(and are leaving millions on the table)
While most people obsess over a single metric—increasing sales—the most profitable eCommerce businesses see beyond that.
In my experience auditing P&Ls of companies between €1-10M annually, I’ve identified 11 levers that can unlock between 15-40% additional profitability without touching the acquisition budget.
90% of the eCommerce businesses I audit have never systematically tested their prices.
Critical error.
Why do we assume that the price we’ve set is correct?
Maybe if we lower it by 10%, we increase the conversion rate by 20%. Or vice versa: if we increase the price by 15%, we maintain the same conversion rate.
Both scenarios have the same result: more money in your bank account with the same traffic.
In a recent client, an 8% increase maintained conversion intact and added €180K annually directly to EBITDA.
Understanding your price elasticity through these tests is extraordinarily powerful and can generate direct impact on your bottom line.
If your team doesn’t operate with strict CPA or minimum ROAS objectives, you’re literally giving away margin to the platforms.
Basically, you’re telling Facebook and Google: “get customers, try to do it profitably, but if you don’t succeed, it doesn’t matter, keep spending.”
Facebook and Google optimize for their billing, not for your profitability. Their ultimate goal, after all, is for you to spend more and more money, which isn’t aligned with yours: obtaining more profits.
Within the platforms you have the possibility to establish Bid Controls, either by CPA or by ROAS.
Make sure the bottleneck isn’t in your investment efficiency, but in volume.
Growth at any cost is already out of fashion.
Your sales volume from 18 months ago isn’t the same as today, so why don’t your supplier contracts reflect that?
If you have prices determined two years ago and never renegotiate them despite buying more, it’s time for a phone call.
I’ve seen 5-12% reductions in variable costs (COGS, logistics, software, Amazon and Shopify commissions, etc.) simply by renegotiating terms based on current volumes.
You’d be surprised by the number of suppliers willing to negotiate new terms to avoid losing you.
This tactic can free up tens of thousands in annual gross income.
We all know (or sense) that Facebook and Google “embellish” their results.
ROAS reported by platforms tend to overestimate real impact by 20-60%, depending on campaign type.
For example, Brand search campaigns on Google exaggerate their results up to 5x.
And many businesses act as if nothing happened, increasing their investment without knowing they’re actually losing money.
If you invest more than €10K monthly in digital, incrementality tests are mandatory to understand the real ROI of each channel.
These tests help you understand the real impact of your advertising and prevent platform ROAS from deceiving you. This way you understand the real role of each channel, campaign, and strategy.
And we stop giving money to Zuckerberg, who already has enough.
Not all products in your eCommerce are equal:
Consider all these aspects when promoting products, both on advertising platforms and on your website.
Determine which are the most profitable, with highest demand and that generate solid LTV.
Prioritize promoting products that maximize total contribution and cash flow, not just sales volume.
Returns are a silent margin killer—invisible in platform reports but devastating in real P&L.
I’ve worked with brands that have up to 20% return rates. A 5% reduction in returns typically equals an 8-12% increase in net margin.
If your business is one of them, you need to prioritize this problem:
The risk of implementing these changes is almost zero and can have a brutal impact on your P&L.
The Holy Grail of eCommerce isn’t the first sale, but the following ones.
Implementing subscription or membership models can transform your P&L with predictable income and reduced acquisition costs.
After all, you only have to acquire the customer once.
If your product has recurring nature, offer subscriptions.
If not, create memberships with exclusive discounts and access to premium content or communities, like True Classic does.
This isn’t just the finance and operations team’s job. It’s also marketing’s responsibility.
There are thousands of ways to reduce fixed costs within your team. Here are some:
Efficiency through AI: With current tools, the creation of copy, creatives, web pages and even videos can be largely automated. Invest time in teaching your team how to integrate AI into their daily work and you’ll see an immediate productivity increase.
Tool Audit: You’re surely paying for applications you don’t use or that add little value. Do an exhaustive review, determine what really helps your team and cancel the rest. Typical savings are between €2-5K monthly in unnecessary subscriptions.
I assure you that you have thousands of euros monthly waiting to be unlocked in your OPEX.
Not everything in marketing is generic evergreen ads. It’s also about giving the customer a reason to buy today, not tomorrow.
Think about what days and events you can leverage:
If you sell children’s products: back-to-school in August-September. If you sell men’s products: Movember movement.
Be creative and give your customer a reason to buy from you today.
Sometimes, generating more creatives and videos isn’t enough.
To increase profitability and billing you need to create products that satisfy new needs and unlock new markets.
Successful examples:
Talk to your customer, research the market, discover unmet needs and develop products for them.
Constant discounts train customers to wait for promotions and erode brand value.
Elasticity studies demonstrate that much of the sales driven by discounts are non-incremental—they generate sales that would have occurred anyway.
Byron Sharp has extensively documented this phenomenon in his book “How Brands Grow.”
Don’t abuse them. Use them sporadically to:
These 11 levers can transform a marginal eCommerce into a highly profitable operation.
The difference between teams that scale sustainably and those that stagnate lies in systematically executing this type of optimization.
I know it may seem like a lot, and doing everything at once can feel overwhelming. Start little by little, but start today.
Do you recognize unexploited opportunities in your P&L?
If you bill between €1-10M annually and want a strategic audit of these levers in your business, let’s talk.
At ASTEROI we dedicate ourselves to growing eCommerce companies profitably and predictably. From understanding your business financially, making forecasts to profit, generating comprehensive strategies considering your costs, to implementing tracking systems and daily action to ensure your objectives are met.
Schedule a 30-minute call to explore your business’s specific potential.
