Profit

Why your gross profit column is wrong (and what to use instead)

Open your order spreadsheet and look at the profit column. There's a good chance the formula behind it looks something like sale_price - ae_cost - (sale_price * 0.13). That 0.13 is a guess. And a profit column built on a guess isn't a profit column — it's a hopeful estimate wearing a number's clothes.

The trouble is, you make real decisions off that column. You decide which products to keep, which to cut, what to charge. If the number is off by even a couple of percent per order, every one of those decisions is being made on bad data. Let's fix where the number comes from.

What "gross profit" usually means in your sheet

Most dropshipping sheets compute profit like this:

• Take the eBay sale price (the gross amount).
• Subtract the AliExpress order cost.
• Subtract a flat percentage you assume eBay charges.

It feels reasonable. It's also wrong in at least three ways at once, and the errors don't cancel out — they stack.

Three reasons the flat-fee guess fails

1. The fee percentage isn't flat. Final value fees vary by category, by whether the buyer used certain payment methods, and by promotions. A single hardcoded rate is wrong for most of your catalogue.
2. It ignores the fees that aren't a percentage. The per-order fixed fee, international fees, currency conversion, regulatory operating fees — none of these live in a clean "× 0.13". They quietly shave your margin and your column never sees them.
3. It uses gross, not net. This is the big one. eBay's Order API hands you the gross sale price and leaves you to model the deductions yourself. The number you actually got paid — after every fee — lives somewhere else entirely.

Your profit column should answer one question: how much money actually landed in my payout for this order? A guessed fee can't answer that. Only the real settlement can.

The number that actually hit your payout

eBay knows your true net earnings precisely, because it's the one taking the fees. That figure is exposed through the Finances API, not the Order API. The Finances API reports the actual transaction amounts and fee line items — the real money movement, not the list price.

The practical difference is stark. The Order API tells you "this sold for £24.99". The Finances API tells you "after final value fee, fixed fee, and international fee, £21.40 settled to your account". Subtract your AliExpress cost from that, and you finally have a profit number you can bet the business on.

This is a core reason we built Fetch Order Tracking the way we did. It pulls earnings from eBay's Finances API — true net after fees — rather than guessing from gross prices, and writes that real figure into the Google Sheet you already own, right next to the AliExpress order amount it also fetches.

What to put in your sheet instead

Rebuild the column around real numbers, not assumptions. A layout that holds up:

• Net earnings — the settled amount from the Finances API, after all eBay fees.
• AE order amount — the real cost you paid your supplier, pulled per order.
• True profit — net earnings minus AE cost. No fee guess anywhere in the formula.
• Refund state — so a refunded order doesn't sit in your totals as a win it never was.

That last point matters more than it looks. A profit column that doesn't account for delivered-then-refunded orders overstates your earnings every month. Real profit is net of fees and net of money that came back out.

Why this changes your decisions

When the column is honest, the products you thought were winners sometimes aren't, and a few quiet earners turn out to carry the store. You stop running ads on items whose true margin can't survive the ad fee. You reprice with confidence instead of fear. At say 300 orders a month, trimming a 2% pricing error across the board is real money you were leaving on eBay's table.

If you want the deeper API side of this, read why eBay's Order API gives you the wrong earnings number — it explains exactly where the gross-vs-net gap comes from and which endpoints to trust.

A profit column is only useful if it's true. Swap the guessed fee for the real settlement, let Fetch Order Tracking populate it from the Finances API automatically, and make your next sourcing decision on a number that isn't lying to you.

Frequently asked questions

Why is my eBay gross profit column wrong?

Most profit columns subtract a single hardcoded fee percentage from the gross sale price, but eBay fees are not flat. They vary by category and promotion, and a flat rate also ignores the fixed per-order fee, international fees, and currency conversion. On top of that, the gross price is not what you were paid, so the column overstates margin on almost every order.

Which eBay API gives the true earnings after fees?

The Finances API does. The Order API only returns the gross list price and leaves you to model deductions yourself, while the Finances API reports the actual transaction amounts and fee line items that settled to your account. Subtracting your AliExpress cost from that settled figure is the only way to get a profit number you can trust.

How do refunds affect my profit column?

A refunded order that still sits in your totals as a sale inflates your earnings every month. Real profit has to be net of eBay fees and net of money that came back out, so your sheet needs a refund state on each row. Fetch Order Tracking detects delivered-then-refunded orders so those rows stop counting as wins they never were.

Related guides

• Why eBay's Order API gives you the wrong earnings number
• Per-order profit visibility: the column that changes decisions
• Refunds you didn't see: catching cancellations on already-delivered orders

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