Doudlah Farms Email Migration to Google Workspace

Overview

During the November 2025 Amazon margins review, the DFO team identified significant pain points with their existing Outlook-based email setup and decided to migrate to Google Workspace. The migration covers both Doudlah Farms Organics and Old World Popcorn, with goals of separating brand communications, creating a shared orders inbox, and consolidating fragmented calendars.

Decision made: Migrate from Outlook to Google Workspace (~$15/month for two users at $7/user/month).

Related meeting: ^[1]

Problem Statement

The existing Outlook setup had several compounding issues:

• Storage limits: Outlook's small storage cap caused send/receive failures once the inbox exceeded ~2,000 emails, requiring constant manual deletion
• Brand confusion: All communications — DFO and Old World Popcorn — flowed through a single lucy@doudlahfarms.com address, creating confusion for customers and no clean separation between brands
• No shared inbox: Jason (warehouse) had no visibility into orders, requiring Lucy to relay information manually
• Calendar fragmentation: Three separate calendars in use (Outlook, Gmail, iPhone), causing missed calls and scheduling conflicts

Migration Plan

Accounts to Set Up

Key Requirements

• Unified inbox: All orders from both brands can route into a single shared mailbox, but outbound replies must send from the correct brand address (DFO vs. OWP)
• Jason access: Jason needs read/respond access to the orders mailbox for warehouse fulfillment coordination
• Calendar consolidation: Migrate to Google Calendar as the single source of truth; eliminate the Outlook/Gmail/iPhone split
• On-site setup: Mark Hope to visit and configure email clients on local machines after accounts are provisioned

Why Not Free Gmail?

A free @gmail.com address was considered for Old World Popcorn but rejected — it signals low trust to customers and wholesale partners. Google Workspace at $7/user/month provides custom domain email at minimal cost.

Action Items

• [ ] Mark Doudlah — Call Mark Hope with credit card info to provision Google Workspace accounts (~$15/month)
• [ ] Mark Hope — Set up Google Workspace for DFO and Old World Popcorn domains
• [ ] Mark Hope — Configure orders@ shared mailbox with access for Lucy and Jason
• [ ] Mark Hope — Set up OWP email addresses with correct send-as routing
• [ ] Mark Hope — Consolidate calendars into Google Calendar; sync with iPhone
• [ ] Mark Hope — Visit on-site to configure email clients on local machines

Context & Notes

• The Outlook storage problem was exacerbated by bot traffic generating large volumes of failed order notification emails to the DFO inbox — a side effect of the website bot attack documented in ^[1]
• Mark Hope noted the Outlook → Gmail transition is "not horrible" — the main adjustment is behavioral, not technical; nothing lives locally in Gmail so storage limits are effectively eliminated
• The orders@ shared mailbox pattern is a recommended best practice for small teams: if one person is unavailable, others can see and respond to customer inquiries without gaps

Related

• ^[2]
• ^[1]
• ^[3]