Margin drift is the silent killer of small-shop profitability. Costs creep up by a few percent, you don't pass them through, the margin shrinks invisibly over months. The drift insight surfaces this before it becomes a real problem.
01 What margin drift is
A product's margin contribution is its sale price minus VAT minus COGS, multiplied by units sold. Margin drift is when that contribution shrinks week-over-week without an obvious cause — sales steady, but margin per unit slipping.
02 How nouz flags it
In the Insights panel on Statistics, a margin drift tag fires when a product's per-unit margin drops by more than ~10% over a four-week rolling window. The card shows which product, which direction, and the per-unit change. You can click in for the chart.
03 What to check first
Three causes, in order of likelihood:
- COGS crept up — your supplier raised wholesale prices, but your product's COGS field still says the old number. Update it.
- Sale price stayed flat — costs went up, you didn't pass them through. Decide whether to.
- Mix shifted — you're selling more of the cheaper variant. Not technically drift, but reads similar.
04 Fixing drift
Once you've identified the cause, the fixes are short:
- If COGS crept up: open the product, bump the COGS field, save. Future sales use the new value. The drift insight will dim within a week.
- If sale price needs to follow: raise the price by enough to restore margin. Most owners under-raise prices; the drift insight is a license to fix that.
- If mix shifted: consider whether you want to push the higher-margin variant more, or accept the lower-margin reality.
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