Product contribution · Per product
Which products make money,
and which only sell.
Contribution per product — revenue after discounts, VAT and the cost of the goods themselves. One margin across the whole shop ranks products by revenue and calls it profit; this uses the cost you entered for each variant, and says which rows it had one for.
Measured, not estimated · EU-hosted · Read-only by default
- Contribution€4,377after VAT and goods
- Revenue€7,940July
- Costed per variant79%of revenue
- Restestimatedand labelled
Left, what each product takes. Right, what it keeps after its own goods, VAT and fees. The lists disagree at the top: the lamp sells the most, the candle keeps the most — 68% of its price against 46%.
01 / The case for it
One cost percentage ranks your products by revenue.
Without it
Apply the same margin to everything and the list that falls out is a list of what sold most, wearing a profit label. A 70%-margin candle and a 12%-margin gadget come out identical, and the top of that list is where the stock money goes.
What Profflow does
The cost you entered, per variant, where you have one.
A real cost wins wherever it exists and the shop percentage covers the rest — and every row says which of the two it used, so you can see how much of the ranking is measured and how much is still an assumption.
02 / Worth understanding
Why the best seller is rarely the best product
Revenue per product is a popularity contest
It tells you what people bought. It does not tell you what was left afterwards, and the two lists disagree often enough that reordering from the first one is how a business fills a warehouse with its thinnest margin.
Returns belong to the product that was returned
A high return rate does not spread evenly across a catalogue. Put back against the product that caused it, along with the fee that did not come back, it can turn the best seller into the fourth best product.
A discount comes out of contribution, not revenue
Twenty per cent off a price is not twenty per cent off a margin. The goods still cost what they cost, so on a 30% margin a fifth off the price takes roughly two thirds of what the sale would have left.
03 / What it lets you do
What follows from getting Product contribution right.
Contribution per product
Revenue after discounts, VAT and goods — the figure that actually differs between products.
Real cost where you have one
A per-variant cost wins wherever it has been entered; the shop percentage covers the rest.
Each row says which
Measured cost and estimate are labelled per line, never blended into one confident list.
Coverage, stated
The table says what share of its revenue is costed for real, so you know how much of the ranking to trust.
Return rate by product
A product that sells and comes back is not the product it looks like on the sales report.
No false precision
Ads, rent and payment fees are not split across line items. Allocating a monthly bill by revenue answers nothing.
04 / What it is built from
Product contribution is assembled
from accounts you already run.
- 01Orders and line items
- 02Discounts given
- 03VAT by line
- 04Cost per variant
- 05Shop-wide cost fallback
- 06Returns by product
- Contribution per product
- Real cost where you have one
- Each row says which
- Coverage, stated
05 / How it is worked out
From the account
to the figure on the screen.
- 01ReadsEvery line item, with what was discounted and what VAT it carried.
- 02CostsEach line against the cost entered for that variant, where one exists.
- 03MarksWhich rows used a real cost and which fell back to the percentage.
- 04RanksBy contribution, not by revenue wearing a profit label.
[ Asked of the figures ]
Is my best seller also my best product?
Not here. The best seller, an oak desk lamp, leaves 56% of its sales without VAT; an amber candle leaves 83% and earns more — €1,514 against €1,253 — on less revenue. A single shop-wide cost percentage would have shown them as the same product.
How Profflow reasons06 / How the figure is kept honest
The same four rules,
on every screen.
- Read-only, on every plan
Profflow observes the accounts it is connected to. It does not write an order, a price, a campaign or a payout back to any of them.
- Measured stays measured
A charge read from an account is labelled measured. Anything modelled — a forecast, a projection, a filled gap — is labelled as such on the screen it appears on.
- Every figure opens
Follow any number to the dated rows underneath it. A figure nobody can check is a figure nobody acts on.
- You approve
The product prepares a decision and shows the evidence. Nothing consequential happens until you say so.
About
Product contribution.
Can’t find the answer to your question?
Contact us by clicking here.
Because it is not a per-product fact. Spreading a campaign across line items by revenue produces a number that looks precise and cannot be checked. Contribution is what genuinely differs between products, so contribution is what is shown.
The shop-wide percentage is used and every row that used it says so. As you enter real costs the ranking sharpens, and the coverage figure tells you how far along you are.
No, and it is not presented as it. Contribution is what a product leaves after its own direct costs. Net profit is what the whole business leaves after everything, and it lives on the P&L.
Costs are per variant, because that is the level at which they actually differ. A size that costs more to make is not the same product as one that does not.
See Product contribution on your own figures.
Contribution per product — revenue after discounts, VAT and the cost of the goods themselves. One margin across the whole shop ranks products by revenue and calls it profit; this uses the cost you entered for each variant, and says which rows it had one for.