I started selling through marketplaces and I'm calculating everything manually in a spreadsheet. I noticed that delivery eats up almost all my profit - whether it's FBS or FBO, different commissions. Can I optimize it somehow or do I just need to raise the product price?
Are you including the actual shipping costs in your cost price, or are you using the marketplace's averaged coefficients?
The catch here is that marketplaces show commission as a percentage of the sale amount, but shipping can be a fixed fee - for example, 150 rubles per box regardless of region, while you're calculating it as a percentage of the product price. If the product is cheap, the shipping's share in your cost price gets artificially inflated. It only makes sense to switch to a different scheme or raise prices if you recalculate with real numbers: how much you actually pay per month for shipping all your products, not the percentage per unit.
You should also check whether you can consolidate orders into a single shipment or negotiate volume discounts with your courier, if your volumes allow for it.
Usually a combination of several approaches helps, not just raising prices. First, compare realistically how much delivery actually costs under different schemes - sometimes FBO is cheaper than it seems, especially if you factor in that the marketplace groups your products with others'. Try calculating not per unit, but by average check per week or month. Second, look at the marketplace's own logistics options: there are often preferential rates for partners who ship regularly, or volume discounts. If your range allows it, think about setting a minimum order for customers - that'll cut down on shipments.
As for pricing - yeah, raising it's inevitable, but you've got to do it smartly. Don't add delivery costs to a single product; instead spread it across your whole range, especially on pricier items. Look at which products have good margins before logistics are factored in - they can subsidize the less profitable ones. And be honest about your competitors: if they're selling cheaper, they might either be working with bigger volumes (cheaper logistics) or accepting lower margins. Maybe it's worth rethinking your range toward products that better absorb logistics costs.
I faced this problem myself when I started tracking everything in a spreadsheet - it seemed like a third of my revenue was going to logistics on every single item. It turned out the key isn't just picking a cheaper scheme, but understanding which products work better with which scheme. Light items with good markups are often easier to send via FBS (when the customer pays for delivery from your warehouse), while heavy but cheap items - on the flip side, FBO might make more sense because the marketplace spreads the delivery cost across multiple orders at once. Plus it's worth recalculating whether you're overpaying commissions because of how you're distributing costs - sometimes people count delivery as an expense when it's already factored into the marketplace's commission. You'll definitely need to raise your price, but not blindly - thoughtfully, based on your specific product category.
Do you even have a minimum order amount, or are you selling individual items? Because shipping isn't just about which delivery scheme you pick - it's also about your average order value.
If your products are cheap and people buy them one at a time, then yeah, no amount of optimization will save you. You either need to actually recalculate your margin, or create combo bundles so customers grab several items at once. But if your average order value allows for it, it's worth actually digging into the numbers. Calculate it precisely in a spreadsheet: how much does shipping one item cost with FBS when you're paying commission on the product price without shipping included? And how much with FBO, where your item sits in the marketplace's warehouse? A lot of people think FBO is more expensive because they see one number for storage and miss that with FBS the marketplace takes a percentage of the entire product cost plus your own logistics expenses.
Here's the thing though: if you just raise your price, you'll lose conversion and volume. Better to work with your assortment - drop or reformat items with thin margins, focus on what sells best even at current shipping costs. And yeah, sometimes it makes sense to try your own logistics through pickup points or courier delivery if volumes allow, but that's a whole different level.
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