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You buy a 25kg bag of raw shea butter from your supplier. Before lunch, three customers walk in. One wants 100g for her homemade body cream. A soap maker needs 5kg. A distributor from Onitsha wants the remaining 20kg.
You charge all three the same per-kilo rate.
By month’s end, your shelves are empty, your account balance hasn’t moved much, and you can’t explain where the profit went. The issue is straightforward: those three buyers cost you very different amounts to serve, and charging them the same price means you’re leaving money behind.
Why one price doesn’t work
Selling 100g to a walk-in customer costs you more per transaction than selling 20kg to a distributor. You measure out small quantities, use extra packaging, restock the shelf more often. That walk-in should be paying the highest per-unit price.
A wholesale buyer, say a salon owner or soap maker who orders 5kg every two weeks, gives you predictable repeat business. If you run a cosmetics business, these are your bread-and-butter customers. They earn a better rate than a walk-in, but not your lowest price.
A bulk buyer moves volume fast. They take big quantities off your hands, reduce what you need to store, and usually pay upfront. They get your best price. But your margin still needs to cover your costs and then some.
In practice, with shea butter at NGN3,500/kg:
- Retail (100g, 250g packs): NGN7,000/kg effective, 100% markup
- Wholesale (1kg, 5kg): NGN5,500/kg, 57% markup
- Bulk (25kg bags): NGN4,800/kg, 37% markup
The retail buyer pays more because convenience costs money to provide. The bulk buyer pays less because they make your operation cheaper. Both prices are fair.
How to set your three prices
Step 1: Know your cost per base unit. This is your floor. Coconut oil at NGN18,000 per 5-litre jerrycan means NGN3,600 per litre, or NGN360 per 100ml. Don’t price below this number.
Step 2: Set your retail price. Add 80-150% markup for cosmetics raw materials, 30-50% for supermarket goods. This is your highest margin. It needs to cover the extra cost of packaging, measuring, and serving small orders.
Step 3: Set your wholesale price. Add 40-70% to your cost. This tier is for recurring buyers: salon owners, soap makers, small shop owners who come back week after week.
Step 4: Set your bulk price. Add 20-40% to your cost. This is for distributors and large-volume buyers. Don’t let anyone push you below 20% margin unless you’re clearing old stock on purpose.
Worked example, Virgin Coconut Oil (cost: NGN3,600/L):
| Sell Unit | Retail | Wholesale | Bulk |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100ml | NGN750 | NGN600 | — |
| 500ml | NGN3,200 | NGN2,700 | NGN2,400 |
| 1 Litre | NGN5,800 | NGN5,000 | NGN4,500 |
| 5 Litres | — | NGN24,000 | NGN22,000 |
Not every unit needs every tier. You don’t sell 100ml in bulk, and you don’t sell 5L to walk-in retail customers. Fill in what makes sense for how you actually sell.
Classifying your customers matters just as much as the prices themselves. Retail is your default. Walk-ins, Instagram DM orders, anyone you don’t know yet. Wholesale is for people who buy regularly and run their own business. Bulk is for distributors placing large orders. Once you classify someone, save that classification so the right price comes up every time they buy.
This is the model we built into Mayloo. You set a Retail, Wholesale, and Bulk price for each sell unit, assign a default tier to each customer, and the correct price loads automatically when you ring up a sale.
3 pricing mistakes that kill your profit
1. Pricing from memory. Monday you tell a customer NGN5,500 per kilo of shea butter. Wednesday you quote someone else NGN5,000 for the exact same product. Customers in the same market talk to each other. Inconsistency breeds haggling and costs you trust.
2. Forgetting packaging costs on small units. Decanting 1 litre of carrier oil into ten 100ml bottles sounds simple, but each bottle costs NGN50-100, labels cost more, you lose product to spillage, and it takes time. If your 100ml price is just one-tenth of your 1-litre price, you’re losing on every small sale and might not realise it.
3. Leaving your prices unchanged when supplier costs move. The Naira shifts. Raw material prices go up. If your selling prices stay the same for six months while your cost base creeps higher, your margins are shrinking and you won’t see it until you do the maths. Check your prices any time your supplier cost moves more than 10%.
Mayloo shows your cost per base unit right next to your selling prices, so you can see the actual margin before you confirm anything.
Start pricing smarter
Know your cost. Set three prices. Classify your customers. Review when costs change.
If you’re still working prices out in your head or flipping through a notebook, Mayloo can handle that for you. Set up your products with Retail, Wholesale, and Bulk prices, assign tiers to your customers, and sell without second-guessing the number. Whether it’s 100g to a walk-in or 25kg to a distributor.