[fabricexpert]

Thanks - how are your margins higher even with an employee? I'm guessing your markup is way higher?

I'm in the UK - I don't think our market can support higher margins (cost to import fabrics is relatively high), so just curious.

[lifeisstillgood]

Can I quickly thank you both for honesty - it's always good to get behind the scenes insights into businesses I know little about but see in passing. Thank you

[jimnotgym]

Firstly accounting. Almost anything can be included in your margin (as long you are consistent). I think you atter talking more in terms of net- profit margin (all costs included) whereas fridaysoff seems to be talking about gross-profit (sales minus cost of the goods that you sold). As an online retailer I would suggest that you understand your gross-margin (how much you make on the product) separately from the costs of warehousing and shipping and separately from the overheads of accountancy, banking etc.

The reason for this is that by just summing your costs you louse sight of how various areas are performing, and you also lose the ability to compare. If you become a better buyer your gross margin improves, but by employing a picker it stays the same, however type warehousing costs do increase.

So in essence when most people say 'margin' they mean a simple sales-minus-cost-of-goods-sold.

Disclosure: I'm in finance at a retailer/wholesaler who is doing around 5x what the article is doing on ecommerce, it's smallest channel (about 1/20th of the company, but growing)

[flyGuyOnTheSly]

You're in an overserved marked in the UK, whereas OP is in an underserved market in Canada.

[goodmachine]

I'd be very interested to know how customer sales typically break down between design categories: solid colours, geometrics, florals etc. Do you have any insight you can share there?

Context: trying to understand the design market.

[fabricexpert]

We stock a lot of florals and dressmaking fabrics, I don't think the data is large enough to derive any insight on market trends though.