Calculate your margins from the import list.

The key rule: mark up your cost price, not your base price. The base price is only the product itself; pick & pack and shipping are real costs, and leaving them out is what makes a margin look healthy on screen and disappoint at month-end.

The mental model

The tool works in two moves:

• A cost base you choose — the base price on its own, or base + pick & pack, or base + pick & pack + shipping for a country you select.

• One markup applied on top — the same multiplier (1.0×–10.0×) across every product in the list, with the result rounded however you like.

From those two it calculates a sale price and shows your margin per product:

Sale price = cost base × markup (1.0×–10.0×), rounded · Margin = sale price − your true cost

So the margin you see is only as honest as the cost base you picked. Mark up the base price alone and the column flatters you; mark up the full cost price and it tells the truth.

The settings you choose

Open your import list and click Edit to open the margin settings. You set four things, then Save:

• Markup — a multiplier applied to the cost base, from 1.0× (no markup) up to 10.0×. 2.0× doubles the cost base, 1.8× gives a 1.8× price, and so on. This is your main margin lever.

• Include pick & pack — folds the supplier's packing fee into the cost base, so your markup covers it instead of it eating into margin.

• Include shipping — folds carrier cost in too. Turn this on and select a country, because shipping fees differ per destination.

• Rounding — how sale prices land: neatly to .99/.45, or no rounding to keep the raw number.

For the full breakdown of each cost, read Cost components explained.

A worked example

Say a smart-shipping product has this Everspring cost for a Dutch delivery:

• Base price: €12.82

• Pick & pack: €7.78

• Shipping: €6.32

• Total with shipping: €26.92

You switch on pick & pack and shipping (country: NL), set a 2.0× markup, and round to .99. The tool marks up the full €26.92 cost price — not the €12.82 base — to €53.84, then rounds to €53.99. That's the sale price, and the margin shown next to the product is measured against your real €26.92 cost. Had you left pick & pack and shipping off, the same markup would have priced against €12.82 and reported a margin more than twice as flattering as the real one. For how VAT then affects what you keep, see How to set retail prices.

Three ways to keep the margin column honest

• Build in the costs that actually land. Include pick & pack and shipping for the country you really sell to — a markup on base price alone is not a real margin.

• Group similar products per list. One markup fits products with a similar cost and shipping profile. Heavy or oversize items where shipping dominates need their own list and their own rule. See Choose an assortment that protects your margin.

• Re-run after a wholesale change. Suppliers update prices; your saved markup won't move on its own. Re-open Edit and Save again to refresh every margin in the list.

Where to check your real margin

• Import list margin column — your expected margin across the whole list, on the settings you chose.

• Marketplace cart — the place to test multi-product Mix & Match scenarios, where pick & pack and shipping recalculate per box, usually in your favour. See Combine products and maximize margin with Mix & Match.

• Order detail page — the source of truth after an order is placed, with real shipping and real VAT (B2C destination-country VAT under OSS, B2B reverse-charged at 0%).

Once orders come in, open a few every week and compare them against what the tool predicted. If a product consistently underperforms, raise its markup, move it to its own list, or reconsider whether it belongs in your assortment.