How do you calculate the profitability of a product on bol?
Lars HurkmansCo-founder4 March 2026Reading time 11 minutesYou calculate the profitability of a new product on bol by setting all costs against your selling price in a profit calculator: the product costs (purchase, transaction costs, transport to the Netherlands and packaging), the selling commission, the shipping costs and the advertising costs. From that follow your profit margin and your ROI, the figure that shows how fast you can reinvest.
This is part 9, the final part of our product research series on bol. In part 8 we looked at launching a product and what advertising costs, with the average winning bid at its core. Now we draw the conclusion: under which conditions can you sell our two example products, computer glasses and trail cameras, profitably? Important upfront: all purchase prices, transport costs and selling prices you see below are illustrative assumptions for a rough upfront calculation, not real or expected figures.
What does calculating profitability mean for a new product on bol?
It's the final step of your product research: you determine under which conditions a product will make you a profit, before you buy in stock. In the series we researched two niches in depth, computer glasses and trail cameras, and for both we saw room for new supply on bol. The question that remains is how much it's going to cost you. To answer that, you set every cost item against your selling price, and see what's left per product and across your whole batch.
You can only really calculate that profit once you know which costs play a role. There are four: the product costs, the selling costs (bol's commission), the shipping costs and the advertising costs. We'll go through them one by one and then work through both niches.
What can you see in the quick profit calculator?
The quick profit calculator shows you at a glance which costs an existing product on bol carries, mainly the shipping costs and the commission. You open it in MarktMentor by clicking a product within a product group, for example the computer glasses. What you don't see in it are the product costs (your purchase price plus transport to the Netherlands) and the advertising costs, since those depend heavily on the product you want to offer yourself.
As an example: if you enter a purchase price of 10 euros for an existing product, in the demo you're left with a gross profit of 6.39 euros. That's gross, so without the advertising costs that still come on top. This gives you a quick first sense, but for a new product you're launching yourself, you need a separate calculation. For that we use the more extensive profit calculator. The amount of 6.39 euros is illustrative.
What is ROI, and why is selling on bol a stock game?
ROI stands for Return on Investment and shows how fast you can reinvest your money. To understand that, it helps to see what you're actually doing on bol: you're playing a stock game. You have a certain amount of capital, you invest that in products, you have them shipped to a warehouse in the Netherlands, and then you have stock. You want to turn that stock back into cash by selling it, with the intention that more money comes back than you spent on purchasing and transport. You reinvest that money, so your stock and your revenue can grow.
Your ROI tells you how fast that reinvesting can happen. In the demo, ROI sits at around 33%. That roughly means: for every three products you sell, you can buy one new one. At 100%, you could double your stock the moment you sell out, since then you'd immediately buy a new product for every product sold. So you want a healthy ROI, but one that fits what the market is willing to pay for your product.
You have two levers to influence your ROI. You can raise your selling price, but there you're bound by the market price. Or you lower your product costs, since the shipping costs and the commission are largely fixed. If you move a lot of volume, bol sometimes offers a commission discount, but you can't count on that in advance.
What do the product costs consist of?
The product costs are everything it costs you to buy in one product and get it into a Dutch warehouse. That's four items: the purchase price per unit, the transaction costs (think exchange rates or insurance you take out during purchasing), the transport costs and the packaging costs. Any remaining item you enter under other costs.
The transport costs cover the route from the factory to your warehouse in the Netherlands, for example from China: the work of a freight forwarder. You only know exactly what that costs once you're well into the negotiation process or bring in a forwarder. The same goes for your purchase price. So in this article we don't fix those costs exactly, but give an indication based on reasonable assumptions. If you want to go further, you approach suppliers and sourcers, and only from that do the real figures follow. What you see below is a deliberately rough upfront calculation.
How much commission and shipping costs does bol charge?
The commission and the shipping costs are largely fixed per category and per package type, and you simply pull them from the calculator. Bol's selling commission consists of a variable percentage plus a fixed amount per sale. According to bol's partner platform, that percentage ranges from about 5% to 20.7% depending on the category, on top of a fixed amount of roughly 0.20 to 2.48 euros. In the calculator you simply enter the category, or pick an existing product from that category, and the commission appears automatically.
The shipping costs depend on two things: your package type and your fulfilment choice. For the computer glasses, we chose an XS size early in the series, partly because of the small package type. Within bol you can handle fulfilment in three ways. With LVB (Shipped by bol) bol handles the entire logistics process. With VVB (Send via bol) bol handles part of the shipping, but you deliver the products yourself. With your own fulfilment you're responsible for everything yourself. Each method carries different shipping costs. In this calculation we assume LVB with an XS package.
How do you factor in the advertising costs?
You base the advertising costs on the average winning bid from the previous part, tied to your conversion rate. The average winning bid is what an ad spot costs on average, and that differs per placement type. For the computer glasses we saw around 48 cents on the product pages, 57 cents on the category pages and 1.01 euros on the keywords. Convert that using your conversion rate, and you know what a sale through advertising costs you.
Next you determine how many units you want to sell through advertising. Say you buy in 500 units and want to sell half, 250 units, through advertising to generate quick sales and rise organically. If you focus purely on one of the three placement types, in the example you land somewhere between 1,600 and 3,600 euros. For convenience we take the average across the three, which is about 2,400 euros. You enter that as your advertising budget. If you don't have access to your own conversion figures, you'll need to estimate them outside MarktMentor based on comparable products. The amounts mentioned are illustrative.
What does a basic computer glasses model yield?
A basic computer glasses model, without extra specifications, is hard to make profitable in this example, mainly because of the advertising costs. We fill in the costs: a purchase price of about 2 euros per unit, transaction costs of around 50 euros, transport costs of about 750 euros for the cheapest option (sea freight) and 30 cents packaging per unit. Without a selling price, this basic model costs you a starting investment of roughly 2,000 euros, and once you start selling, advertising adds another roughly 4,000 euros in costs.
In the example, the basic model sells between 10 and 20 euros. Set the price at 9.95 euros, and you run at a loss: you lose about 6.11 euros per unit (including 21% VAT), and you'd need to sell more than the 500 units you bought in, somewhere around 540, to break even. Even at 19 euros you're still not profitable, so with these costs you need to be above 20 euros.
The way out lies in scaling back the advertising. The idea is that after the launch you need to advertise less. Take the advertising costs out, and it looks completely different right away: at 14.95 euros you get about 16% profit margin, and for 20% you'd land around 17.95 euros. If you're only advertising on about 10% of your batch, advertising costs drop to around 480 euros, but even then you don't quite reach that 20%. And 17.95 euros is already on the high side for a bare-bones basic model; you'd be pricing yourself almost out of the market. Advertising costs are the bottleneck here. All amounts are illustrative.
Does a computer glasses model with extra specifications become more profitable?
Yes. By adding a few simple specifications, you move into a higher price bracket while your purchase price only rises a little, and that's exactly what gives you room to carry the advertising costs. For a mid-range model, we add three USPs from the specification research: a coating, a glasses case and a UV filter. The purchase price then goes to about 3.50 euros per unit, transport costs stay the same, and transaction and packaging costs rise slightly. With a price around 27.95 euros, you're already profitable from about 25 euros, even with the full advertising costs included. And since you can probably scale those back after the launch, 24.95 euros is a price point that's already market-appropriate and leaves room.
For a premium model, with a metal frame, glass lenses, a coating, UV and a luxury case, purchasing rises to about 6 euros per unit. Here too you keep comparable margins, and with selling prices up to around 35 euros, good profit remains. The difference is that your starting investment is higher. That's where the trade-off arises: do you buy in more of a standard product, or relatively less of a more expensive one? The prices mentioned are illustrative.
How does the calculation turn out for the trail cameras?
For the trail cameras it's trickier, since the advertising cost per sale is much higher. A sale through advertising costs about 44 euros here in the example. If you wanted to sell 250 units through advertising just like with the glasses, you'd end up above 10,000 euros, and you won't earn that back on this basis. So we calculate with fewer advertised units, around 100, which comes to about 4,400 euros in advertising budget.
A basic model (4K, no SD card, tripod or extras) costs about 22 euros per unit to buy in in the example, and since it's a medium package, transport and packaging are higher than with the glasses. A market-appropriate price where you still make a profit comes out around 61.99 euros, which is on the high side. Add specifications, and you can go higher on price. A mid-range model with more storage (64 GB) and higher resolution costs about 38 euros to purchase and is profitable in the long run from about 85 euros; without advertising you hit the 20% margin there. A premium model with even more storage (120 GB), solar panels and 4K with night vision comes out at comparable margins at a price around 100 euros, and with scaled-back advertising it moves back towards 20%. Here too the starting investment is substantial, so a mid-range model where you differentiate on specific components can be a logical starting point. All figures are illustrative.
Why can a low-ticket product be more interesting than mid or high ticket?
Because with a low-ticket product you can raise your price with simple extra specifications without your product costs rising much, making it easier to carry the advertising costs. We saw exactly that with the computer glasses: a case, a coating and a UV filter lift you into a higher price bracket, while your purchase price only goes up by a few euros. With the trail camera, a large share of your money is already tied up in the purchase itself, and combined with the high advertising costs you then need substantial starting capital.
Especially if you're working with a limited budget and can't push down the unit cost by buying in a huge quantity at once, a low-ticket product with a few smart specifications can therefore be more interesting than a mid- or high-ticket product. That's the core lesson from this calculation.
Which profit margin and ROI should you aim for?
As a rule of thumb, this article mentions a profit margin of around 20% and an ROI of about 30% or more. That's a target figure to work towards, not a hard limit: what counts as a healthy margin differs per category and per seller. A net margin of roughly 15% to 25% is considered healthy for many web shops, with room to go higher in niches with little competition.
Keep in mind that the amounts in this calculation are assumptions. Once you know your real purchase and transport costs from suppliers, sourcers or a freight forwarder, you may well end up with a healthy margin and ROI at lower selling prices than shown here. The calculation mainly teaches you which levers exist, not exactly what your product should cost.
What's the next step, and what have you learned across the whole series?
The next step is getting in touch with suppliers, sourcers or a freight forwarder, so you can pin down your real purchase and transport costs. Those two items have the biggest influence on your final price, and only with real figures do you know whether your product is viable.
With this we close out the product research series on bol from A to Z. We started with market knowledge and initial market research, chose a niche, analysed the market in depth, looked for distinctiveness in the reviews, determined the specifications, worked out a launch strategy, and now calculated the profit. From a broad idea, you've arrived at a well-founded purchasing decision. If you want to turn that decision into sales, your first 1,000 euros in revenue on bol is the logical next step.
Summary: how you calculate profitability
- Set all costs against your selling price. The product costs (purchase, transaction costs, transport and packaging), the commission, the shipping costs and the advertising costs together determine your margin.
- Think in ROI, not just margin. Your ROI shows how fast you can reinvest; at around 33% you buy one new unit for every three you sell.
- Advertising costs are often the bottleneck. After the launch you can scale them back, and that often makes the difference between a loss and a healthy margin in the long run.
- Low ticket with simple specifications can win. A cheaper product to which you add a few specifications can be more interesting than an expensive product when working with a limited budget.
- Aim for a rule of thumb of around 20% margin and 30% ROI. A target figure, not a hard limit; it differs per category and per seller.
- All amounts are assumptions. The real purchase and transport costs only follow from negotiation with suppliers, sourcers or a freight forwarder.