Sell everywhere. Know what everywhere pays.
Optimus Nine turns every marketplace, wholesale account and web store into one profit and loss, net of fees, 3PL and ad spend. Add channels with confidence, because you'll see what each one earns before you scale it.
Everything a channel manager checks, already on one screen
Unified P&L
Revenue, fees, COGS, shipping, 3PL and advertising per channel, per SKU and per month. Net before 3PL & ads is always one click away.
Order economics
What one order really earns on each channel: average basket, fee rate, fulfilment cost and refunds, so you can price per channel instead of guessing.
Channel stock & restock
See weeks of cover per channel, get alerts before a listing runs dry, and push available quantity to the channels on a schedule.
Customers & lifetime value
Repeat rate and lifetime value by channel and geography, so you know where loyal customers come from, not just first orders.
Goals vs plan & alerts
Set monthly goals per channel. Optimus Nine tracks pace daily and tells you when a channel slips, with the product that caused it.
EDI for big-box retail
Purchase orders, advance ship notices and invoices exchanged directly with retailers like Sam's Club. No per-document fees to a middleman.
Live on a new channel in four steps
Connect
Link the channel's seller account or drop in its order export. Credentials stay in your cloud settings.
Map
Match channel SKUs to your products once. Fees, returns and promos are recognised automatically.
Sync
Orders and settlements flow in on a schedule. Available stock flows out to the listings.
Compare
The new channel appears next to the others in the P&L, with its true net margin from day one.
The channel with the most sales isn't always the one that pays
Marketplace fees, fulfilment, returns and advertising all land in different places. Optimus Nine pulls them into one line per channel, so a $58,000 month and a $32,000 month can be compared on what you kept.
- Profit by product, channel and month
- 3PL charges matched to the orders that caused them
- Expenses split into your own categories
Headline numbers you can rearrange like building blocks
Pick the metrics that matter this week: net sales, units, orders, refunds, channel fees, gross profit, margin. Compare any two periods, filter by channel, and save the view as a report your team opens every Monday.
See what it costsHow to add a sales channel without adding headcount
Pick channels by margin, not by hype
Every growing brand hears the same advice: be everywhere your customer shops. It's good advice with a catch. Each new marketplace brings its own fee schedule, its own fulfilment rules, its own returns policy and its own advertising auction. A channel that doubles your order count can quietly halve your margin.
Before you open a new storefront, estimate what one order will actually earn there. Start with your price on that channel, then subtract the referral fee, the fulfilment or shipping cost, the expected return rate and the advertising you'll need to be found. If the answer is thin, the channel may still be worth it for reach, but you should know that going in.
The question isn't “where can we sell?” It's “where does a sale leave money on the table, and where does it leave money in the bank?”The Optimus Nine rule of thumb
The true cost of a channel
Most teams see channel costs in pieces: fees in the settlement report, fulfilment on the 3PL invoice, ad spend in the ad console, returns in customer service. By the time those pieces meet in the books, it's the following month and the decisions have already been made.
| Cost | Where it hides | How Optimus Nine counts it |
|---|---|---|
| Referral & platform fees | Settlement reports | Per order, per channel |
| Fulfilment & 3PL | Monthly 3PL invoice | Matched back to orders |
| Advertising | Ad consoles | Per channel and SKU |
| Returns & refunds | Customer service tools | Netted from revenue |
| Promotions | Coupon and deal reports | Shown as its own line |
When all five land in one line, you get the number that matters: net before 3PL and ads, and then net after them. That's how you find out a channel with half the sales is earning more money.
Keep inventory honest across channels
The fastest way to lose a new channel is to oversell it. Marketplaces punish cancelled orders with lower rankings, and wholesale buyers remember short shipments. Before launch, decide how much stock each channel can see and how often that number updates.
- Share one pool with buffers. Publish available stock minus a safety buffer, so a burst of orders on one channel can't strand another.
- Push on a schedule. Optimus Nine can push available quantity to listings automatically, and log every push.
- Watch weeks of cover per channel. A SKU can be healthy overall and still run dry on the channel that sells it fastest.
A 90-day launch plan
Days 1–30: list and learn
Launch with your five best sellers, not your whole catalogue. Keep advertising modest and watch order economics daily. You're learning the channel's fee reality and customer behaviour.
Days 31–60: tune price and spend
Adjust price per channel to protect margin, and move ad budget toward the products that convert. Compare the new channel's net margin against your established ones every week.
Days 61–90: scale or step back
If the channel clears your margin bar, widen the catalogue and raise budgets. If it doesn't, keep it as a reach channel with a trimmed range, or close it. Either way, the decision comes from numbers, not a feeling.
Measure what matters
Five numbers tell you whether a channel is working: net margin after ads, repeat rate, weeks of cover, return rate and advertising cost of sale. Optimus Nine puts them on one page per channel and alerts you when one slips outside the range you set.
Launch checklist
- Estimated net margin per order is above your floor
- SKU mapping done and tested with a real order
- Stock buffer and push schedule set
- Advertising budget capped for the first 30 days
- Goal for day 90 written down, with the number that means “scale”
Sales channels, answered
Which channels can I connect?
Amazon (Seller and Vendor), Walmart, Shopify, Target Plus, Costco, Sam's Club and Faire today, and any channel that can export orders as CSV. Tell us which one you need next.
How often does data refresh?
Scheduled syncs run through the day and overnight. You can also pull on demand from the Sources page.
Can it push stock to my listings?
Yes. Choose which channels receive available quantity, set a buffer, and turn on automatic pushes. Every push is logged.
Do you handle EDI?
Yes. We connect directly to retailer EDI (AS2), starting with Sam's Club, and map purchase orders, ship notices and invoices into Optimus Nine.
The rest of the thread
Find the channel that pays.
See your own channels side by side, net of every cost, in a 30-minute walkthrough.