Legacy ad-spy tools guess. MeritSKU calculates. Inspect the complete forensic catalog powering our 12-factor landed cost engine, 6-dimension viability scoring, live supplier drift monitor, and cryptographic audit trails.
Stress-test contribution margins against price sensitivity and CAC inflation before launching ad campaigns.
| Scenario (Retail Price) | Base CAC ($18.00) | Moderate (+10%) ($19.80) | Stress (+20%) ($21.60) |
|---|---|---|---|
Bear (-10%) $44.10 | $10.60 24.0% CM2 | $8.80 20.0% CM2 | $7.00 15.9% CM2 |
Base Price $49.00 | $15.50 31.6% CM2 | $13.70 28.0% CM2 | $11.90 24.3% CM2 |
Bull (+10%) $53.90 | $20.40 37.8% CM2 | $18.60 34.5% CM2 | $16.80 31.2% CM2 |
Supplier parameters drift post-launch. MeritSKU detects catalog price changes, lead time creep, and MOQ shifts.
Every manual exception or soft-fail override is digitally signed with a SHA-256 manifest. Zero silent automated bypass.
“Supplier committed in writing to tier-2 pricing discount at 500 units reducing unit COGS by $1.80. Staging exclusively as an unpublished Shopify draft to run initial creative asset tests.”
Captures raw supplier quotation per unit in integer minor units (USD cents), modeling tiered pricing discounts.
Deterministic integer minor-unit arithmetic prevents IEEE-754 floating-point drift across bulk calculations.
Eliminates rounding errors that compound across 1,000+ unit orders, ensuring exact baseline costs.
Models overseas air express, sea freight LCL, and 20ft/40ft ocean container FCL freight per unit.
Dynamic cubic meter (CBM) volumetric weight conversion with current spot ocean freight indexes.
Prevents catastrophic gross-margin collapse from unexpected air cargo surcharges before stock leaves port.
Factors custom mailer boxes, unboxing inserts, branded tape, and polybag compliance barcodes.
Separates custom secondary packaging fees from primary unit COGS for unbundled vendor analysis.
Accounts for the $0.80–$2.20 unboxing packaging layer frequently omitted by novice merchants.
Computes country-of-origin import tariffs, section 301 duties, and customs broker entry clearance fees.
Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) percentage rate calculation applied to declared customs value.
Protects gross margins from 7.5%–25.0% unexpected customs duty penalties upon port arrival.
Models variable payment processing fee percentages (e.g. 2.9% for Stripe or Shopify Payments).
Calculated in basis points (bp) against gross checkout order value including customer shipping and tax.
Captures unavoidable merchant processing interchange fees upfront in the break-even equation.
Applies fixed per-transaction surcharge (e.g. 30 cents per transaction) to capture small-AOV overhead.
Added as an invariant integer minor-unit constant (30 cents) to the variable processing total.
Critically impacts low-AOV items ($15–$30) where fixed fees erode up to 2.0% of net margin.
Accounts for domestic 3PL warehouse pick, pack, labeling, and pallet handling per shipped parcel.
Incorporates standard warehouse labor rates and multi-item unit pick fees into unit economics.
Guarantees the warehouse handling fee ($2.50–$4.50) is deducted before evaluating ad profitability.
Models USPS Ground Advantage, UPS SurePost, FedEx Home Delivery, and regional zone rates.
Zone-weighted domestic carrier rate tables based on product dimensions and dimensional weight.
Flags oversized or overweight items that trigger severe $10+ carrier surcharges.
Reserves an empirical return allowance (e.g. 4.0% return rate + 50% unsalvageable liquidation loss).
Category-calibrated return rate basis points (estimatedReturnRateBp) applied to unit revenues.
Prevents ecommerce phantom profitability where initial margins are erased by customer returns.
Allocates operational buffers for damaged in-transit goods, lost packages, and support ticket labor.
Empirically derived integer allowance per order covering transit insurance claims and ticket resolution.
Protects customer support bottom line from fragile or complex goods requiring frequent reshipments.
Computes maximum permissible Target Customer Acquisition Cost (Target CAC) before reaching CM2 breakeven.
BreakEven CAC = Net Retail Price - Total Landed COGS - Variable Processing - Fulfillment - Return Reserve.
Gives media buyers an exact mathematical stop-loss threshold before spending a single ad dollar.
Amortizes pre-shipment factory inspection fees (QIMA/SGS AQL 2.5 standards) across the batch size.
Inspection batch fee ($300 standard) divided across production run units in integer cents.
Ensures factory quality audit costs are baked into unit costs rather than paid as surprise overhead.
Analyzes organic search velocity, seasonal variance, keyword volume acceleration, and TikTok/Meta social momentum.
Normalized 0–100 score combining 90-day search velocity, search growth delta, and social interest spikes.
Prevents investing in dead trends or seasonal products at the tail end of their buying cycle.
Evaluates Contribution Margin 2 (CM2) percentage, break-even CAC headroom, and retail price-to-COGS ratio.
Deterministic score mapping CM2 margin thresholds: >=35% = 100, 25-35% = 80-99, <15% = hard fail.
Immediately flags economically fatal products that appear profitable on gross margin alone.
Maps active advertiser count, dominant marketplace seller saturation, and price suppression risks.
Inverted density algorithm scoring higher when competitor auction saturation is low and price dispersion is wide.
Steers merchants away from commoditized red oceans where dominant players squeeze margins to zero.
Verifies factory operational age, on-time delivery track record, domestic warehouse options, and MOQ feasibility.
Multi-attribute reliability matrix validating registered business credentials and verified transit logs.
Avoids unverified fly-by-night vendors that disappear after taking 30% production deposits.
Assesses hook clarity, visual problem-solution demonstration potential, and rapid ad testing feasibility.
Evaluates creative asset requirements, demonstration clarity, and rapid angle hypothesis validation.
Ensures products can be demonstrated compellingly in short-form video before producing ad campaigns.
Scans for prohibited health claims, battery certifications, trademark conflicts, and FTC regulatory tripwires.
Deterministic rule engine with 128-bit cryptographic nonce isolation for third-party regulatory databases.
Prevents devastating account bans from Meta/Shopify or FTC warning letters on deceptive health claims.
Continuously monitors factory unit cost changes against initial evaluation baselines, triggering automated alerts.
Drift calculation delta tracking percentage variance between baseline quote and real-time catalog feeds.
Catches silent $1.00–$3.00 factory price increases before batch reorders are executed.
Tracks production lead time and port congestion delays to forecast stockout risk and buffer replenishment.
Calculates rolling lead time deltas against promised SLAs to recalculate dynamic safety stock thresholds.
Prevents out-of-stock disasters during peak ad scaling cycles by flagging supplier slowdowns early.
Detects unexpected Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) shifts that mandate higher upfront capital commitment.
Re-evaluates working capital lockup and Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) whenever supplier MOQ changes.
Stops operators from committing excess cash into unexpectedly high minimum manufacturing batches.
Simulates 9 realistic commercial scenarios crossing retail price variance (±10%) against CAC inflation (up to +20%).
3x3 matrix computing exact CM2 dollar and percentage returns for every price/CAC coordinate.
Reveals whether a product remains profitable when ad auctions become competitive during Q4 holidays.
Calculates the exact maximum acquisition cost a merchant can sustain before operating at a net contribution loss.
Minor-unit formula: Retail Net - Total Landed COGS - Variable Fees - Fulfillment - Return Reserve = BreakEven CAC.
Sets an uncompromised stop-loss target for media buyers, eliminating subjective ad spend pacing.
Allows authorized operators to override automated score soft-fails with mandatory justification and digital signing.
Generates SHA-256 digital digest binding operator identity, timestamp, justification text, and parameter hash.
Ensures zero silent algorithmic bypass; every executive exception is permanently recorded and auditable.
Architectural guardrail restricting all storefront exports to unpublished draft status across Shopify and WooCommerce.
Integration schemas enforce publishing_status: "DRAFT" invariant; zero capability to trigger live publishing.
Guarantees unvetted products, placeholder pricing, or unapproved copy can never accidentally go live to customers.
MeritSKU strictly rejects predatory marketing claims such as “guaranteed winning products” or “automated wealth.” All retail commerce carries market volatility. MeritSKU provides deterministic stress-testing and comparative viability ranking; it does not predict clairvoyant consumer purchase behavior.
Our integration architecture strictly isolates candidate exports to unpublished draft status across connected storefronts (Shopify, WooCommerce, Amazon SP-API staging). MeritSKU never pushes unvetted inventory live or triggers autonomous advertising campaigns.
All interactive capability explorers, sensitivity matrices, and drift simulators on this public page operate entirely client-side without mutating server state or creating persistent database records.
Stop launching products based on gross margin illusions. Unpack real 12-factor landed unit economics, stress-test ad sensitivity, and verify supplier SLAs in under 60 seconds.