Selling on Shopify and B&Q: Keep Profit Visible

Selling on your own Shopify store and on the B&Q Marketplace gives you two very different routes to the same customer. The two have different costs, so a product that is comfortable on one can be tight on the other.

Two fee structures side by side

• Shopify: no marketplace commission, but payment processing, shipping, app subscriptions and the ad spend that brings shoppers in
• B&Q Marketplace: a Mirakl commission on each sale, plus fulfilment and refunds
• Both: your cost of goods and any operating costs

On a typical marketplace, referral fees can run around 15% of a sale. Shopify Payments runs 2.9% plus 30p. The difference per sale looks small, but it changes which products are worth selling on each channel.

Compare like with like

Looking at each platform's own report hides the comparison, because each shows revenue its own way. Putting both on net margin per SKU shows which channel earns more for each product, and where the gap is large enough to justify different pricing.

A simple approach

• Connect both channels to one profit view
• Load costs once, and use them for both
• List the products you sell on both and compare margin side by side
• Move ad spend and stock toward the channel that earns more per unit

An example

A £25 sale on a marketplace with a 15% referral fee loses £3.75 to the fee. The same sale on Shopify loses about £1.03 to payment processing at 2.9% plus 30p. That is £2.72 more margin, before shipping, ads and apps. If the B&Q channel adds sales you would not otherwise get, it can still be worth it. You can only judge that with the numbers side by side.

Does WhatSales list my products on B&Q?

No. WhatSales shows profit across channels. Product publishing is a separate tool in our platform called Flow, and what it supports is listed at /flow.

Should I put the same prices on both?

Not necessarily. Different fee structures can justify different prices, but check each marketplace's pricing rules first.

Which channel should get more ad spend?

The one where each pound of advertising returns more profit, not just more sales. Measure it per channel.

About connecting: WhatSales supports Shopify at /integrations/shopify and B&Q at /integrations/b-and-q. We do not claim to list products between the two for you. The point here is to see profit for each in one place.