"I think I can make money on this." — Five words that have bankrupted more beginners than bad luck ever did.
You find a dress on Alibaba for $5. It sells on Amazon for $24.99. The gap looks huge. So you order.
Three months later, reality arrives: ocean freight spiked, duties were higher than you assumed, Amazon took its 15% referral fee, returns hit 12%, and you forgot about storage fees and ad spend.
After all that, you're losing $1.20 per unit. The more you sell, the more you lose.
That's not a business. That's a donation.
There's one formula you must own: Landed Cost = Product Cost + Shipping + Duties + Platform Fees + Return Budget + Marketing Cost. Your selling price minus that number is your profit. If you can't calculate that number right now — you should not be placing an order.
This isn't meant to discourage you. It's meant to protect the capital you worked so hard to save.
Do this today: Download our Landed Cost calculator. Take the one product you most want to sell and fill in every cell. The blanks you can't fill? That's exactly what you still need to learn.