Margin leaks
Access from: Profitability → Margin leaks
Margin leaks tells you which products lost margin versus the previous period, how much money it is costing you and which cost caused it. It uses the same figures as P&L and margin by product.
What a leak is
Margin leaks compares each product's margin on net sales with the previous period's and shows the ones that dropped. Only products with net sales in both periods are compared: with no sales there is no margin to compare.
Depending on how much it dropped, each product gets a status:
| Status | How much the margin dropped |
|---|---|
| Leak | More than 8 ppt |
| Watch | Between 4 and 8 ppt |
| Healthy | Less than 4 ppt |
By default you see all three statuses. With the Status filter you keep only the ones you check.
Money at risk
Money at risk is the margin you stopped earning this period: how much the margin on net sales dropped, times this period's net sales. For example, if a product goes from a 30% margin to 20% and sold €10,000, the money at risk is €1,000.
The list is sorted by money at risk, from highest to lowest: at the top are the leaks that cost you the most, not the ones that dropped the most points.
Filters
- Period: by default, the last closed month, compared with the previous period of the same length. A closed month already has its fees and costs; a period in progress could show leaks that are not real.
- Connection, Country and Clusters, as in the P&L.
- Status: Leak, Watch or Healthy.
Indicators
At the top you see how many products are in Leak, how many in Watch and the Total at risk. They count all the products of the filters, not just those on the page you are looking at, and they do not change with the Status filter. Total at risk only adds up the products in Leak and Watch.
The table
| Column | What it is |
|---|---|
| Money at risk | The margin you stopped earning this period. |
| Margin on sales | The margin on net sales of the period and, below, how many points it dropped. |
| Main cause | The cost that took the most margin: the one whose share of net sales grew the most. |
| Status | Leak, Watch or Healthy. |
| Cost coverage | What portion of sales has product cost. Below 100%, the margin looks higher than it really is. |
With Edit columns you can add the same amounts as in Margin by product: sales, refunds, net sales, each fee, advertising, product cost and contribution margin. Clicking the SKU or the title opens the product page. The search box filters by SKU, ASIN or title, and the indicators then count only what it finds.
You can sort by Money at risk, Margin on sales, Net sales and Contribution margin.
The detail of a product
With the detail button of each row you see why its margin dropped:
- Cards with the margin on net sales and how much it dropped, the money at risk and net sales with their change. Sales tell you whether the margin drops while selling more or selling less.
- A message with the status and the cost that took the most margin. If it is the product cost, it carries the Review the cost button, which opens the Cost tab of the product page.
- Margin waterfall: a chart that goes from the margin of the previous period to the current one, with a bar for each cost that moved it. Each bar is what that cost took away (or added) in points, and together they add up to the drop.
- Costs over net sales: how much of net sales each cost takes, how much it changed versus the previous period and Typical, the median of the products in your account that have that cost. It tells you whether a cost has not only gone up but is out of the ordinary.
From the detail you can open the product page, on its Margin tab, or create a task for that product.
Vendor products do not show refunds, commissions, storage or other fees: Amazon's Vendor report does not include them.
Messages you may see
| Message | Why it appears |
|---|---|
| "This product has a product cost for … of its sales" | In the detail: the product does not have cost for all its sales in the period. Its margin looks higher than it really is. |
| "In the previous period only … of this product's sales had a product cost" | In the detail: in the previous period more cost was missing than now. The earlier margin looked inflated, so part of the drop comes from there and not from the product. |
| "There are no sales in the previous period" | In the table: there is nothing to compare against. Choose dates whose previous period has sales. |
| "This period's sales haven't arrived yet" | In the table: the period is so recent that Amazon has not sent its sales yet. |
| "No product with the chosen statuses lost margin" | In the table: with the chosen filters and statuses no product lost margin versus the previous period. |
Creating tasks
To share out the work on the leaks, select the products in the table and click Create task with N products, or click Create task in the detail of a product. The task panel opens with those products already in place, where you choose assignee, priority and date.
Each product in the task says how much its margin dropped, the money at risk and the main cause, so whoever receives it knows what to look at without going back to Margin leaks. Once it is created, the notice carries the View task button.
Only products that are in your catalog can be added to a task: the button only counts those.
What it does not include
- Products with no net sales in one of the two periods: a new product, or one that spends on advertising and sold nothing. They have no margin to compare; you see them in Margin by product.
- Products that improved their margin.
Available on Business and Master
Margin leaks is on the Business and Master plans: it compares the margin with product cost, and without it there is no real margin to compare. On other plans it shows in the menu with a crown and, when you click it, offers you to upgrade.
From the API and the MCP
The same data is in the public API (/v1/pnl/margin-leaks and /v1/pnl/category-medians) and in the MCP, so an assistant can find your leaks and explain them to you. On Free and Guru they return a 403.