A best seller that stopped paying
Your oversized hoodie has been a steady seller for a year. You priced it carefully when you launched it. Since then your print partner raised the base cost of that blank, put up shipping to some countries, and the marketplace changed its fee structure. You did not change the price. Looking at last month's payouts, the hoodie made almost nothing on orders to some destinations, and a few 2XL and 3XL orders lost money because the larger sizes cost more.
You only found out because you sat down with a spreadsheet one Sunday. The partner did send an email about the price change. It was one of many.
Costs move, prices stay still
In print on demand, your cost of goods is set by someone else, and it changes on their schedule. Your prices were set by you, once, per listing.
- Partners change base costs per product, sometimes per size or colour.
- Shipping rates change by destination and number of items.
- Marketplace fees, payment fees and currency conversion change separately.
- Larger sizes and premium colours often cost more but share one price on your listing.
- Notices of changes arrive by email and are easy to miss.
Without a recalculation, you do not know which products are affected, only that margins feel thinner.
What the drift costs you
Products sold below cost lose money on every order, and the busier they are, the worse it gets. Products with thin margins cannot absorb a reprint or a refund. Blanket price rises, done in a panic after finding the problem, can overprice products that were fine. The time spent reworking prices in spreadsheets is time most sellers do not have in peak season, which is when partners often change prices.
You also lose a clear view of which products are worth promoting. Ads spent on a product with no margin make things worse.
The margin watch we build
- Base costs for every product, size and colour you sell are pulled from each partner's API, along with shipping rates for your main destinations.
- Channel fees for each marketplace and your own shop are recorded, including payment and currency fees you tell us about.
- Every variant's margin is recalculated daily from current costs and your current price on each channel.
- Variants below your margin floor, or that dropped sharply since the last check, are listed with the cause: base cost, shipping or fees.
- For each, a suggested price is worked out from your rules, such as a target margin and a rounding style.
- Once you approve new prices, they are pushed to each channel, through the single catalogue if you have one.
| Cause of the drop | What the watch shows | Typical fix |
|---|---|---|
| Base cost increase | Old and new cost per variant | New price, or size-based pricing |
| Shipping increase | Destinations affected | Shipping price change or routing change |
| Fee change | Channel affected | Channel price change |
| Currency movement | Channels in other currencies | Price review for that currency |
The watch recommends; you decide. Some products are worth keeping at a thin margin, and that is your call.
Pricing with current numbers
When a partner changes a price, the watch picks it up the same day and lists the variants affected. You see that the 2XL and 3XL hoodies have dropped below your floor, accept a size-based price, and push it. When shipping rates change for Australia, you see which products are affected and choose whether to change shipping charges or route those orders to another partner.
At any time, you can see the current margin on every product, which makes deciding what to advertise much easier.
Signs your margins are slipping unnoticed
- Your prices have not changed since you listed the products.
- You find margin problems when doing the accounts.
- Larger sizes share a price with smaller ones despite costing more.
- Partner price emails go unread.
- You advertise products without knowing their current margin.