to where your customers actually are. Use multiple locations if volume justifies it. Cut the distance, cut the cost.

For Seller Fulfilled Prime, this matters even more.

Amazon measures delivery impressions. If customers don't see fast delivery promises on your listing, you fail the trial before shipping a single order. Strategic placement is how you hit those thresholds without paying for overnight labels on every package.

And if you need Saturday delivery for SFP compliance, that's another reason to think about where inventory lives. Not every warehouse offers weekend coverage.

What smart placement actually delivers:
• Lower transportation costs per order
• Faster delivery without premium shipping
• Margins that don't shrink with every sale

This isn't complicated. But it requires looking at your fulfillment network as a strategy, not just a checkbox.

Where are your highest-volume SKUs sitting right now?

One of our client: A major chocolate brand got hit with cross-border tariffs, and within days they were scrambling to keep orders moving.

They flew down to our cold-chain facility because they didn’t have time for long planning cycles or perfect onboarding.

We set up operations within 24 hours, started fulfilling immediately, and within forty-eight hours were shipping thousands of orders a week, knowing it wouldn’t be clean but deciding speed mattered more in that moment.

You can’t polish stuff in a emergency.

Onboarding that fast is never ideal, there are always gaps, questions, and things you fix on the fly. 

But showing up like an extension of their team was the only option to stop the fire.

Most trust I’ve seen is earned when things break and you still deliver.

Everyone thinks going viral is the ultimate LinkedIn win.

I think that’s wrong.

I’ve had posts break 100K impressions. It felt great for about a day.

Then I looked at who was engaging:
Random accounts.
People outside my industry.
Followers who would never buy, refer, or collaborate.

Vanity metrics.
Zero business impact.

Here’s what experience taught me:

- Virality attracts the wrong audience
The algorithm rewards engagement, not relevance.
Posts that “blow up” usually resonate with everyone except the people who matter to your business.

- Niche authority beats mass reach
The creator with 5,000 followers in a tight niche will out-earn the one with 50,000 random followers every time.
Depth beats width.

- 100 decision-makers > 100,000 likes
One comment from the right person is worth more than thousands of reactions from people who won’t remember your name tomorrow.

The goal isn’t to be seen by everyone.
It’s to be known by the right people.

I’d rather get 50 likes from founders, operators, and buyers in my space
than 5,000 likes from people who will never convert.

Reach is easy to measure.
Relevance isn’t.

Chase relevance.
Authority compounds.

I used to struggle with imposter syndrome.

Every win felt like luck.
Every conversation felt like a test I might fail.
I used to feel like I didn’t belong in every room I entered.

Here’s what actually helped:

1. It never fully goes away.
I stopped waiting to feel ready. The feeling doesn’t disappear at milestones. It just shows up again in bigger rooms. Accepting that made it easier to move anyway.

2. Action builds confidence, not the other way around.
I thought I needed confidence before acting. I was wrong.
Confidence came from repetition. From speaking up before I felt qualified. From doing the work while unsure.

3. Most people are operating in uncertainty too.
The people who look composed haven’t figured it out.
They’ve just learned to function without certainty.
That stopped me comparing my insides to everyone else’s outsides.

Most people think imposter syndrome fades when you achieve more.

It doesn’t.

You just stop letting it decide what you do.

Feeling like you don’t belong is often the signal you’re exactly where you should be.

I didn’t get confident on camera.
I got reps.

My first videos were painful.
Stiff delivery.
Awkward pauses.
Watching them back made me cringe.

I posted anyway.

Not because I felt ready.
Because I knew the only way out was through.

Here’s the actual formula:
• Post while it feels awkward
• Share before it’s polished
• Let the cringe phase burn off

Most people wait until they feel confident.
That’s the trap.

Confidence doesn’t come from preparation.
It comes from exposure.

I’ve watched founders with great ideas stay invisible for years,
waiting for the “right time” to start posting.

Meanwhile, the ones winning on camera aren’t more talented.
They just started earlier.
And kept going.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:
Your first 50 posts will be bad.
Maybe your first 100.

That’s not failure.
That’s the price of entry.

Every creator you admire has a graveyard of content they hope no one scrolls far enough to find.

The difference?
They didn’t stop.

Confidence isn’t talent.
It’s surviving your early posts.

If it feels too early,
too rough,
too uncomfortable,
that’s usually your cue to hit publish.

Every day your inventory sits in transit is a day you are not selling.

Most brands treat Amazon inbound as an ops task.
Something the warehouse handles.
A box to check.

That’s the wrong frame.

Inbound speed is revenue infrastructure.

Here’s what slow inbound actually costs you:

1. Lost sales velocity
Amazon rewards products that sell consistently.
When you stock out or run low, rankings drop.
Competitors take your spot.
Rebuilding momentum costs more than maintaining it.

2. Wasted ad spend
Running PPC while inventory is about to run out means you are paying to send traffic to a listing that cannot convert.
Or worse, to a competitor’s offer.

3. Margin compression
Rush shipments to plug gaps.
Expedited freight because planning slipped.
Premium fees to recover ranking.
All preventable. All expensive.

The brands winning on Amazon are not just optimizing listings.
They are optimizing their inbound pipeline.

That means:
- Forecasting demand before things get tight
- Building buffer time into replenishment cycles
- Treating inbound speed as a KPI, not an afterthought

Your ops team may own the process.
But this is a finance conversation.

Because every day of delay has a dollar value attached to it.

Inbound is not logistics.
It is revenue protection.

If you sell on TikTok Shop in the US, fulfillment is about to change.

Seller-managed shipping will no longer be allowed (urgent)👇 

From March 31, all US local sellers must fulfill orders using TikTok Shop Logistics Services. 

Seller-managed shipping will no longer be allowed. 

Basically, you have to use their shipping labels now and can't use your own. 

and NO you don't need to use TikTok fulfillment services (hearing a lot of love / hate here on brands experience so far). 

Currently, ShipHero is one of the only US-based WMS that meets TikTok Shop’s new label requirements (we use them across a few facilities and only great things to say)

TikTok has confirmed integrations with a few ERP and shipping platforms, but for US warehouse fulfillment, ShipHero is one of the only options available (a few other also listed in image below) 

If you sell on TikTok Shop in the US, be aware of this change. Even if you’re not affected yet, the rollout is quick, and enforcement is coming.

I would not be surprised if we see more marketplaces tighten control over carrier accounts and shipping labels over time.

Curious what you think....

Could you see Amazon or other marketplaces forcing sellers onto marketplace controlled carrier accounts only with their own labels?

Stop apologizing for wanting a big life.

Wanting to build something real. Wanting to make real money. Wanting to have actual impact.

None of that is something to be embarrassed about.

But you will meet people who try to make you feel like it is.

They will call it unrealistic. They will call it selfish. They will suggest you should be happy with less.

What they are really saying is that your ambition makes them uncomfortable. It forces them to confront their own choices.

Small thinkers will always try to guilt you into playing small.

I have seen this pattern over and over. The people who question your goals the loudest are usually the ones who gave up on theirs.

They are not protecting you. They are protecting themselves.

The founders I respect most learned to tune this out early. They stopped asking for permission. They stopped shrinking their vision to make others comfortable.

They built anyway.

That does not mean being reckless or ignoring good advice. It means knowing the difference between wisdom and fear dressed up as concern.

You do not owe anyone a smaller version of what you want.

Ignore them. Build the life you actually want.

What is one thing you stopped apologizing for?

Fulfillment looks simple from the outside.

Product comes in. Product goes out. How hard can it be?

Then you actually run a fulfillment operation and realize there are dozens of moving pieces most brands never see.

The stack behind "ship my stuff":

1. Receiving and intake
Every inbound shipment needs to be checked, counted, and logged. Damaged units get flagged. Discrepancies get documented. One missed pallet throws off inventory for weeks.

2. Storage and slotting
Where you put product matters. Fast movers need to be accessible. Slow movers get pushed back. Bad slotting kills pick efficiency and adds labor cost to every order.

3. Inventory management
Real-time accuracy across multiple channels. Oversell on Amazon and your account health tanks. Oversell on Shopify and you are refunding customers and eating shipping costs.

4. Pick, pack, and ship
This is the part brands think about. But even here, the details matter. Box size selection, dunnage, label placement, carrier routing. Get it wrong and you are paying for air or dealing with damage claims.

5. Amazon inbound
A category of its own. Prep requirements, labeling standards, appointment scheduling, placement fees, check-in speed. Most brands have no idea how much margin they lose here.

6. Returns processing
Product comes back. Now what? Inspect, restock, dispose, or liquidate. Every return is a decision tree that affects margin.

7. Data and reporting
If you cannot see what is happening in real time, you are guessing. Inventory levels, order accuracy, transit times, cost per order. The brands that win are the ones measuring everything.

Each layer has failure points. Each failure point has a cost.

The brands that treat fulfillment as "just shipping" are the ones bleeding margin without knowing where it is going.

What part of your fulfillment stack keeps you up at night?

What if someone offered you $1,000 a day to sit in a room filled with people who hate your product?

Would you do it?

What if they added:

"They'll tell you exactly why they don't buy.
Exactly what's broken.
Exactly what would make them say yes."

Most founders would run. The sharpest founders would grab a pen.

That room exists. It's called talking to the people who didn't convert.

The ones who visited your site and bounced. The ones who got on a sales call and went silent. The ones who tried your product once and never came back.

They're not just "haters." They're the clearest roadmap you're ignoring.

Your happy customers confirm what's working. Your unhappy ones expose what's missing.

Companies often survey their fans. The ones who win seek out their critics.

The feedback that hurts is often the feedback you need.

When's the last time you sat in that room?

11 free websites every founder should use:

1. ChatGPT (chatgpt.com)
Your 24/7 brainstorming partner. Use it for drafting emails, writing copy, solving problems, and thinking through strategy. Saves hours every week.

2. Notion (notion.so)
All-in-one workspace for notes, tasks, docs, and databases. I run my entire content calendar and project tracking here.

3. Loom (loom.com)
Record quick videos instead of scheduling another call. Great for async updates, feedback, and explaining things once instead of ten times.

4. Canva (canva.com)
Design without a designer. Pitch decks, social graphics, presentations. The template library alone is worth it.

5. Google Trends (trends.google.com)
See what people are actually searching for. Useful for validating ideas, timing content, and understanding demand.

6. Grammarly (grammarly.com)
Catches mistakes before your clients do. Works in your browser, email, and docs.

7. Calendly (calendly.com)
Stop the back-and-forth on scheduling. Share a link, let people book. Simple.

8. Zapier (zapier.com)
Connects your apps and automates repetitive tasks. If you are doing the same thing manually every day, Zapier can probably do it for you.

9. Wave (waveapps.com)
Free accounting and invoicing. Good enough for most early-stage businesses. No reason to pay for QuickBooks until you need to.

10. Otter.ai (otter.ai)
Transcribes meetings automatically. Never take notes again. Search your conversations later.

11. Hemingway Editor (hemingwayapp.com)
Makes your writing clearer. Highlights complex sentences and passive voice. Useful for anything client-facing.

Most founders pay for tools they do not need yet.

Start here. Upgrade when you outgrow them.

What free tool do you use every day?

CEO @ Oneiro Technologies | Board advisor | Automation for ecommerce and B2B Fulfillment | 🏆 Winner “Best Use of Robotics” 2024 | 25+ years of executive leadership

You might be considering automation but unsure where to start or what actually works for your specific challenges.

That’s why I founded Oneiro Technologies as an agnostic system integrator. For years I worked for system integrators that would push their technology. Many times it wasn't right for the customer.

Being supplier-agnostic, means combining the right tech; AMRs, shuttles, digital twins, print-and-apply robots, etc. to match your needs. We are successful together because we work as a team to design and implement tailored, turnkey automation solutions. 

Whether you're trying to pack more orders, reduce labor strain, or just make the chaos manageable—I’ll help you build a system that scales with your business.

Someone once nicknamed me “The Wolf.” Not the Wall Street kind—the one from Pulp Fiction. I take that as a compliment. Because I fix the messy, high-stakes problems that keep fulfillment leaders up at night.

Ready to get more orders out with less stress and fewer resources?

Let’s kick things off with a free discovery session. No pressure—just real talk about what’s holding you back and what’s possible.

taplio

The Battle

Blair Forrest

Drew Thomas

Followers

Posts

Engagements

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taplio

The Battle

Blair Forrest

Drew Thomas

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Blair Forrest's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreBlair Forrest's LinkedIn Performance