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Which products can you profitably buy and sell on Bol.com?
The ones where selling price minus commission, shipping and purchase price leaves enough margin at the volume you can actually sell. That calculation is usually missing because the pieces live in different systems: sales and commission with the platform, purchase price with the supplier, shipping with a third party. Joining them per article and per period is the work.
E-commerce and marketplace trading Bol.com, Tweakers, SQL Server, Power BI
The challenge
A marketplace trader was growing in revenue and could not say which products actually earned. Commission differed per category, purchase prices moved within the period, and shipping costs were known in total but not per article.
Our approach
We brought the three pieces together per article and per period: sales and commission from the platform, purchase price from the supplier files, and shipping and handling from the carrier. Refreshed once a day, so a purchasing decision rests on a complete yesterday rather than a partial today.
Competitive pricing data was added so a margin can be read against what the market is doing, rather than in isolation.
Results
Purchasing decisions moved from revenue to margin. Products that sold well and earned nothing became visible, which is uncomfortable and useful in that order.
Expertise involved
Marketplace APIs, incremental loading into SQL Server, data modelling, and the attention to detail that unit and article code reconciliation demands.
See also
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Why is that calculation so hard to make?
Because the pieces sit in different places and change at different times. Commission differs per category, purchase prices move within a period, and shipping cost decides whether a cheap item earns anything at all.
How current does it need to be?
Once a day is enough for purchasing decisions. The point is not real time but that yesterday is complete and correct before you commit money today.
What do you need to start?
Access to the sales data, a purchase price file per article, and the shipping and handling costs. If those three exist in any form, the rest is our problem.