Fractional CFO for e-commerce and DTC brands
In e-commerce, a fractional CFO makes margin and cash visible at the level where decisions are made: per SKU, per channel and per campaign. That means fully loaded product margin after fees, shipping, returns and ad spend, true profit-based ROAS instead of platform ROAS, and a cash forecast that respects stock lead times and marketplace payout delays. Most brands discover that 15% to 25% of their SKUs lose money once every cost is loaded in.
- Typical finding
- 15% to 25% of SKUs unprofitable when fully loaded
- Key metric
- Contribution margin after ads, not gross margin
- Cash driver
- Stock lead times and marketplace payout timing
- Channels
- Shopify, Amazon, marketplaces, wholesale, retail
15+ years in finance: 100+ financial models built, €40m+ raised for clients, Forbes contributor and lecturer.
E-commerce is unusually good at hiding losses. Revenue is visible in real time, the dashboard is green, and the bank balance still drifts down. The reason is almost always that the reported margin is not the real margin.
Where the money actually goes
Gross margin ignores most of what a unit costs you: inbound freight and duties, outbound shipping and packaging, payment and platform fees, returns and refunds, discounting, and the ad spend that produced the order. Load all of it and the ranking of your products changes, usually dramatically.
What we build
Fully loaded SKU margin. Every cost layer allocated down to the unit, so you can see which products fund the business and which are subsidised by the ones that do.
True ROAS. Platform ROAS counts revenue. We count contribution after product cost, fees, shipping and returns, so a 3.2 ROAS campaign that loses money stops looking like a winner.
Channel truth. Amazon, Shopify, marketplaces and wholesale each take their cut differently and pay out on different clocks. We normalise them so channel comparisons mean something.
Cash forecast that respects stock. Inventory is where DTC cash dies: you pay for goods months before they sell, then wait again for marketplace payouts. The 13-week forecast models both, so you know which purchase order breaks which week.
Returns and cohort behaviour. Repeat rate and return rate by cohort decide whether an acquisition channel is an investment or a leak.
What changes for the founder
Pricing and discount decisions get boring, in the good way. You stop scaling campaigns that buy revenue at a loss, you kill or reprice the SKUs that never worked, and you place stock orders against a forecast instead of a feeling.
Who this fits
DTC brands, Amazon and marketplace sellers, and hybrid brands running retail or wholesale alongside online, typically between €1M and €50M revenue.
Related questions
Do you work with Amazon sellers?
Yes. Fee and payout reconciliation, FBA cost allocation and marketplace margin are standard parts of the work.
Can you fix our ROAS reporting without changing tools?
Usually yes. We rebuild the margin logic on top of your existing store, ad platform and accounting data.
How long before we see the real SKU picture?
Typically two to four weeks, depending on how clean the cost data is.
Written from our own CFO engagements: how we scope retainers, what we deliver in the first 30 days, and what founders actually ask on diagnostic calls. Third-party studies are cited only when we can link them.
- How we scope engagements – our published scoping factors
A free 30-minute call with a senior CFO. No sales pitch – just a clear read on where your money is and what to do next.