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Scenario for this page: Tonies Sleepy Friends (12 bought 45 days before the seed day, $12.00 each, sold at $30.00). One sold 30 days before the seed day. Five sold in the last 20 days, and one of those buyers sent it back. Find it in the demo store on Sales: pick Custom, from 20 days before the seed day to the seed day, and search “B0DVFDDKZS” (the older sale is on the days before them). Then find it on Capital Recovery > Products (search “B0DVFDDKZS”).
Sales and Capital Recovery both show your money from Amazon. They answer two different questions, so their numbers are rarely the same.
  • Sales: how did this day or this month go?
  • Capital Recovery: did I get back the money I spent on stock?

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One product on both pages

Say you bought 12 Tonies Sleepy Friends last month. They cost $12.00 each, so you put $144.00 to work.
  • One sold last month.
  • Five sold this month.
  • One of this month’s buyers sent theirs back, and Amazon refunded them.
Now open both pages today. Sales, on the Month to date tile, shows this month’s 5 orders. Each one sits on the day the buyer ordered it. The refund sits on the day Amazon paid it back. The cost is only what those 5 units cost you. Last month’s sale is on the Last month tile, not here. Capital Recovery shows one row for the 12 you bought. It counts every sale since you bought them, last month’s too, once Amazon ships each one and adds the money to your Amazon account. It sets that money against the whole $144.00, sold or not. So the same product can look good on Sales and still be red on Capital Recovery. This month made a profit on the units that sold. But 7 units are still waiting to sell, and the money you paid for them hasn’t come back yet. Here is the demo store on its seed day. Sales shows the 5 units, $150.00 of sales, and $9.10 of net profit. The est. mark means Amazon hasn’t paid out every one of those orders yet. Sales counts them anyway.
The Sales product table with one row, Tonies Sleepy Friends: Units Sold 5, Refunds 1, Sales $150.00, Net profit $9.10 est., ROI 14.6%, Profit margin 6.1%, COGS -$62.50, with CR and PO chips.

Tonies Sleepy Friends on Sales, Month to date on the seed day (Oct 1-30). Notice 5 units sold and $9.10 of net profit.

Capital Recovery’s row shows $144.00 in, $83.10 back, and a P&L of -$72.90. The P&L also takes off the $12.00 of ads, so it reads -$72.90, not -$60.90.
The Capital Recovery row for Tonies Sleepy Friends: Road to break-even 5/12 sold, Sent to Amazon 12, Invested $144.00, Recovered $83.10, P&L -$72.90, ROI 19%, with PO and Sales chips.

Tonies Sleepy Friends on Capital Recovery. Notice 5/12 sold and a P&L of -$72.90: the 7 units left still hold your money.

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Why the numbers are not the same

When a sale counts. Sales counts a sale on the day the buyer orders. Capital Recovery counts it once Amazon ships it and adds the money to your Amazon account. Some of that money may still be on its way to your bank. What the dates pick. On Sales, the dates pick orders placed on those days. On Capital Recovery, the dates pick the buys you made on those days, with everything those buys earned since. So Month to date on Sales is this month’s orders. 30d on Capital Recovery is the stock you bought in the last 30 days. Which cost comes off. Sales takes off what the sold units cost. Capital Recovery’s P&L takes off everything you paid for the buy, unsold units too. Both use the same cost for each unit. Capital Recovery’s Profit on what sold card counts only the sold units, like Sales does. Ads. Amazon gives one ad total per product for each month. Sales spreads it evenly over the month’s days. Capital Recovery takes it off the product’s profit. Stores. An amazon.ca order shipped from your US stock shows on your Canada store’s Sales page. Capital Recovery counts it on your US store, because the unit came from your US buys. Sales has an All stores view. Capital Recovery shows one store at a time. Guesses. Sales has a Forecast for the whole month. Capital Recovery has no forecast. Its money comes only from Amazon’s records.

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Which one to use

Use Sales to:
  • see how today, yesterday, or this month went;
  • see your profit for a month or a year;
  • see what this month may end at.
Use Capital Recovery to:
  • see if a buy has paid for itself;
  • decide what to buy again;
  • see where your money sits now: on the way, at Amazon, or back with you;
  • find money Amazon may owe you.

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Jump between them

On a Capital Recovery row, Sales opens that product on the Sales page. On a Sales product row, CR opens it on Capital Recovery. Both open in a new tab. See Capital Recovery and Sales for each page in full.