How should I calculate item cost in dropshipping settings?

How should I calculate item cost in dropshipping settings?

JustinGC
New Member
6 0 0

 

Hello, I am dropshipping a product with shopify, I have a supplier that will ship my product. In my product settings theres a section to put the amount it cost per item, in this section would I put the cost of the item and the cost of the shipping? I am offering free shipping. 

What if someone orders multiple things am I only buying the shipping once or for however many items that person buys? 

Do I even need to include the shipping in the cost per item?

Replies 4 (4)

Andrew
Shopify Staff (Retired)
1746 173 325

Hi @JustinGC,

Welcome to Shopify! I'm glad to hear you're pursuing your entrepreneurial dreams and that you've found an avenue with dropshipping!

The cost per item is a field that only you can see as the account owner. It's not visible to your customers. So it serves the purpose of helping you track your profits!

The example we give in our guide on Adding cost per item to your products is:

"The cost per item is how much it costs you for the product or variant. For example, if you resell a product, then you can enter the price that you paid the manufacturer, excluding taxes, shipping, or other costs. If you create the product yourself, then you can enter a value that is based on your labor and material costs."

So you would not include the shipping because that is distinct from the cost of the actual item. What's more, as a dropshipper, you are not actually shipping anything - your supplier is!

What's really useful is that if you've included the original price of the product in your product information then you can then check out your profit reports.

Are you using Oberlo to dropship? Because you can analyze your sales data with Oberlo too, your metrics appear in the dashboard on the Home page of your Oberlo admin.

If you're still thinking about what your pricing will be, they have a great free profit margin calculator you can use to decide what mark-up to give your products from the cost of the item to the selling cost.

If you're not sure what to factor into your decisions, they've got a fantastic blog post about The Secret to Pricing Your Products.

Also, when it comes to Shipping with Oberlo, I'd recommend an informative Shopify Blog called Everything You Need to Know About ePacket Shipping: ePacket Delivery Explained – Shopify that’s also certainly worth checking out too!

What are you selling? I'd love to know more about your brand and your target audience and how you plan to market yourself!

All the best, Hyde.

To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Community Blog.

JustinGC
New Member
6 0 0

Hey @Andrew !

 

Even though essentially I'm paying for the shipping for the customer so they don't have to worry about paying for it, I still wouldn't include it? 

No I'm using a different company then Oberlo. We sell air diffusers, if you'd like you could check out the website dreampods.co !

Andrew
Shopify Staff (Retired)
1746 173 325

@JustinGC - That is a great-looking site, you've done a great job! I'll give you some feedback on it shortly, but first I just want to tackle your original question first.

Ok, so you're not using Oberlo, but a lot of the same basic principles are the same. The cost per item field is simply a way of tracking how much the item itself costs when you bought it from the supplier so that you get a sense of what the profit is that you're making. It's simply additional information to help your reports in your Shopify Analytics be more accurate.

When it comes to shipping, you decide the amount you charge you want to charge your customers yourself. If you're using the same shipping method (with Oberlo we usually recommend ePacket) then the shipping cost may only vary ever so slightly, in which case you could absorb the cost into the product price.

In other words, if the cost of shipping your dreampods is usually between $2 and $6 for example, then you could simply mark up your product price by $6 to ensure the shipping cost is also covered!

Does that make more sense? Please let me know if you're still unsure or if I can explain anything more fully for you!

In the meantime: your store is looking good. However, to build a good brand, you'll need to invest a little more time into the aesthetic and content of it.

To build a brand you should look at having:

- A strong, relevant name.
- A visual identity (logo, color scheme)
- A mission statement (what makes your brand different
- A target customer (who is your customer? What magazines do they read? What social media do they hang out on? Who influences their decisions? Are they high or low tech?)

Here’s a great guide to creating customer personas.

All this information will help you craft your brand's message which is going to be a big help when it comes time to create your about page. This is an essential page on any e-commerce store. It helps customers understand who you are, what you care about, and why they should trust you.

Using your mission statement you can combine this with your visual identity to craft a page that appeals to your target customer.
Another place having a brand identity and target customer comes in useful is on your product page. Be sure not to leave any empty sections on your store:

15-00-20366-37461

 

When you import your products via Oberlo for example, you will be given a pre-written title and product description. These offer some good information but you should always look to change them.

27-11-535zh-be54f

 

Taking this golf hats title as an example.

**Brand Baseball Cap Men Cotton Casual Sports Golf Hats For Men Golf Snapback Casquette Bone Gorras Sale RC1011**

This doesn’t sound like something anyone would say. Nobody owns a "brand baseball cap men cotton". However, the pre-generated title does offer some useful keywords you just need to look at re-working them. In this case, you could look at changing it to

**Branded Men's Cotton Baseball Cap | Casual - Great for Golfers | Brand**

If you’re unsure how to do that, there’s a great guide to editing your meta here Editing your Meta Title and Description.

You may also get a pre-generated product description:

27-22-ql2xt-7fe5f

 

This contains some information that may be useful but unlike the pre-generated title no keywords. You can still use the ones you’ve got from your title and re-write those into a longer description which you can re-use for your meta description also.

**Premium Men’s Branded Baseball Cap. Perfect for the golfer in your life, casual enough for day-to-day wear, sturdy enough for any sport. This cap has a snapback shape and sporty look.**

You can then offer a bullet point list of the reasons customers should buy

- Top Quality 100% Cotton Product
- Precise detailing, Bold Colours.
- Fast Delivery, 100% Secure Site!

And maybe finish by encouraging them to share their purchase

**You're going to get a lot of compliments - do us a favor and make sure you tell them where you got it!**

You can get really creative with your product descriptions.

There are even some templates you could use to speed up the process:

Perfect for ___________________________ (ideal situation),
these _______________ (product name)
can be/will _______________ (tell a quick story).
(Product name) ______________
are ______________ (top features)
to _______________ (product benefits).
No more _____________________ (pain and/or challenge).

Example:
Perfect for weekend getaways in the mountains, these Mighty Camper Cups will bring you and your friends or loved ones closer together around a campfire. Exactly what mountain trips were made for! Our Mighty Camper Cups are sturdy and built just for you with insulated fibers to ensure that your hot cocoa stays hot and your iced tea stays iced. No more crying over spilled milk!

You can also take the keywords here and add them to a spreadsheet so Brand, Baseball Cap, Men, Cotton, Casual, Sports, Golf, Hats, Snapback, etc as you add products you can see which of these come up most often and use them for your collections Meta Titles and descriptions also.

To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Community Blog.

GuavaJammies
Tourist
5 0 1

Hi Andrew! I have products produced for my business by a manufacturer for my private label. Would the item cost in Shopify be the item cost that I paid to my manufacturer? Or should it also include the other costs that would normally be in my COGM like the shipping costs for the products (from the manufacturer to me), the cost of my shipping supplies when I ship to customers, and overhead etc...?