u/Curious_Custard_5088 — reddlx

Hey r/Indianstartups — looking for honest feedback before I write a single line of code.

The problem I'm observing:

Indian e-commerce sellers on Amazon.in, Flipkart, and Meesho receive monthly settlement reports as CSVs. These files are messy — 20+ columns, mixed debits/credits, platform-specific fee names. Most small sellers (under ₹50L GMV) have no idea which products are actually profitable after all fees, shipping, returns, and ads. They use gut feel or incomplete Excel formulas.

The existing solutions (Unicommerce, EasyEcom) start at ₹3,000-8,000/month and require API integrations, onboarding calls, and a minimum seller volume. There's a clear gap for sellers who want something simple and cheap.

What I'm thinking of building:

A web tool (PERN stack) where you:

Upload CSVs from 1-3 marketplaces
Get a clean dashboard: revenue, fees, returns, ad spend, net profit — broken down per SKU
See which products to kill, which to scale

No API. No accounts needed to start. Just CSV in, insight out. Price: ~₹399/month.

Validation I've done so far:

- Talked to 3 sellers informally (sample size = terrible, I know)

- All three said they track in Excel or don't track at all

- None knew their actual per-SKU margin

What I haven't done yet: any real market size research, a landing page, or a working prototype.

Before I go further: what's the biggest hole in this idea? What am I missing or assuming wrong?

Serious question.

I've been talking to a few small sellers lately and almost all of them track their margins in Excel or just... don't. The settlement reports from Amazon and Flipkart are 15+ column spreadsheets with separate line items for referral fees, closing fees, shipping, reverse shipping, GST, ads, storage, etc. Meesho's is a bit simpler but still messy.

The problem: you can have a product ranking well, selling 50 units/month, and still be losing ₹7 per unit once you factor in 25% RTO and ad spend. I've seen this happen.

The tools that solve this (Unicommerce, Browntape, EasyEcom) start at ₹3,000-8,000/month and are overkill for sellers doing under ₹50 lakh GMV.

Question for sellers here:

- How do you currently track per-product profitability?

- Has anyone found a simpler/cheaper solution?

- Would a basic CSV-upload tool (upload your settlement report, get clean per-SKU profit) be useful, or is Excel good enough?

Not selling anything, just trying to understand if this is actually a painful problem or if people have already solved it.