The Business of Artisan Chocolate
Jul 2, 2026 · 36 min · 12 segments
In this episode I will take you through the jaw-dropping economics of selling chocolates online. How much does it really cost to ship a single box of chocolates? How should calculate whether you're…
Konstantin ZsigoHost
In this episode, I want to talk about how to price an account and ultimately manage your online sales channel, your direct-to-consumer channel.
You can get very confused very quickly about the numbers and it's easy to double count and to think that you're making money when you're actually losing money.
Imagine that you see 20 orders come in, online for $1,000, you think you've made $1,000.
And then by the math that I'm about to show you, you actually lose money filling those orders.
And just to make this point, I'm from the US, obviously, so I'm going to use US dollars for my examples.
And I don't know for a fact if everything will translate to other countries, but I suspect that it does.
You shouldn't need a calculator or anything to follow along, and you shouldn't really need to convert numbers either.
in no way do i want to discourage you from doing online sales i want to be clear about that up front i actually think that direct to consumer selling is you know one of the best and most sustainable channels that you can have direct relationships with your customers even if they're not close by but the complexity around fulfillment and the subsequent financial accounting of that effort is shockingly complicated.
And by the end, you're going to have a very clear idea of how you should be thinking about online sales and fulfillment and ultimately guiding yourself to profitability.
What I'm about to say first is actually the most important part, so be careful not to gloss over it.
I know whoever says the most important part first is always supposed to wait to the end for the important part, but this time I'm going to put it up front.
Throughout my podcast, I've been trying consistently to deliver the message that you need to break down your production economics from your fulfillment economics.
In other words, you need to divide your accounting and your thinking into these two distinct areas, and they cannot be used to subsidize one another.
You need to set a wholesale price for all of your products high enough to cover essentially all of your kitchen overhead, labor and expenses.
All of your distribution channels merely serve as demand generation for your kitchen.
I realize that this may intuitively seem more complicated than it needs to be, but you're gonna need to trust me on this because I've been staring at the problem for 10 years and I'm still in business and it's because I'm figuring it out.
But I want to stay at sort of the 30,000 foot level for just a little bit longer.
In this episode, I want to talk about how to price an account and ultimately manage your online sales channel, your direct-to-consumer channel.
You can get very confused very quickly about the numbers and it's easy to double count and to think that you're making money when you're actually losing money.
Imagine that you see 20 orders come in, online for $1,000, you think you've made $1,000.
And then by the math that I'm about to show you, you actually lose money filling those orders.
And just to make this point, I'm from the US, obviously, so I'm going to use US dollars for my examples.
And I don't know for a fact if everything will translate to other countries, but I suspect that it does.
You shouldn't need a calculator or anything to follow along, and you shouldn't really need to convert numbers either.
in no way do i want to discourage you from doing online sales i want to be clear about that up front i actually think that direct to consumer selling is you know one of the best and most sustainable channels that you can have direct relationships with your customers even if they're not close by but the complexity around fulfillment and the subsequent financial accounting of that effort is shockingly complicated.
And by the end, you're going to have a very clear idea of how you should be thinking about online sales and fulfillment and ultimately guiding yourself to profitability.
What I'm about to say first is actually the most important part, so be careful not to gloss over it.
I know whoever says the most important part first is always supposed to wait to the end for the important part, but this time I'm going to put it up front.
Throughout my podcast, I've been trying consistently to deliver the message that you need to break down your production economics from your fulfillment economics.
In other words, you need to divide your accounting and your thinking into these two distinct areas, and they cannot be used to subsidize one another.
You need to set a wholesale price for all of your products high enough to cover essentially all of your kitchen overhead, labor and expenses.
All of your distribution channels merely serve as demand generation for your kitchen.
I realize that this may intuitively seem more complicated than it needs to be, but you're gonna need to trust me on this because I've been staring at the problem for 10 years and I'm still in business and it's because I'm figuring it out.
But I want to stay at sort of the 30,000 foot level for just a little bit longer.
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