Margly
The Margly Journal

Where the money actually flowsin your e‑shop.

Practical pieces on running an e-shop that actually makes money — margins, ad spend, ROI.

Hidden Costs

The Hidden Inventory Tax: Why Your Gifting ROI Is a Mirage

Stop treating product seeding as 'free' marketing. Learn how 12% of your COGS leaks through unmanaged influencer gifting and how to build a profitable program.

MBMichal Baloun
Returns

The Return-to-Restock Gap: Why Transit Time Kills Margins

Every day a returned SKU spends in transit is a profit leak. Learn how the 12-day restock latency creates an 8% margin penalty for 7-figure Shopify stores.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

Stop the SKU-Affinity Margin Tax: Fixing Bundle Cannibalization

Stop subsidizing your best customers. Learn how to calculate the true impact of bundling and prevent cannibalization from eating 19% of your net profit.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

The SKU-Weighted CAC Trap: Stop Subsidizing Low-Margin Winners

Learn to calculate Profit-Weighted ROAS to stop scaling revenue that destroys cash flow. Identify which SKUs are silently bleeding your operating margin.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

The Abandoned Cart Recovery Trap: Why Your Conversion Rate Is Lying

Stop training customers to wait for discounts. Learn why aggressive cart recovery flows destroy CLTV and how to optimize for margin, not just orders.

MBMichal Baloun
Operations

The Return-to-Inventory Latency Trap: Reclaiming Lost Capital

Stop letting returns sit in limbo. Learn how to shrink your return-to-inventory cycle time and recover the 20-40% of margin currently leaking from your bottom line.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

Why Your CAC-to-COGS Ratio Is Leaking Hidden Profit

Stop evaluating CAC in a vacuum. Learn why acquiring customers for high-COGS SKUs is burning your cash and how to fix your real unit economics.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

The SKU-Margin Decay Curve: Why Your Top Sellers Are Dying

Don't let volume mask profit loss. Learn to map your SKU-margin decay curve to stop subsidizing 'best-sellers' that are secretly destroying your bottom line.

MBMichal Baloun
Operations Efficiency

The Refund Processing Tax: Stop Treating CX as a Fixed Cost

20-30% of your CX volume is wasted on pre-refund inquiries. Learn how to stop treating support as a fixed cost and reclaim lost margin today.

MBMichal Baloun
Returns

The Loyalty Paradox: Why Free Returns Kill Repeat Profitability

Stop subsidizing your losses. Discover why 15% of returns erase your repeat buyer profits and how to use CM3 to reclaim your margins.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

Why Your 3:1 LTV:CAC Ratio Is Hiding a 40% Margin Deficit

Stop relying on vanity LTV:CAC ratios. Discover why your 'healthy' metrics are masking a 40% margin deficit and how to fix your unit economics.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

The SKU Complexity Tax: Why Your Warehouse Labor Is Bleeding

Stop subsidizing SKU sprawl. Learn how SKU complexity hides in your warehouse costs, inflates labor, and destroys net margins for 6-8 figure stores.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

The SKU-Affinity Margin Tax: Why Your Cross-Sells Are Killing Profit

Stop subsidizing underperforming SKUs. Learn how to identify 'Product Mix Drag' and reclaim the 18% of margin lost to cannibalizing cross-sell strategies.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

Stop Feeding Returns: How to Kill 'Toxic' SKU Ad Spend

Stop scaling losers. Learn how to identify 'toxic' SKUs with high return rates that drain your contribution margin and ad budget.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

The Free Shipping Threshold Trap: Why You're Losing 14% Margin

Operators often set shipping thresholds based on AOV averages without accounting for the hidden margin drain. Learn the math to stop subsidizing customers.

MBMichal Baloun
Operations

The Profit Void: Why Your Ad Spend Is Funding Stockouts

Stop lighting money on fire. Learn how to bridge the gap between marketing spend and inventory lead times to prevent 'Profit Voids' in your store.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

Why 22% of Your Scaling Budget Subsidizes Low-Margin Geographies

Stop scaling into profit-draining regions. Learn how to use CM3 to identify which international markets are actually eating your margins.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

The Loyalty Paradox: Why You're Subsidizing Inevitable Purchases

Stop gifting 10-15% margins to customers who would have bought anyway. Learn to identify and stop the 'Retention Tax' draining your 7-figure bottom line.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

The Halo Effect: Why Your Paid Ads Are Cannibalizing Organic

Stop overpaying for traffic you already own. Learn how to identify the hidden cannibalization between your paid ads and organic search performance.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

Stop Subsidizing Your Heaviest SKUs: The Density Deficit

Stop letting bulky, low-density SKUs eat your margins. Learn how to identify 'density deficit' products and fix your unit economics with DIM weight tactics.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

The Incrementality Trap: Why Your ROAS Is Lying to You

Stop subsidizing organic sales with paid ads. Learn how to identify non-incremental spend and reclaim the 30% of your budget currently fueling ad waste.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

Why 28% of High-AOV Orders Are Actually Net-Losses

Stop chasing AOV blindly. Learn how hidden picking density and heavy-weight SKU pairings create a profit illusion that bleeds your bottom line dry.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

The Pick-to-Profit Ratio: Why 22% of Your Orders Cost 3x More

Stop obsessing over shipping rates. Learn why SKU dimensions and pick-to-profit ratios are the real culprits draining 3x more margin than your shipping carrier.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

The 15% Tax: Why 5% Overstock Is Silent Capital Poison

Discover how a mere 5% overstock in low-velocity SKUs inflates your capital costs by 15%. Master the hidden math of inventory drag for 7-figure success.

MBMichal Baloun
Profitability

The GWP Trap: Why Your 'Free' Gift Costs 2.5x More Than You Think

Don't let Gift With Purchase campaigns mask hidden fulfillment costs. Learn how picking labor, split shipments, and reverse logistics erode your margins.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

Margin Drift: Stopping the 12% COGS Creep

Stop 'Supplier Cost Drift' from silently eroding your CM2. Learn how to identify, track, and neutralize rising procurement costs before they hit your bottom line.

MBMichal Baloun
Attribution & Profitability

The Attribution Gap: Why 35% of Your Ad Spend is Ghost Data

Stop optimizing for vanity metrics. Learn why Meta and Google inflate ROAS by 35%+ and how to reconnect your ad spend to actual, return-adjusted profit.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

The Bundle Cannibalization Trap: Protect Your 22% Margin

Stop 'Buy More, Save More' from bleeding your profits. Learn how to identify bundle cannibalization and rebuild your AOV strategy for true net growth.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

Shipping Zones: Why Flat Rate is Killing Your Net Margin

Stop losing 18% of margin to shipping inefficiencies. Learn why flat-rate shipping is a financial illusion and how to optimize for zone-based profitability.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

The Math of Discounting: Why Your Sales Growth Is Killing Profit

Stop trading margin for vanity revenue. Learn the break-even math of discounting and how to protect your contribution margin from aggressive flash sales.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

The CAC Payback Trap: Why Your First-Time Buyers Are Losing You Money

Discover why 45% of first-time customers result in a net loss after 6 months. Learn to identify high-LTV SKUs and stop the cycle of unprofitable acquisition.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

The Zombie Inventory Tax: How to Reclaim 25% of Your Capital

Stop bleeding margin on stagnant stock. Learn why 90+ day inventory carries a hidden 25% tax and how to systematically purge 'zombie' capital from your store.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

The Return Rate Death Spiral: Why 15% of Customers Erase 40% of Profits

Learn how serial returners and toxic SKUs destroy your CM3. Discover the math behind the gross profit illusion and how to stop the margin drain.

MBMichal Baloun
Unit Economics

SKU-Level Profitability: Why 62% of Your Catalog Is Losing Money

Stop chasing revenue blindly. Discover why 62% of SKUs are currently unprofitable and learn the financial framework to prune your catalog for maximum EBITDA.

MBMichal Baloun
Hidden Costs

9 Silent Profit Killers Siphoning Your Shopify Margins

Stop leaking cash. Learn how hidden logistics, return processing, and faulty attribution models are eroding your 6-8 figure store’s net profitability.

MBMichal Baloun
Margins

Revenue is a marketing number. This is the truth about your margin.

Median e-commerce margin is 3 %, 62 % of SKUs lose money, real CAC tends to be 30–60 % higher than what Meta shows. How to find your real number.

MBMichal Baloun