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Fees, returns, and courier drag, worked examples.
Fees, returns, and courier drag, worked examples. It is written for South African seller teams who need something they can defend in a supplier review, not a generic ebook.
This pack is for checking whether a SKU still works after marketplace fees, payment charges, returns and delivery are counted properly. Use it when comparing suppliers, pricing a new range, or testing whether a promotion will wipe out net profit.
Keep one printed copy in the meeting room and one saved offline. In South Africa, load shedding and weak office connectivity can interrupt a pricing review at the exact moment someone asks where the courier number came from.
Complete the lines tied to landed cost, pick and pack, courier zone, returns rate and channel commission. Add the date, the owner, and the source for each fee so the sheet can be checked against a supplier quote or marketplace statement later.
Run the worksheet next to your supplier notes, channel rules and fulfilment assumptions. A margin sheet means little on its own if the lead time, packaging size or return handling method sits in another file and tells a different story.
If your team sells across different channels, keep one worksheet version per pricing model and file it with the matching notes. Use the contact form for a pack that lines up with your playbooks and stacks.
Fees, returns, and courier drag, worked examples. Date it. Name an owner. Otherwise it becomes a polite PDF nobody trusts.
Review every field that shifts net margin by even a small amount, especially payment fees, packaging cost, volumetric weight and return allowance. Leave design preferences out of the conversation and focus on the numbers that change what you can actually keep per order.
A hard copy still helps during supplier meetings and internal reviews. Battery life, Wi-Fi dropouts and power cuts are ordinary enough in SA offices that a printed page can save an hour of rework.
Keep this pack aligned with the operating notes your team uses for listings, dispatch and customer returns. One accurate set of assumptions is easier to defend than several documents with slightly different fee lines.
After this pack, compare your assumptions against Playbooks, Stacks, Channels and Suppliers. If a cost line still looks thin, Send us a message.
Treat the examples as stress tests, not decoration. Ask what happens when a lower basket value meets a high courier charge, or when a return turns one apparently good sale into a weak margin outcome.
Use South African assumptions for courier zones, payment methods and channel charges when filling the examples. Templates copied from the US or UK often miss the drag from local delivery pricing, bank fees and reverse logistics.
When a supplier changes carton size, MOQ, or handling terms, update the worksheet before you approve the next price. Old numbers can linger in a PDF long after the live commercial terms have moved.
Some categories need extra lines for hazmat handling, temperature control or age-restricted delivery checks. Ask through our contact form if your worksheet needs those additions.
Quick note
Get the margin sheet agreed before anyone launches promotions, uploads bulk listings or commits to a marketplace campaign. If one person is using old courier rates and another is using new supplier pricing, the gap will show up after orders land. Use the contact form if you want another review of the assumptions before the sheet is circulated.
Contact form · Rosebank Trade Studio
