Work out what you can pay for resale inventory

1. Start with a complete, clearly labeled example

Suppose a supplier quotes $90 per unit for four identical units. You assume an expected sale price of $150 per unit and a lower sale price of $120. You choose an $80 minimum estimated profit for the whole purchase, a 25% return on total acquisition cost, and no loss in the lower-price case. Those targets are your example assumptions, not universal standards.

The sale prices exclude buyer-paid shipping and sales tax collected from buyers. The simplified fee applies only to those modeled sales. Actual fee bases and schedules can differ: eBay’s selling-fee guidance, for example, describes category and account differences and fees based on amounts beyond the item price. Check the fee base and all applicable charges before using your own numbers.

Before accepting the sale-price input, audit the sold-price evidence for one sealed unit. A displayed asking amount, an unknown accepted offer, and a multi-unit lot should not silently become the same price assumption.

2. Subtract selling costs before setting the buying limit

Expected sales leave $600 − $60 fees − $32 outbound shipping − $8 other selling costs = $500 for acquisition cost and deal profit. This $500 is not profit: the inventory has not been paid for in that calculation.

For an $80 estimated deal-profit target, the maximum total landed acquisition cost is $500 − $80 = $420. Landed acquisition cost includes merchandise, purchase tax, inbound shipping, and the other acquisition costs in this example.

At the supplier’s $90 quote, merchandise costs $360. Add $18 purchase tax and $32 other acquisition costs to get $410 landed cost. Expected deal profit is $500 − $410 = $90, so that quote clears the $80 dollar target. It still needs the other checks below.

In general: maximum landed cost for a dollar-profit target = modeled sales − selling costs − financing charges − target deal profit. This is an estimate for this purchase before business-wide overhead and income tax. Avoid calling it complete business net profit.

3. A return target can produce a different ceiling

Here, return on cost = estimated deal profit ÷ total landed acquisition cost. It is not profit divided by the sticker price or by gross sales. At the $90 quote, that is $90 ÷ $410, or about 21.95%, below the chosen 25% target.

With $500 left before acquisition cost, profit is $500 minus landed cost. To earn 25% on that cost, solve landed cost × 1.25 = $500. The return-based ceiling is therefore $500 ÷ 1.25 = $400. At $400 cost, $100 profit is a 25% return on cost.

For this simplified model: maximum landed cost for a return target = proceeds left before acquisition cost ÷ (1 + target return). Write 25% as 0.25. With both the $80 profit target and 25% return target, use the lower of $420 and $400.

4. Test the lower sale price before choosing the ceiling

The lower-price case leaves $480 − $48 fees − $32 outbound shipping − $8 other selling costs = $392 before acquisition cost. To avoid a loss in this particular scenario, landed cost cannot exceed $392. The original $410 cost would produce a lower-price loss of $18.

All three checks must hold, so the example’s acquisition-cost ceiling is $392. A lower sale price is an explicit scenario, not a statistical percentile or a promised floor. It does not capture every possible loss, refund, shipping change, or delay.

5. Convert landed cost into the supplier’s per-unit price

The supplier’s sticker price is only part of acquisition cost. Remove the $32 of other acquisition costs from the $392 ceiling, then allow for the example’s 5% purchase tax on merchandise:

Maximum merchandise total = ($392 − $32) ÷ 1.05 ≈ $342.8571.
Per-unit sticker ceiling = $342.8571 ÷ 4 ≈ $85.7143.

Start by rounding down to $85.71 per unit, then recalculate the entire purchase to the cent. Merchandise is $342.84; tax is rounded once on that whole merchandise total ($342.84 × 5% = $17.142 → $17.14); the other acquisition costs are $32. Per-unit or per-line tax rounding can differ by cents. Total landed cost is $391.98.

The expected deal profit becomes $500 − $391.98 = $108.02, approximately 27.56% return on landed cost. The lower-price result is $392 − $391.98 = $0.02. At $85.72 per unit, landed cost becomes $392.02 and the lower-price result is −$0.02, so that next cent fails the chosen no-loss check.

The original $90 quote is $4.29 per unit above this ceiling. It meets the $80 profit target but fails the chosen 25% return and no-loss checks. Under these assumptions, you could negotiate, revisit the price evidence, recompute all costs for a different quantity, or pass.

This boundary has almost no room for error. A different actual cost can make it fail; a mathematical ceiling is not a price you have to offer. Round the full fee and tax calculations under your actual assumptions, recheck each condition, and leave any additional buffer you decide you need.

6. A price ceiling does not establish affordability

If only $300 of buying cash is available and no credit is available, the $391.98 purchase does not fit, even at $85.71 per unit. Check the difference between deal profit and available buying cash, including the protected reserve and open commitments.

ResaleCraft’s economic unit-cost limit checks enabled expected-profit, margin, and lower-price-loss rules. It does not by itself establish that cash, credit, or concentration rules pass, or that timing and evidence warnings are resolved. Read the full recommendation and its reasons. The pilot uses your inputs; it does not fetch comparable sales or connect to marketplace accounts.

Keep return and margin definitions distinct

The pilot computes return on cost using total landed acquisition cost. Its margin calculation uses deal profit ÷ (gross sales − selling fees). For the final example, that margin is $108.02 ÷ $540, about 20.00%, whereas return on cost is about 27.56%. Neither is interchangeable with profit divided by gross sales.

For pilot entry, purchase cost, tax, inbound shipping, and supplies are opportunity inputs. In manual capture, Other acquisition costs holds the example’s $4 fixed acquisition cost. Channel settings hold Selling fee (%), Shipping / unit, and Fixed selling cost. The CSV preparation guide lists supported import fields; do not invent a fixed-cost CSV column from this worksheet.

The 25% return target here is a worksheet assumption. The current pilot does not offer a separate minimum-return-on-cost rule; its enabled economic rules use expected deal-profit dollars, margin, and lower-price loss. Additional enabled rules can produce a tighter limit than this example.

Reuse the sequence with your own records

1. Confirm the exact item, condition, quantity, channel, and evidence date. Record supported expected and lower sale prices.
2. Calculate what remains after all relevant selling and financing costs. If buyers pay you shipping, include those receipts and any fees charged on them; do not subtract the same postage cost twice. Keep per-unit and total amounts labeled.
3. Choose and define your own dollar, return, and lower-price checks. Derive each acquisition-cost ceiling and use the tightest applicable one.
4. Translate total landed cost into merchandise cost using the actual acquisition costs and tax base. Divide by quantity, round down, and recompute every cost to the cent. Test the next cent up as well: tax or fee rounding can make it pass even when it exceeds the unrounded algebraic ceiling. Keep checking against every condition rather than assuming the first rounded result is the maximum.
5. Review cash, credit, commitments, concentration, timing, and evidence separately before committing money.
6. Save the assumptions with the decision. Later, compare the completed result with the saved estimate using the payout reconciliation guide.

The inventory buying checklist helps gather those facts. Unknown costs or unsupported prices need investigation, not an invented zero. A maximum price calculated from uncertain inputs remains uncertain.

Sources and assumptions

Primary references checked October 30, 2026: eBay: Selling fees for fee-base and schedule differences; and eBay: Product research for sale-price evidence, including accepted Best Offers and item and condition filters. These references support the cautions about fee bases and sale-price evidence; the arithmetic is derived from the invented assumptions above. No live comparable sales were fetched for this example.

The example is for identical inventory units, not mixed-lot allocation. It assumes nonborrowed cash, a single invented selling-fee percentage, fixed costs as listed, and tax on merchandise only. It excludes business overhead and income tax, and does not prescribe tax treatment. Actual fees, costs, financing, quantities, sale proceeds, and timing can change the result. ResaleCraft’s real workspaces remain invitation-only, with manual entry and CSV workflows in USD.