What Unit Economics does for you
Unit Economics uses the order data already in Blue Onion and the product costs you provide, so there are no spreadsheets to build.
Use it to answer questions like:
Which SKUs earn the most margin, and which ones lose money?
How does margin compare across Shopify, Amazon, TikTok Shop and your other channels?
How much are discounts costing you each month?
What took this order, or this month, from revenue down to margin?
Which products have the highest refund rates?
Unit Economics is in Beta. You'll find it in the left menu under Unit Economics, with five pages: Business Intelligence, Inventory Mapping, COGS Rates, Line Item Intelligence and Refund Intelligence.
Setting up your data
Accurate margins need two things: every SKU mapped, and a product cost for every SKU. Your order data is already in Blue Onion, so setup only covers these two steps.
Step 1: Map your SKUs
Go to Unit Economics → Inventory Mapping. The page lists your Unmapped and Mapped SKUs.
Original SKU is the SKU exactly as it arrives on orders from your sales channels.
Order Source shows which channel each SKU comes from (Shopify, Amazon, TikTok Shop and others), color coded. Use it to see where your mapping gaps are.
GL Inventory Item is the item in your accounting system that the SKU posts to.
Map each unmapped SKU to its GL Inventory Item. Several storefront SKUs can map to the same item. To work offline, download the unmapped list, fill it in and upload it back.
Step 2: Add your product costs
Go to Unit Economics → COGS Rates. There are three ways to add costs, and you can use more than one. When sources disagree, the most recent cost wins.
Automatic sync from NetSuite or QuickBooks Online. If your accounting system is connected, costs come in automatically. NetSuite uses the item's average cost (or standard cost, then last purchase price, if that's missing). QuickBooks uses weighted average cost. Synced costs can't be edited in Blue Onion; change them in your accounting system.
CSV upload. Click Download Template, fill it in and upload it.
Add or edit in the app. Click Add Rate to enter a cost for one SKU, or add a cost to several missing SKUs at once.
The CSV template has four columns:
Column | What to enter |
sku | The SKU as it appears on your orders (not case sensitive) |
cost_per_unit | Cost per unit sold, greater than 0 |
currency | A 3 letter currency code, such as USD or EUR |
valid_from | The date this cost takes effect, as YYYY-MM-DD |
Upload rules:
CSV files only, up to 10MB.
Each SKU uses one currency.
The same SKU and date can't appear twice.
If a SKU isn't found on any order, you'll see a warning, but the upload still goes through.
If a new cost overlaps an existing one, choose Update to end the old cost and start the new one from its date, or Replace to overwrite it.
Costs are tied to dates. Each item is costed at the rate in effect when it shipped, so a new cost never rewrites past periods.
Step 3: Clear the warning banners
The Business Intelligence page shows a banner when SKUs are missing a cost or a mapping. Click Review to go straight to the page where you can fix them. SKUs without a cost show a dash instead of a margin, and are left out of averages.