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Module lessons

Forgotten Costs — ონლაინ მაღაზია / online store

Understand which hidden costs reduce your profit and how to account for them in advance.

When you start online sales, it is easy to focus only on the price of the product and shipping. However, there are hidden or "forgotten" costs that significantly reduce your profit at the end of the month. Calculating them in advance will help you avoid financial surprises.

Why#

Ignoring forgotten costs creates the illusion that the business is profitable, while you are actually operating at a loss. When you discover at the end of the month that bank transaction fees and the cost of returned parcels have eaten up all your profit, it is too late to change prices.

Steps#

  1. Account for return costs: Some clients return the product or do not receive it. You still have to pay for the courier service. This loss must be covered by the margin of successful sales.
  2. Calculate transaction commissions: Banks and payment systems deduct a certain percentage on each transaction. This percentage is calculated from your selling price, not your profit.
  3. Don't forget packaging: Boxes, tape, bubble wrap and stickers all cost money. The amount differs from shop to shop — buy one batch, divide it by the number of parcels, and write down the real cost per order instead of estimating it.
  4. Add platform costs: Opening an online store in Georgia is very affordable on Sellit (Start plan 59 GEL/month, source: sellit.ge/llms.txt), but this is also a fixed cost that you have to pay every month.
  5. Account for additional tools: If you use Sellit's AI seller (20 GEL/month for 300 replies on the Start plan, source: sellit.ge/llms.txt), this must also be reflected in your costs. However, it saves you time, talks to clients, and helps you sell more.

Common Mistakes#

  • Expecting a 100% delivery rate: Some share of orders always comes back or is never collected. Write down how many came back in your own case and put that rate into your costs — there is no ready-made percentage you can trust.
  • Ignoring small costs: 50 tetri for packaging seems like nothing, but for 100 orders it's already 50 GEL.
  • Focusing only on variable costs: Forgetting fixed costs (domain, platform).

Your Step Today#

Review your budget and add a new column for "return costs" — and write down how many orders came back last month. That is your starting number.