Overview:
Picture a profit detective that plugs into your Shopify, shipping tools, and ad accounts, then tells you which products actually make money after every hidden cost. Not just ROAS and AOV fluff — it tracks COGS, shipping, carrier adjustments, payment fees, discounts, refunds, and even allocates ad spend down to SKU so you see true net margin by product. Every week it spits out a short to‑do list: raise price on these SKUs, bundle those to hit free‑ship thresholds, pause ads on losers, file these carrier refund claims, and look into these suspicious return patterns. Start simple with spreadsheets and manual analysis to prove ROI fast, then turn it into a Shopify app once the playbooks are repeatable.
The Trends:
E‑commerce brands are prioritizing SKU‑level profitability (not just top‑line or ROAS) as margins compress and COGS/ad costs rise, driving demand for granular margin analysis. (1, 2)
Hidden fee and return leakage (carrier adjustments, return abuse, refund mistakes, discount stackups) is a growing recognized drain, prompting automation and reconciliation tools to detect and recover lost fees. (3)
Lean operations and tighter spend discipline among DTC brands — especially sub‑$50M merchants — are fueling micro‑SaaS and service‑first offerings that deliver high ROI with small implementation friction. (4)
Shopify ecosystem momentum: merchants increasingly adopt apps and integrations that combine orders, shipping, refunds and ad spend to create unified P&L/margin views — creating product market fit for margin‑focused Shopify apps. (5, 1)
Operationalizing insights into automated, actionable workflows (weekly emails, ad pause alerts, refund/claim prompts, price/bundle suggestions) is becoming a must‑have — not just dashboards — to convert margin intelligence into dollars. (2)
Your Answer:
What it is — a micro‑SaaS/service that ingests Shopify orders, shipping, refunds, discounts and ad spend (CSV/API) to compute true SKU‑level gross and net margins and automatically flag fee leaks (carrier adjustments, return abuse, payment fees, discount leakage). Weekly actionable report with prioritized fixes.
Primary pain solved — removes blind spots behind vanity metrics (ROAS, AOV) by attributing real costs to SKUs so founders stop losing money on ‘winning’ products and can act on the actual profit picture.
MVP path — start as a spreadsheet + uploader: manual mapping of orders → cost buckets, simple formulas to output SKU net margin, and a templated weekly email. Graduate to a Shopify app that automates mappings, pulls shipping/ad APIs and runs continuous checks.
Actionable outputs customers get — price increase suggestions, bundle/cut SKUs to protect margin, ad pause/scale alerts by SKU, carrier refund request templates, flags for suspicious return patterns and refund recovery opportunities.
Data & integrations roadmap — begin with Shopify CSVs and ad spend uploads; add carrier portals (UPS/FedEx/Shippo/ShipStation), payment processors and returns systems; later offer one‑click Shopify app auth and live dashboards.
Go‑to‑market & ideal customer — DTC brands $1M–$50M ARR that run paid ads and have frequent SKUs/returns. Acquire via Shopify app store, ad agencies, accountants, founders communities and case studies showing recovered margin.
Business model — launch service‑first (fixed audit + monthly retainer + success fee on recovered refunds/costs) to prove ROI, then convert high‑volume customers to tiered SaaS per orders/SKUs with premium playbooks.
Competitive edge — SKU‑level profitability focus (not blended P&L), proactive fee‑leak detection plus human‑verified recovery playbooks; fast ROI messaging (weeks) that converts founders who care about cash flow.
Key metrics to sell & measure — % SKU margin uplift, refunds recovered ($), unnecessary ad spend paused, payback period (weeks), and decreased churn from stable margins.
Roadmap & timeline — 1–2 week spreadsheet prototype + landing page; 4–8 week paid pilot with 3 customers to build repeatable playbooks; 3–6 month minimal Shopify app with automated ingestion and scheduled emails.
Your Roadmap:
Spreadsheet MVP: ingest Shopify CSVs (orders, refunds, discounts), shipping statements, and ad spend into a single Google Sheet.
Build formulas/tables to allocate ad spend by SKU, compute landed cost (COGS + shipping + fees + discounts) and true SKU margin.
Add conditional formatting and a ‘fee leak’ tab to flag negative-margin SKUs, high return rates, carrier adjustment candidates, and refund abuse patterns.
Create a one-click uploader using Google Apps Script or Airtable CSV import and export a weekly PDF/CSV report to email to founders.
Validate with 3–5 DTC brands, collect pain points, iterate the sheet and turn it into a repeatable template sold on Gumroad.