I run the whole marketplace operation — and build the tools when the software falls short.

I'm Michael David Blakely— an e-commerce and marketplace operations manager with seven years running Amazon, Walmart Marketplace, Etsy, Shopify, and TikTok Shop stores end to end. That means all of it: shipping logistics across five channels, customer service, listing creation and optimization, keyword research and SEO, and creative and product photography. Across those storefronts that's added up to roughly 496,000 orders and $20.4M in revenue — while conversion went from 3% to 6% and on-time shipping held at 99%.

What sets my work apart is that I don't stop at the edge of the off-the-shelf tools. When a workflow starts costing real money or hours, I help build the software that fixes it — most recently a custom multi-channel order platform, written in PHP against five marketplace APIs, that replaced our ShipStation setup and saves roughly $24k a year. I'm as comfortable in a spreadsheet as I am in a code editor.

Off the clock, I'm a lifelong Tolkien fan, a car guy, and the kind of person who falls down rabbit holes about space, science, and history — I like understanding how things actually work. I build long-term gaming projects for the same reason I build real-world ones: I enjoy systems that reward patience and care. And there's almost always music playing while I do it.