Which costs determine your profitability on bol?
Lars HurkmansCo-founder19 February 2026Temps de lecture 5 minutesYour profitability on bol is determined by five cost components between your revenue and your net profit: purchase and shipping costs, bol's commission, advertising costs, storage costs and return costs. Many sellers overestimate their profit because they don't include everything. Only once you calculate all five per product do you know what you really keep.
Why do many sellers overestimate their profit on bol?
Because they look at the revenue in their dashboard and assume they're earning from it. You see revenue coming in, orders running, your range growing. But between that revenue and what actually remains sits a whole series of costs. If you don't have all of them in view, you might think you're making a profit while in reality you keep very little. Or worse: you're running a loss on products you thought were profitable.
This blog is about your ongoing sales: products already running, with all the costs that come with that, including storage and returns. If you want to estimate before a launch whether a new product can be profitable before you buy stock, you make a pre-calculation with assumptions. We cover that angle in calculating profitability (pre-launch).
What five cost components make up your margin on bol?
On bol you pay five cost components per product: your purchase and shipping costs, bol's commission, advertising costs, storage costs and return costs. Each of these components can differ strongly per product, per category and per shipping method.
1. Purchase costs and shipping costs
The purchase price is the foundation, but shipping costs can be at least as decisive for your margin. A small letterbox parcel costs little to ship. A large, heavy product costs considerably more.
Shipping costs depend on your fulfilment choice. With LVB (Logistics via bol), bol handles the full process including storage. With VVB (Shipping via bol), you handle storage and bol is responsible for shipping. With your own shipping, you arrange everything yourself. The costs vary strongly between these options and have a direct impact on your margin per product.
2. bol's commission
bol charges commission per product sold, and the differences between categories are enormous. At a sale price of 59 euros you pay almost 10 euros in commission for some product groups, while for others it's less than 2.50 euros. That's a difference of roughly a factor of four at the same sale price. The current percentages are in bol's commission rates.
Because commission comes straight off your margin, it's essential to know the commission structure of your product category before you determine your purchase price and sale price.
3. Advertising costs
If you use Sponsored Products to make your product visible, you pay per click, and those costs need to be allocated per product to know what you net earn on that product. A product can look profitable at first glance, but if you pay 3 euros per click and your conversion is low, the advertising costs eat into your margin. How much advertising costs at a launch, with the average winning bid as the core, is worked out in advertising costs at a launch.
4. Storage costs
Storage costs are charged per day, per product, for as long as your stock sits there. If you use LVB to store your stock at bol, those costs pile up the longer a product sits in stock without selling. Slow-moving products can therefore become surprisingly expensive. The same applies if you have products at an external fulfilment centre.
5. Return costs
This is the cost item most often underestimated. Return costs cover more than just the return label. You deal with refunds to customers (the gross revenue you give back), costs for replacement products if you send a new unit, and the consequences when products go back into stock (restocking, any damage that makes the product no longer sellable).
Return rates differ enormously per product group. In some categories you barely have returns. In others, think of clothing, braces or juicers, more than 1 in 7 sales can be sent back. The difference between the highest and lowest return category can be as much as a factor of 25. Which return rate belongs to your category, you find out in your market research. If you don't include this in your calculations, you make a serious error in your profit forecast.
Why do all these costs matter together?
Because the combination determines your real margin, not one component on its own. Each cost component looks manageable on its own. But a product with a good purchase price can still be loss-making if the commission is high, advertising costs pile up, and the return rate disappoints.
An example. You sell a product for 29 euros. Purchase price 12 euros, shipping costs 3 euros, commission 4.50 euros. That looks like 9.50 euros margin. But if you spend 2 euros per sale on advertising, 0.50 euros on storage, and 10% of sales come back (meaning you lose 12 euros in purchase cost per return plus the return shipping), your real margin per product sold and kept is considerably lower than that 9.50 euros. The only way to know what you really keep is to calculate all five components per product.
How do you get insight into your profitability?
By calculating all five cost components per product based on your real sales data. MarktMentor does this automatically based on the data from your connected bol shop. Shipping costs are calculated based on product dimensions and fulfilment type, commissions are retrieved per order, and the return, advertising and storage costs are fully included.
Per product you see what you keep net after all costs, sorted from most to least profitable. This way you know which products are your money makers, which run at a loss, and where your margins are under pressure. At shop level you see a complete profit and loss statement per period, from gross revenue to net profit with all costs visible, filterable by time period, category, country and brand.
How do you steer on profitability?
By steering your range on your calculated margins instead of on your revenue. You use the insights from your profit calculation to make choices: stop products that structurally run at a loss, or adjust their prices. Focus on products with the best combination of margin and volume. Determine where advertising is still worthwhile and where it isn't. This way you make decisions based on real numbers, not on how your revenue looks. The difference between thinking you're making a profit and knowing what you really keep can be big.
Summary: what to watch out for
- Calculate with five cost components, not one or two. Purchase and shipping, bol's commission, advertising, storage and returns together determine your margin.
- Revenue isn't profit. Between the revenue in your dashboard and your net profit sits a whole series of costs.
- Return costs are most often underestimated. They cover refunds, replacement, restocking and damage, and the return rate differs strongly per category.
- Commission differs strongly per category. At the same sale price the difference can be as much as roughly a factor of four.
- Calculate per product and steer on real margins. Stop or reprice loss-makers, and focus on the best combination of margin and volume.