Hey There 👋 

Happy Better Yourself Friday! 💙🧡 This week we are diving deeper into Dropshipping & E-commerce because yes, people are making money online… but a lot of people also end up in the “I was busy all month and still didn’t profit” club. The difference is usually not motivation or luck, it’s the maths behind it. Let’s help you run a quick profit check before you spend money on stock, ads, or a fancy website. 📦💸

To put it simply, sales don’t equal profit. You can sell 100 items and still lose money if your costs are too high. So before you pick a “hot product”, you need to understand your unit economics (that’s just a fancy way of saying: what you make per product after all costs). If the numbers don’t work, no amount of TikTok hype will save it 🥴

Let’s do the basic margin model (write it down in your notebook if needs be): Your Selling Price minus Product Cost minus Shipping/Delivery Cost minus Ad Cost minus Returns/Refunds equals your Profit. That’s it. That’s the whole game. If you don’t know these numbers, you’re not running a business…you’re gambling 🎰

Now let’s make it real. Say you sell something for R399. The product costs you R180. Packaging/shipping is R60. You spend R120 on ads to get one sale (very common when you’re starting). Already, you’re at R360 in costs… which leaves you R39 profit. And that’s before payment fees, delivery surprises, and returns. If one customer returns the product or you refund because delivery took too long, that small profit can disappear instantly.

This is why many people fail in dropshipping and e-commerce: poor unit economics. Their product margin is too small, their ad costs are too high, or their returns are too frequent. Some people also forget “hidden” costs like platform fees (Shopify, Takealot seller fees, payment gateway fees), discounts, or customer service time. When those costs pile up, you can end up working hard for crumbs or worse, for losses.

So here’s your Better Yourself Friday challenge: before you launch anything, aim for a product that gives you enough breathing room. A good starting target is to check if you can still profit even if ad costs are higher than expected and a few orders go wrong (because in e-commerce, they will). If your margins are extremely tight, your business will become stressful fast.

So without further ado, here’s another installment of Better Yourself Friday

Let's Gerrit!

💡 Great Tips for Mahala

10 business startup costs and the cost to start a business

Starting a business costs more than just “a logo and a website” 😅. The article breaks startup costs into ongoing expenses (like marketing, insurance, software) and one-time purchases (like equipment). Moreover, it highlights 10 common cost buckets, which include: legal/admin, office space (if necessary), inventory (if necessary), marketing, tech, staff, operations, licences/permits, R&D, and working capital.

The key takeaway is that costs vary by business type and location, so you need to estimate properly and plan funding upfront.

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With that being said, go ahead and checkout the latest.

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