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Unlock Profit Insights by Inputting Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) Data
Unlock Profit Insights by Inputting Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) Data

Learn more about how Flywheel uses your COGS to calculate profitability metrics

Updated over 4 months ago

Discover the Power of COGS: Gain access to essential performance metrics like estimated gross profit, gross margin, and pre-ad gross margin by adding your Cost of Goods Sold (COGS).

Analyze Profitability at SKU-Level: Dive deep into your business's profitability by evaluating individual SKUs, enabling you to fine-tune your advertising strategy and ensure your ACOS targets are perfectly calibrated.

Understanding COGS: Learn how COGS encompasses direct production costs, excluding indirect expenses like distribution and sales team expenditures, providing a clear picture of your product's manufacturing expenses.

Rest assured, your COGS data is securely stored, ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of your financial information.

What are COGS?

Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) is a key financial metric and is crucial for determining a company's gross profit. It includes the costs directly tied to the production or acquisition of goods, but it does not include indirect costs such as distribution expenses, marketing costs, or other operating expenses.

COGS should represent the manufacturing cost per unit, as well as any costs associated with getting your product to a fulfillment center.

Don't worry about including fee data, we've got you covered there.

What to include

What to exclude

Variable costs involved in manufacturing products, such as raw materials, labor, and freight/shipping costs

Amazon selling fees

Fixed costs such as storage fees and factory overhead

Amazon FBA fees

Cost to ship goods to Amazon fulfillment center

Amazon's referral fees

How are my COGS used to calculate Profitability?

Profitability, when assessed using Cost of Goods Sold (COGS), refers to a measure of how effectively a company manages its production and manufacturing costs in relation to its revenue. It reflects the ability of a business to generate profits after deducting the direct expenses associated with producing the goods it sells. A higher profitability, in this context, suggests that a company is efficiently controlling its COGS and is more likely to generate a greater profit margin from its sales.

These values are reflected in the product catalog using these calculations when COGS are present; if COGS are missing, these fields will show as "N/A"

Estimated gross profit

Estimated profit after considering all costs associated with the product, including unit COGS, estimated fees, and ad spend.
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Total sales - ( Total COGS + Est. Fees + Ad spend )

Estimated fees

Flywheel pulls in these details from the merchants automatically, representing all fees associated with selling a product on a sales channel.

  • Amazon: Referral Fees + FBA Fees + Variable Closing Fees

  • Walmart: Referral Fees

( Estimated referral fees * Units sold ) + ( Estimated variable closing fees * Units sold ) + ( Expected fulfillment fees * Units sold )

How do I update my COGS?

You have a few different options to upload COGS. SKU's completely missing COGS values will have a reminder in the recommendation hub.

To manage existing COGS, view and edit where single items are missing, here are a few detailed options:

Option 1: Bulk Upload with CSV file

First, you'll want to download our COGS template from the SKU catalog. You can find this in the Product Catalog. This sheet will contain relevant data for all SKUs.

The automated template will have prefilled data in A through E: these fields should not be changed.

Update Column F with new values: any current values will appear; if there is no change, leave as is - for example:

  • Products A - F; H - J are all blank - those need new values, update accordingly

  • Remember to enter as USD values; the page will convert to other currency values from the settings on page. Important note: include only numbers and periods in this cell as currency and other symbols will cause the upload to fail.

  • Product G is 2.35 already; leave that as is for no update, or change the value if necessary

Save file with changes and upload in step 3.

  • What if I am unable to save as an excel csv file?

    • Copy & paste data from the template into an alternative program such as Google sheets

    • Download a csv supported version of your information and upload from the interface

Option 2: Individual SKU - from Parent SKU Settings

First, navigate to the SKU Settings page from the Product Catalog by selecting a specific product (learn more about this page here). Then, select the Product Settings tab and the COGS tab. Here you can enter the COGS value for each SKU and click save to apply.

Option 3: Individual SKU - slide over in Product Catalog

From the Product Catalog, any calculated metric using COGS where the value is missing for a SKU, you'll see "Add unit COGS" . Select the link and a slide over will appear with the same experience as option 2 for quick in line edits.

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