How to Find Loss-Making SKUs Without Excel

Every seller has a few products that look busy but earn nothing. They get orders, they appear in the sales number, and still, at the end of the month, the money is missing. Those are loss-making SKUs, and finding them is the quickest way to improve your profit, because stopping a loss is as good as earning new profit.

Why they stay hidden

• Marketplace dashboards show sales, not profit.
• Returns arrive weeks after the sale, so the loss shows up in a different month.
• Fees, shipping and ads are deducted in different reports.
• Totals hide the bad SKUs behind the good ones.

The four numbers to check for every SKU

Number	Why it matters
Profit per order	After fees, shipping, product cost and packing. Below zero means loss.
Return rate	High returns turn a good margin into a loss.
Ad spend per order	Ads can eat the whole margin.
Number of orders	A loss on 3 orders is a small problem. A loss on 300 is a big one.

Step by step

1. Collect the settlement report and the orders report for the last 2 or 3 months.
2. For each order, take what the marketplace actually paid you.
3. Subtract your product cost and packing for that SKU.
4. Subtract the cost of returned orders for that SKU.
5. Subtract the ad spend for that SKU.
6. Sort the SKUs by total profit. The bottom of the list is your loss list. Sort again by number of orders so you start with the biggest losses.

What to do with a loss-making SKU

1. Raise the price. Check if even a small increase makes it positive and still sells.
2. Fix the returns. If the return rate is the reason, improve photos, size information and packing.
3. Stop the ads on it or lower the budget, if ad spend is the reason.
4. Check the weight. A wrong weight raises shipping on every order. Correct it in the listing.
5. Lower the cost. Ask your supplier for a better rate on larger quantity, or use cheaper packing.
6. Stop selling it. If nothing works, remove it and put your effort into the SKUs that earn.

Also look at the top of the list

Your best SKUs deserve attention too: more ads, more stock, and more colours or sizes of the same product. A seller who moves effort from the bottom to the top of this list usually gains faster than one who just adds new products.

Seller Book does all of this when you upload your reports. It shows which SKUs lose money, which lose even after delivery, which have rising returns, and which are worth promoting, with a plain explanation, so you do not need formulas.