Glossary
Amazon seller metrics, defined
The 13 numbers FlipIQ Batch puts on a supplier row, defined the way the product defines them: what each one means, the formula where there is one, and what it is worth when you are deciding whether to buy a line off a wholesale price list.
These definitions use the same source as the product. Practice with numbers in the free tools.
Buy Box (shipping included)
The current price winning Amazon's Buy Box for this product. It's the base used to calculate Profit, ROI and Margin. When it comes from market data it is the landed price — shipping is already inside the figure, so don't add a shipping column on top of it.
On a supplier list: A supplier file gives you one half of every calculation on this page — what the unit costs you. This is the other half, and it is the half that moves without asking you.
Best (FBA/MFN)
Shows which fulfillment method gives the better result for this product: FBA (Amazon ships it) or MFN (you ship it). Both scenarios are computed and the winner is shown.
On a supplier list: The same supplier row can be dead as FBA and workable as MFN. A bulky, cheap unit is mostly fee under one and mostly postage under the other, so picking a fulfillment method once for the whole list decides some rows before you have looked at them.
Profit
Estimated net profit per unit, after Amazon fees, shipping, packaging, promotions, a return reserve, product cost and prep.
Formula: Profit = Net revenue − Total cost
On a supplier list: Profit in dollars is what says whether a row is worth handling at all. Forty cents a unit is a rounding error once a case has been received, labeled and shipped, however good the percentage next to it looks.
ROI
How much you earn per dollar you invested to get the product ready to sell. Measures capital efficiency, not the sale price. Reflects the winning scenario (FBA or MFN); multipack products may show a separate corrected per-unit ROI.
Formula: ROI = Profit ÷ (Cost + Prep + Shipping + Packaging)
On a supplier list: When the constraint is cash and not shelf space — the usual situation with a supplier list and a fixed budget — this is the column to sort by: it ranks rows by how fast the money comes back to buy the next case.
Margin
What share of the sale price ends up as net profit. Measures how thin or fat the price is, not how efficient your investment is.
Formula: Margin = Profit ÷ Buy Box price
On a supplier list: Two rows with the same ROI can sit at very different margins, and the thin one is the first to go underwater when somebody already on the listing drops their price a dollar.
Cost assumptions (what we deduct)
Profit is computed with the reseller's own costs, not just Amazon fees: a tiered return reserve (5% of price up to $50, lower % above), your FBA prep + inbound shipping per unit, and for FBM an estimated outbound shipping cost (the cheaper of USPS Ground Advantage and UPS Ground by billable weight, national average zone) plus prep/packaging and a reserve for the round-trip shipping lost on a return. Prep and shipping values come from the cost profile you set on the job. This is why our numbers can look lower than tools that assume $0 shipping and $0 prep — those ROIs don't survive contact with reality.
On a supplier list: This is why the same supplier row can pass in one tool and fail in another. A row whose profit only exists at $0 shipping and $0 prep is not a row you can buy — it is a row you can lose money on efficiently.
Rank / BSR
Best Sellers Rank: the product's position within its Amazon category based on sales velocity. Lower means it sells faster. It's a demand signal, not a profitability signal.
On a supplier list: A supplier list has no demand column. BSR is the cheapest demand check there is before you commit to a case pack of something nobody is looking for.
Sellers
How many other sellers are competing for the Buy Box on this listing (includes Amazon itself, flagged AMZ). More sellers usually means more price pressure.
On a supplier list: A cheap row on a listing that already has a crowd is a price war you are joining late — and if Amazon itself is one of those sellers, the Buy Box you did the arithmetic against may never be yours.
Rating / Reviews
Average rating and review count for the product on Amazon.
On a supplier list: A price list will not tell you that a product comes back. A low rating with a high review count usually will, and returns are the cost that never appears in the supplier's column.
Velocity
A 0-100 read on how fast the listing moves, built from the first signal available, in this order: Amazon's own “bought in the past month” badge when the product has one; failing that, the count of sales-rank drops in the last 30 days; and if neither exists, a coarse estimate from the BSR bracket alone. The three sources are not comparable: a product carrying Amazon's badge lands near 100 almost every time, and a score built from the BSR bracket is an assumption, not a measurement.
On a supplier list: Margin on inventory that does not move is a storage bill. This is what separates a profitable row from a profitable row that actually sells.
Price stability
How steady the price stayed over the last ~31 days, read from the Buy Box history (New price as fallback). It is the coefficient of variation of that series, weighted by how long each price was actually in force. 100 = the price barely moved; 0 = it swung 50% or more around its own average. Blank below 7 days of history. It says nothing about account safety or data quality.
On a supplier list: You buy against a price that was true the day the list was analyzed and you sell weeks later, once the units are inbound. This is the read on how wide that gap can open.
Sold/mo
Estimated units sold per month, based on historical market data.
On a supplier list: It turns a per-unit profit into an order size: what the listing absorbs in a month, shared with everyone else selling it, bounds how much of the supplier's case you should actually take.
Revenue/mo
Estimated monthly revenue if the product keeps selling at its current pace.
Formula: Revenue/mo = Buy Box price × Units sold/mo
On a supplier list: It sizes the listing, not your share of it. A large figure with a crowd of sellers on the row measures competition as much as opportunity.