Import Business Profit Calculator

Import business profit depends on landed cost, meaning supplier price plus shipping plus duty, set against selling price. Mark-ups vary by product category and jurisdiction; ranges some importers work to are around 2 to 3 times landed cost for B2C retail and 1.5 to 2 times for B2B wholesale. A common failure mode: founders cost the product on supplier price alone, leave out shipping and duty, and find at shelf that the margin does not cover overhead.

500 units at 8 supplier price plus 2 shipping plus 8% duty on the supplier price gives 5,320 landed. Selling at 25 gives 12,500 revenue. Profit is 7,180, a gross margin of 57.44% on revenue, before overhead, marketing, payment fees, returns and storage. At higher volumes, per-unit freight and clearance costs can fall, which moves the landed figure.

Which duty rate applies depends on how the product is classified. Customs authorities assign goods to a code under the Harmonized System, the international nomenclature that most trading nations share, and the duty rate attaches to that code rather than to the product description on an invoice. The rates themselves are set nationally and published in tariff schedules, so the same item can carry different duty in two destination markets.

Common import frictions: minimum order quantities from factories, which some importers report at 500 to 2,000 units for a first order, with an upfront outlay in the 5,000 to 20,000 range in the purchase currency. Lead times commonly run 6 to 12 weeks from Asia and 3 to 6 weeks from Europe. Currency movement over a long lead time can move landed cost in either direction, since goods are often priced in the supplier’s currency and sold in another. Defects in a first batch mean inspection before shipping, which adds cost.

Run it with sensible defaults

Using monthly units of 500, supplier price per unit of 8, shipping per unit of 2, duty of 8% and a selling price of 25, the calculation works out to 7,180.00. That is 12,500 of revenue against 5,320 of landed cost, of which 320 is duty, giving a gross margin of 57.44%. The defaults are meant as a starting point, not a recommendation.

The levers in this calculation

Selling Price is the largest lever: a 1% change in it moves Monthly Gross Import Profit by 1.74%, because the whole of the increase drops through while landed cost stays where it is. Monthly Units comes next at exactly 1.00%, since volume scales revenue and cost together and the profit per unit is unchanged.

The three cost inputs move it the other way and by less. Supplier Price per Unit is worth 0.60% for a 1% change, and it carries duty with it, since duty is charged on the supplier price. Shipping per Unit is worth 0.14%, and Duty % only 0.04%, which is the smallest lever of the five at these values. Moving duty from 8% to 12% takes profit from 7,180 to 7,020 and the margin from 57.44% to 56.16%, so a duty rise of half again costs less than a 20% price cut would.

One row behaves differently from the rest. Gross Margin is unmoved by volume: 500 units and 2,000 units both return 57.44%, because units multiply revenue and landed cost equally. Profit scales with volume, the margin does not, so the two rows answer different questions.

How the math works

Landed cost per unit is supplier price plus shipping plus duty, where duty is charged on the supplier price and excludes freight. Revenue is units multiplied by selling price. Profit is revenue less total landed cost, and gross margin is that profit as a share of revenue.

What this doesn’t capture

The result reflects only the inputs entered. It leaves out VAT, GST and other consumption taxes, cargo insurance, port and brokerage fees, storage, returns and marketing. Duty here is applied to the supplier price alone; some customs regimes assess duty on a CIF value that includes freight and insurance, which produces a higher duty figure.

It is a gross figure in the strict sense: the only costs deducted are the landed cost of the goods themselves. Everything that stands between landed stock and money in the bank, from warehousing to the payment fee on the sale, sits outside it. A 57% gross margin on this page is not a 57% business.