Detect unprofitable SKUs — automated per-product profit analytics

Many merchants—particularly the 3 million SMBs selling across marketplaces and direct channels—do not know which SKUs are actually profitable once ads, platform fees, shipping and returns are allocated, and that hidden leakage wastes marketing spend and ties up working capital. With typical gross margins in the low-to-mid double digits and return rates and advertising costs rising, sellers are often making assortment and promotion decisions based on revenue or units sold rather than per-product profit. You could build an automated per-SKU profit analytics service that ingests orders, refunds, ad spend, shipping and fee data from Shopify, Amazon, Meta/Google ads and carriers, apportions overhead and return costs, and produces daily actionable metrics (true SKU margin, payback period, and profit-at-risk). Deliverables would include anomaly alerts for loss-making SKUs, "what-if" scenarios for price or ad changes, and one-click operational recommendations (delist, price change, adjust bids or bundle) with estimated ROI. The market looks attractive now: a $12.0B addressable SaaS market (3M SMBs × $4K ACV) is facing secular margin pressure as fees, ads and logistics costs increase, platform fragmentation raises reconciliation costs, and returns have surged—making amortized cost attribution more valuable than ever. Competition is medium, with incumbents focusing on revenue analytics and a gap in practical, automated profit attribution that delivers clear dollar savings to merchants. To stand out, focus on accuracy and trust: provide transparent allocation models (by returns, time-decay, and channel), deep integrations for reliable data, and UX designed for non-analyst operators with prescriptive actions tied to estimated savings; offer short time-to-value with templates and a fast ROI pilot. Be honest about challenges: messy multi-channel data, edge cases in cost allocation, and the need to demonstrate quick, repeatable financial impact to justify churn-sensitive SMB pricing.