The 7 costs resellers forget (and how to see your real profit)

"I bought it for $20 and sold it for $80, so I made $60." It's the most common sentence in reselling, and it's almost never true. Here are the costs that hide between the buy price and the sale price.

1. Platform fees

eBay takes a final value fee on the whole amount the buyer pays, including shipping, plus a small per-order fee. On an $80 sale with $10 shipping, that's over $12.

2. Promoted listing fees

Ad rates add up fast. With standard promoted listings the ad fee is charged only when the item sells, so it's easy to forget it was there.

3. Shipping you paid

Free shipping isn't free. Even when the buyer pays shipping, the label often costs more than you charged.

4. Supplies

Boxes, mailers, bubble wrap, and tape. A few dollars per sale is a real slice of a small flip.

5. Parts and repairs

The replacement battery, the new screen, the cleaning kit. Track them against the item they went into, or you'll never know whether the repair was worth it.

6. Returns

A refund or a return label can wipe out the profit on that sale and the next one.

7. Items that never sell

Stock you paid for that's still sitting in a bin is money tied up. If it's lost, broken, or you decide to keep it, that cost still counts. In Hermes, mark it Written off so it stops showing as stock.

Seeing the real number

Hermes adds this up for you. Each item tracks its price paid, parts and repairs, platform and ad fees, shipping, and refunds, so the Profit card shows what you actually made. The Reports page shows where the money went across all your sales in the Expenses Breakdown, and Inventory Value on the dashboard shows how much is tied up in stock that hasn't sold. Supplies don't have their own box yet, so add them to the shipping you paid on each sale.

The full formula is in How profit is calculated.

Which of these surprised you the first time? Tell us in the comments.