Unit cost is the number the whole economics of a seller rests on: margin, price, the discount you can afford in a promo and the answer to "am I earning or am I propping up turnover at my own expense" are all derived from it. A mistake here breaks every decision downstream. Let's break down what goes into unit cost on a marketplace, how the full cost differs from the purchase price and how to keep records without an accounting degree.
What goes into the unit cost of a product
The cost of one unit is every expense needed to get the product ready for shipment to the platform:
- Supplier purchase price — in Russia or in China, at the exchange rate on the payment date;
- Delivery to you: logistics from the supplier, cargo shipping or the official route, customs, insurance;
- Preparation for sale: packaging, labeling and barcodes, Chestny Znak for categories subject to labeling, fulfillment services;
- Defects and batch losses: some units will not make it or will fail inspection — their cost is spread across the units you do sell;
- Certification and documents — a one-off per batch or per product range, spread across the units.
Purchase price vs full cost: the main mistake
The classic beginner mistake is calculating margin from the supplier's price. The full unit cost, with delivery, packaging and allocated defects, is noticeably higher than the purchase price, and an SKU that looks profitable on paper turns out to be a zero. The check is simple: add up every payment on the batch, from the invoice to warehouse acceptance, and divide by the number of units fit for sale.
How to keep track of unit cost
- A spreadsheet (Excel/Google Sheets) is enough at the start: batch, then all expenses, then the cost per unit. The key is to enter every batch separately.
- Batches and averaging. Purchases arrive at different prices and exchange rates; track unit cost per batch or as a weighted average — otherwise your margin will "suddenly" vanish after one expensive batch.
- Analytics services and 1C — once volume grows: automatic batch accounting, unit cost in the report for every SKU, linked to financial records and bookkeeping.
- Recalculate with every purchase. Exchange rates, cargo tariffs and supplier prices move — unit cost is not a constant.
From there the number goes to work in your decisions: price calculation, profit, the discount depth you can afford in promos and how much money to keep tied up in stock — working capital.
FAQ
"How do I calculate the unit cost of a product for a marketplace?" Add up every expense on the batch — purchase, delivery to you, packaging and labeling, allocated defects, documents — and divide by the number of sellable units. That is the full unit cost; marketplace expenses are not part of it and are counted in unit economics.
"How is unit cost different from unit economics?" Unit cost is the expenses incurred before shipment, a property of the product. Unit economics is the whole chain down to profit: unit cost plus commission, logistics fee, storage fee, advertising and taxes per unit.
"What defect rate should I budget for?" There is no universal norm — it depends on the category and the supplier. Use the actual figures from your own past batches; for a first purchase, budget a conservative estimate and refine it as the statistics build up.
"Do I need 1C to track unit cost?" Not necessarily: at the start a spreadsheet with batch-level records is enough. 1C or analytics services pay off once you have a lot of batches and SKUs and manual tracking starts to lie.
