Fractional CFO for e-commerce: know your real margin after fees, fulfillment, and returns
I help e-commerce and online retail companies connect channel economics, ad spend, inventory, payments, and cash into decisions you can act on. I’ve run high-volume consumer commerce myself - 1.2 million customers, $1M a month in performance media, and the payment operation behind it.
30+ years
as a CFO
MBA
in Marketing
CPA
Georgia State Board of Accountancy License #CPA012637 (inact)
Trusted by leaders at
The dashboard says growth. The bank account disagrees.
An online business can grow top-line every month while the economics quietly weaken.
Marketplace fees, payment processing, fulfillment, freight, returns, discounts, and promotions all come out of the margin after the sale looks won.
Ad platforms report ROAS that never quite reconciles to the P&L.
Inventory is bought ahead of the season, and cash disappears exactly when revenue is climbing.
A useful CFO view connects the storefront data, the ad accounts, the inventory system, and the bank account - with conservative attribution, not platform optimism.
Questions the financial model should answer
01
What is our real contribution margin - by product and channel?
Start from the customer’s payment and subtract everything: marketplace and processing fees, fulfillment, freight, returns, discounts, and promotion cost. Then compare channels honestly - own site, marketplaces, wholesale.
02
Is our ad spend earning its keep?
Build a spend / pipeline / revenue bridge with conservative attribution. Know CAC and payback by channel, and reallocate to what’s proven. I steered $1M a month in media spend against exactly these models - acquisition cost versus lifetime value, campaign by campaign.
03
How much cash does the next season require?
Connect purchasing commitments, lead times, promotional calendar, and demand assumptions to a 13-week cash view - so the growth season doesn’t create an avoidable cash squeeze.
04
Are promotions and discounts creating value?
Evaluate price floors, discount depth, bundle and attach economics, free-shipping thresholds, and their real margin effect. Sometimes the best revenue lever is already in the checkout flow: at one company I raised close rates from 10% to 12% by attaching a $0.50 product customers valued at $30-$50.
05
Is the payment engine leaking?
Processing cost, refunds, chargebacks, and involuntary churn hit margin at the last step. In high-volume consumer commerce these numbers decide whether the business survives - I held processing below 4% of gross, refunds below 15%, and chargebacks below 3% for years.
What I can support
13-week cash and working-capital forecasting, built around the promotional calendar.
Product, channel, and cohort contribution margin.
Ad-spend efficiency: CAC, payback, and channel reallocation with conservative attribution.
Inventory purchasing, turns, and seasonal cash planning.
Pricing, discount, promotion, and attach-rate economics.
Payment operations: processing cost, refunds, chargebacks, and controls.
Returns, shrink, and fulfillment cost visibility.
Growth scenarios, financing readiness, and exit preparation.
Recommended starting point
E-Commerce CFO Decision Diagnostic
In 10 business days after receiving complete data, I develop:
1
A 13-week cash view built around collections, payables, ad spend, and purchasing commitments.
2
A contribution-margin map by product and channel, using your best available data.
3
A prioritized 90-day action plan for margin, ad spend, inventory, cash, and decision ownership.
Planning investment: $3,000-$5,000, confirmed after a fit call.
Proof: high-volume consumer commerce, run on models
At Baywalk Media, the company I co-founded, we sold technical support and software to consumers worldwide - 1.2 million of them. I built the 36-month models that steered nearly $1M in monthly media spend across 1,000+ campaigns, measuring acquisition cost against customer lifetime value, and I ran the PCI-compliant, multi-currency payment operation: processing cost below 4% of gross, refunds below 15%, chargebacks below 3%, at $60M annual capacity for five consecutive years. The business reached $35M in peak revenue at 20% EBITDA.
Earlier, as CFO of a Nasdaq-listed online travel seller (lowairfare.com), I re-engineered the economics of the existing customer flow under pressure: attaching travel insurance to every ticket raised service fees $10 per booking and lifted close rates from 10% to 12% - margin engineered out of traffic we already had.
1.2M
consumers served worldwide - $35M peak revenue at 20% EBITDA
$1M/month
in performance media, steered by 36-month models across 1,000+ campaigns
<4%
processing cost of gross, with refunds below 15% and chargebacks below 3%
10% → 12%
close rates, from a $0.50 attach customers valued at $30-$50
These describe Bob’s roles as co-founder/CFO/COO of Baywalk Media (2005-2017) and CFO of 800 Travel Systems (1999-2002), not Fractional CFO client engagements.
Best-fit companies
E-commerce brand, multi-channel or marketplace seller, or online retailer.
Approximately $5 million to $50 million in revenue.
Meaningful ad spend, inventory, or payment volume.
Usable accounting data plus storefront, ad, and fulfillment exports.
A decision involving margin, ad spend, inventory, cash, financing, acquisition, or exit.
Frequently asked questions
Our numbers live in Shopify, Amazon, our ad accounts, and QuickBooks. Can you work with that?
Usually, yes. The first step is a contribution-margin model built from the exports you already have. New tooling comes in only when it solves a defined decision problem.
Will you just tell us to cut ad spend?
No. The point is a conservative bridge from spend to cash so you can see which channels earn their keep. Sometimes the answer is spending more where payback is proven - I’ve run $1M a month when the models supported it.
Can you fix our chargeback and refund problem?
I can find where it’s coming from and what it costs. In my experience the durable fix pairs payment controls with service quality at the source - that’s how we held chargebacks below 3% for years at high volume.
Do you handle inventory-heavy e-commerce?
Yes - purchasing, turns, and seasonal cash are core CFO work. For distribution-first businesses with fleets and physical delivery, see the Distribution page; the disciplines overlap and I cover both.
Know what you actually keep from every order
Or text me directly at (727) 455-9905.