Evaluate your first ten orders on bol

After your first ten orders on bol you can compare your assumptions with real orders. Was the delivery time you promised correct? Was shipping more expensive than you thought? Put the ten orders together and calculate what they yielded before you restock again.

Check your orders for delivery and customer questions

Bol gives new partners during GroeiStart an interim update after 10 and 50 orders. The update looks at on-time delivery, cancellations and customer questions. You find your performance under Performance in the sales account. this is how bol assesses GroeiStart.

Create for yourself one line per order number. Note the item, the quantity, the promised delivery time, the actual delivery and any cancellations, questions or returns. Write down what happened for any deviation. If a package arrived late because you missed the pickup round, you can move your daily packing moment earlier and see if the next shipments arrive on time.

Calculate the first ten orders

This fictional example assumes ten orders of one item at €25 excl. VAT. Nine buyers keep the product. One customer gets the full purchase amount back and the damaged return item cannot be restocked. All amounts in the overview are excl. VAT. Use your own overview with the actual commission and any adjustments from your invoice specification.

• Orders 1 through 8 arrive on time and are kept. Per order €9 remains after €3 commission, €3.40 shipping, €0.60 packaging and €9 purchase. Together they deliver €72.
• Order 9 arrives late and is kept. With the same costs €9 remains.
• Order 10 is returned. The revenue and commission are reversed in this example. Shipping, packaging, purchase and the return label of €4 together cost €17.

The ten orders together deliver €64 after direct costs. You can also recalculate with the totals. From €225 revenue after refund you subtract €27 commission, €34 shipping, €6 packaging, €90 purchase and €4 for the return label. That is €6.40 per original order, before fixed costs and your own time. If you can sell the return item again, it goes back into stock for €9 in this example. The contribution then rises to €73. The purchase amount of that item remains tied up in your inventory.

Put the invoice specification next to your own costs

Open in the bol sales account the tab Finances and download the Sales Invoice and the invoice specification. Bol groups revenue and costs per invoice period and settles a return in the period you process it. Note the original order number for each return. This way you keep the first ten together when a correction appears on a later invoice. Also enter your purchase, packaging and own shipping costs yourself if they fall outside the invoice. Explanation from bol about the Sales Invoice.

Change one thing for the next ten

Did the return happen because a size was unclear? Make the dimensions clearer in the product information and note whether there are still questions about that in the next ten orders. If the margin was already tight before that return, recalculate your price or shipping costs first. Ten orders give you something to improve and form a small basis for a stock decision.

View the Zoloo Sales Dashboard to compare your revenue, costs and returns for the same period side by side. Check the purchase costs of a return that you can resell yourself. The dashboard does not automatically reverse manually entered purchase costs for a return. Read how this works in the explanation of the dashboard. the guide with side hustle ideas if you compare your sales on bol with other options.