Cross-border & sourcing
Margin headroom
Definition
The gap between a realistic US retail price and your fully-loaded landed cost, after accounting for marketplace fees, launch advertising, and a returns allowance — the buffer that lets a new listing survive its first unprofitable months.
Defined in The Hero Product Selection Framework for Manufacturers.
Related terms
- Landed cost
- The fully loaded cost to get one unit from the factory floor to a fulfilled US sale, including product cost, freight, duty, marketplace fulfillment fees, marketplace referral fees, and an amortized reserve for returns. It is the true cost basis for pricing — not the FOB or CIF quote.
- Knockout search
- A preliminary, non-exhaustive search of the USPTO's trademark database (and ideally state and common-law sources) to check whether an identical or confusingly similar mark already exists in your goods category, before you commit budget to a name.
- Commercial invoice
- The document that states what was sold, to whom, at what price, and under what terms — the primary document US Customs and Border Protection uses to value the shipment and assess duty. It must match the packing list and the actual goods exactly.
- ISF
- Also called '10+2' — a filing of shipment and party data that must be lodged with US Customs before ocean cargo is loaded at the origin port. Missing or late ISF filings carry monetary penalties and can trigger cargo holds on arrival.
- Marketplace facilitator law
- A state law making the marketplace — Amazon — responsible for calculating, collecting, and remitting sales tax on third-party sales. Every US state with a sales tax now has one, which is why marketplace-only sellers generally do not register state by state.
- Children's Product Certificate
- The certificate a manufacturer or importer must issue for any product designed primarily for children 12 and under, based on passing tests performed by a CPSC-accepted third-party laboratory. General-use products subject to a CPSC rule need the self-issued equivalent, a General Certificate of Conformity (GCC).
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