How Trestle works
You upload reports you already have. Trestle does the sums each marketplace's way, tells you which products are worth listing, then checks the forecast against what happens.
Step 1
What you upload
Files as you download them. Excel, CSV or text. Trestle matches the column headings itself and shows you how it read each one.
Amazon All Listings report
Your products, prices, stock and whether each is fulfilled by Amazon or by you. Download it from the inventory reports in Seller Central.
Your sales sheet
One row for each product and sales period: units and sales. Use your own sheet or download our template.
Your product costs
What each product costs you landed in the UK: product, freight and duty. Add your ad spend share (TACoS) and, if you use a 3PL for Argos orders, its cost per unit here too.
Argos order export
Once you sell on Argos, the orders file from your Argos seller back office, exactly as downloaded. Customer fields are stripped out and never kept.
Where something is missing, Trestle says exactly which column to fill in. It never puts in a zero for you. Each file is read for its figures and not stored. Trestle has no link to your Amazon or Argos account.
Step 2
What Trestle works out
Every fee, each marketplace's way
Amazon referral, FBA and storage fees from Amazon's published rate cards. Argos commission on the price including VAT and delivery, from the category rates Trestle holds, with any rate still awaiting confirmation marked. Delivery of Argos orders through Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfilment (MCF) from your FBA stock, labelled as an assumption, or your own 3PL cost per unit if you enter one. Returns, advertising and VAT on each side.
What each sale leaves you
Each product, line by line, on Amazon and on the new marketplace:
- Net Sales sales after refunds and VAT
- Product Gross Margin after product cost
- Marketplace Contribution 1 after marketplace fees, delivery and storage
- Marketplace Contribution 2 after advertising and returns
Sales that only move
Some Argos buyers would have bought from you on Amazon anyway. Trestle takes those sales off, so the extra monthly income it shows (EIMC, expected incremental marketplace contribution) is income that is genuinely new. It also shows the share of moved sales at which a product stops paying.
A forecast as a range
A monthly forecast built from your Amazon sales, with low, central and high cases. Every assumption is listed with the date it is due for review.
Where each figure comes from
Every figure is tagged: from your data, set by you, or an assumption you can change. Read more in the Argos vs Amazon guide.
Step 3
Five verdicts, in plain words
- Ready to list
- Adds income even in the low case. List it.
- Worth a trial
- Adds income in the central case. List a few and watch.
- Keep an eye on it
- Only the high case adds income. Not yet.
- Not a fit
- Even the high case adds no income, or it already loses money on Amazon after ads and returns.
- Need more info
- A figure is missing. Trestle says which one.
Step 4
Record what you did, then see what happened
The decisions ledger keeps one record per product.
Record each decision
Listed on Argos, not listing, or taken down, with the date. Anyone on your team can add one.
Forecast against actual
Upload your Argos order export and each live product shows its real sales beside the forecast you decided on, month by month.
Suggestions you can act on
If orders arrive for a product with no decision recorded, Trestle suggests one. Hide it for now; it comes back if newer orders arrive.
Alerts when something changes
Every upload is compared with the one before. What changed goes to one inbox, most serious first.
- Stock
- A product runs out or is close to running out.
- Take-home, income and refunds
- Marketplace Contribution 2 or extra monthly income falls, or refunds rise.
- Ad spend
- The ad spend share you entered changes.
- Listing changes
- A price, category or title changes.
- Cross-marketplace
- Amazon changes that alter a product's Argos verdict.
You set the limits, or switch an alert off, for each marketplace. If an upload does not carry what an alert needs, it says "Needs data" and what to upload, not "All clear".
What Trestle never does
- Changes your listings, prices or stock
- Connects to your Amazon or Argos seller account
- Messages your customers
- Asks for your marketplace password
- Keeps buyer names, addresses, emails or phone numbers
Bring your team
Invite colleagues by email to the same seller account. Each person signs in with their own password and a second step.
Next: See pricing · Read the questions
See it with your own catalogue
Upload your All Listings report and get a verdict for every product.
£99 once or £29 a month, ex VAT. See pricing
Read-only. Trestle never changes your listings, prices or orders.