Why the profit on an order says Pending

At the top of every order there is a profit box. On a new order it often reads Profit: Pending instead of a dollar figure. That is on purpose.

Why it waits

Until the item is actually ordered or shipped, Trinity cannot know the real cost of getting it to the customer. It does not yet know:

• which distributor will fill it,
• whether it goes drop ship or ship to store,
• whether a small order fee applies (some distributors add one to small drop ships),
• whether a hazmat fee applies.

Any of those can turn a good-looking margin into a loss. Showing a guessed figure led to decisions made on numbers that turned out to be wrong, so Trinity shows nothing until it can show the real thing.

Hover over the box and it says the same thing: profit is worked out once the shipping is settled.

When the figure appears

The box switches from Pending to a dollar amount as soon as one of these is true:

• Every item on the order has been ordered from a distributor as a drop ship. The order then carries the real cost and the distributor's shipping charge is known.
• The shipping label has been bought for a ship to store order.
• The order is completed.

While the order is still open the box is labelled Est. Profit. Once the order is completed it reads Profit.

What is in the figure

Click the box to see the breakdown:

• Product margins: what each item sold for against what it cost.
• Shipping: what the customer paid for shipping against what the shipping really cost.
• GunBroker fees, for GunBroker orders.

Card processing fees are not included. Plan on roughly 3 percent of the sale for those, which your markup has to cover.