Price for profit on Shopee, Lazada & TikTok PH
The #1 reason online sellers quit: they price by copying competitors, discover fees after the sale, and earn less than their reseller cost. Here's how the fee stack works and the pricing formula that fixes it. (Fee rates change per campaign/category — always sanity-check the current seller-center table; the calculator uses editable rates for exactly this reason.)
The fee stack (what actually comes off your payout)
| Fee | Typical range (PH) | Charged on |
|---|---|---|
| Commission / transaction fee | ~2–6% (higher for non-mall, some categories higher; Shopee PH commission for non-affiliate sellers has been rising — check seller center) | Selling price |
| Payment fee (GCash/card/wallet) | ~2% (often waived during promos) | Selling price |
| Shipping subsidy gap | varies — peso vouchers and shipping fee discounts you co-fund | Per order |
| Packaging | ₱5–₱25 per parcel | Per order |
| Returns/losses allowance | 1–3% of orders | Across orders |
A ₱300 sale is not ₱300. It's roughly ₱300 − 6% commission − 2% payment − ₱10 packaging − voucher share ≈ ₱262 — before your product cost.
The pricing formula
Worked example: cost ₱120, shipping absorbed ₱30, packaging ₱10. Fees + commission 8%, target margin 20%, returns allowance 2%.
Price = (120+30+10) ÷ (1 − 0.08 − 0.20 − 0.02) = 160 ÷ 0.70 = ₱229 (round to ₱229 or ₱239).
Price it at ₱199 "to be competitive" and your actual margin is ₱199×0.70 − ₱160 = −₱21 per sale. You pay to sell. This is the whole game.
Margin math people get wrong
- Markup ≠ margin. 30% markup on ₱100 = ₱130 price = only 23% margin on the price.
- Fees apply to the FULL price including your margin — every peso you add gets taxed ~8% again, so margin targets must be solved inside the division, not added after.
- Vouchers are margin too. A ₱40 voucher you co-fund is a 13% price cut on a ₱300 item — often your entire margin.
Three pricing habits of sellers who survive
- Price from cost up, not competitor down. If competitors undercut your profitable price, they're either cheaper-sourced, loss-leading, or dying quietly.
- Re-check fees every campaign season. 9.9/11.11/12.12 change commission promos and voucher expectations — recompute before enlisting SKU after SKU.
- Know break-even per SKU. One number per product: below this price, every sale costs money. The calculator prints it.
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