KALOTOYS — Margin breakdown

Researched profile. The figures here are modelled by us from public information, published with the sources they were drawn from. How we research.

Margin breakdown

Read Sep 2026. Figures here are a reading taken then, not a live feed.

Every cent of a $25.07 average sale, down to a little under a third of it — a contribution ceiling built on the founders’ own cost shares, not a net margin.

Only one line here is measured for this brand: Amazon’s 15% referral fee. The other three are the founders’ own shares for the whole company in 2023, stated on Shark Tank Vietnam and applied here to one brand on one marketplace three years later. The one cross-check available agrees with the fulfilment line: Amazon charges $5.52–6.13 to pick and pack a $29–33 busy board, 17–19% of its price.

The cost shares — what the founders said, and what is used here

Line	Stated by the founders (2023, company-wide)	Used here	Basis
Amazon referral fee	—	15%	Measured: Amazon’s published Toys & Games and Handmade rate; 15.01% per listing in Keepa
Cost of goods	~16%	16%	Self-reported, VTV, 6 Aug 2024
Shipping and fulfilment	20–22%	21%	Self-reported midpoint. FBA pick-and-pack on the busy boards is 17–19%; the made-to-order listings carry their own freight
Advertising	30–33% “marketing, including platform commissions”	16.5%	Self-reported midpoint less the 15% referral fee it included. The weakest line
Operating costs	3–4% of revenue a month	Not deducted	Self-reported; left out, which is one reason the remainder is a ceiling

Unaudited figures given on television for the whole company — Etsy, their websites and every brand they run. Nothing here is a supplier quote or a figure from this brand’s books.

What a new seller would pay on Alibaba

KALOTOYS makes its own toys in Hanoi, so nobody quotes it a price. What can be read is what a factory in China asks a new seller for the same three products — the name puzzles, the first-day-of-school signs and the busy boards, which together are 86% of September. Set beside the founders’ 16%, the quotes back it up: making the product costs a new seller about what the founders say it costs them, a little more for the puzzle and a little less for the sign and the board. What a new seller pays on top is the freight and the tariff, which the founders count in their shipping line instead.

The founders said: 16% · Alibaba quotes: 16.7%

Two sources that never spoke to each other land on the same share of the price.

Personalised name puzzle: founders $5.56, Alibaba $6.27 (18%), landed $9.06 (26.1%)
First-day-of-school sign: founders $4.07, Alibaba $3.60 (14.2%), landed $5.86 (23%)
Montessori busy board: founders $5.04, Alibaba $4.80 (15.2%), landed $7.83 (24.8%)

Cost of goods — the founders’ 16% against Alibaba quotes

Product	Founders: 16% of price	Alibaba: make only	Make + 20% tariff	Landed, with freight
Personalised name puzzle ($34.77)	$5.56 · 16%	$6.27 · 18.0%	$7.52 · 21.6%	$9.06 · 26.1%
First-day-of-school sign ($25.44)	$4.07 · 16%	$3.60 · 14.2%	$4.32 · 17.0%	$5.86 · 23.0%
Montessori busy board ($31.51)	$5.04 · 16%	$4.80 · 15.2%	$5.76 · 18.3%	$7.83 · 24.8%
The three, weighted by September’s sales	16%	16.7%	20.1%	25.2%

Price is September’s average sale for each product. The founders’ figure is their company-wide 2023 cost of goods applied to that price; they put shipping in a separate 20–22% line, so it compares with the make column. Make is each Alibaba supplier’s lowest listed price, averaged (the tables below). The tariff is ASSUMED at 20% (Section 301 plus the reciprocal rate on China), and freight is $496.67 per cubic metre, the low end of Freightos’ door-to-door LCL band from Shanghai: $1.54 for the puzzle’s 356 × 229 × 38 mm box, the same box standing in for the sign, which Amazon lists without a size, and $2.07 for the board’s 383 × 272 × 40 mm. This comparison does not change the margin below; “Test it first” uses the landed column.

Name puzzles

COGS on Alibaba — a personalised wooden name puzzle

Supplier	Track record	Buyer rating	Sold on Alibaba	MOQ	Unit price
Yiwu City Novelty Party Crafts Co., Ltd	Verified · 9 yrs	4.8★ from 27	—	50 pieces	$5.69–6.55
Guangzhou Sunlight Ornament Co., Ltd	4 yrs	5.0★ from 7	—	1 piece	$11–13
Yiwu Wowei Jewelry Co., Ltd	3 yrs	4.5★ from 206	—	20 pieces	$3.14–3.99
Shantou Chaofu Electronic Commerce Co., Ltd	3 yrs	4.5★ from 15	—	2 pieces	$6–6.80
Beijing Milejia Craft Co., Ltd	2 yrs	4.9★ from 34	—	50 pieces	$5.50
Average lowest price					$6.27

A search for “custom wooden name puzzle”, filtered to a 4.5+ supplier rating; none was marked as an ad, and only one supplier is Verified. Two are near cousins of the product — a family-name animal puzzle, and a name jigsaw set into a busy board at a one-piece minimum — and are kept in. Lowest prices $5.69, $11.00, $3.14, $6.00 and $5.50.

School signs

COGS on Alibaba — a first-day-of-school sign

Supplier	Track record	Buyer rating	Sold on Alibaba	MOQ	Unit price
Taizhou Dingchuan Manufacture & Trade Co., Ltd	Verified · 12 yrs	4.5★ from 11	—	100 pieces	$2–4
Yantai Puse Home Furnishing Co., Ltd	Verified · 8 yrs	No score shown	—	300 pieces	$2.01–2.15
Uionen International Trade Co., Limited (HK)	2 yrs	4.7★ from 44	—	1 piece	$5.55–6.25
Dongguan Doly International Trade Co., Ltd	1 yr	4.7★ from 15	—	3 pieces	$4.78
Yiwu Lianxiang Trading Firm	1 yr	5.0★ from 12	—	3 pieces	$4.75
Yiwu Jiangxuan Crafts Co., Ltd	1 yr	5.0★ from 2	—	50 pieces	$2.51–2.95
Average lowest price					$3.60

A search for “custom wooden first day of school sign”, filtered to a 4.5+ supplier rating; none was marked as an ad. The two Verified factories quote $2 at minimums of 100 and 300; the small sellers quote twice that at three pieces. Lowest prices $2.00, $2.01, $5.55, $4.78, $4.75 and $2.51.

Busy boards

COGS on Alibaba — a Montessori busy board

Supplier	Track record	Buyer rating	Sold on Alibaba	MOQ	Unit price
Ningbo Eduland Toys Co., Ltd	Verified · 6 yrs · 31% reorder rate	4.9★ from 70 (store)	53	200–300 sets	$4.90–5.90
Shenzhen Lucky Star Toys Trading Co., Ltd	1 yr	4.9★ from 6 (store)	207	5 pieces	$4.70–5.30
Average lowest price					$4.80

Read from three listing pages rather than a search: two Eduland boards, one with a steering wheel and one with gears, and a Lucky Star sensory board, all Montessori busy boards made to order. Prices fall with volume — Eduland’s to $4.90 at 1,000 sets, Lucky Star’s to $4.70 at 500 — and the cost to make averages those lowest tiers. Neither listing has product reviews yet; the ratings are the stores’. KALOTOYS sells a 17-inch board, so a copy of the same size may cost a little more.

The margin, on the founders’ own figures

Cost of goods: -16% of revenue — About $4.01 of a $25.07 sale. Derived from the founders’ self-reported ~16% for the whole company in 2023, not quoted for any product. It has to cover imported inputs: wood they say cannot be bought in Vietnam and comes from cold-climate sources, Russia named; screws from China cut to a US standard; child-safe paint from a Japanese supplier; and testing to ASTM F963. Cut in their own Hanoi workshops, all by their own account. See the cost shares above
Amazon referral fee: -15% of revenue — Amazon’s published rate for Toys & Games and for Handmade — 15% either way, and 15.01% per listing in Keepa. The one measured line. Amazon’s referral fees by category
Shipping and fulfilment: -21% of revenue — Size tier: Large Standard. The best seller, the personalised name puzzle B0GSZSCM69, packs to 14.0 × 9.0 × 1.5 in — the 1.5 in is over Small Standard’s 0.75 in limit — and Amazon charges it nothing, because it is made to order and ships from the seller. Freight from Vietnam and delivery to the customer, at the founders’ self-reported 20–22% midpoint. Derived. A second founder statement, on video in September 2024, puts freight alone at about 20% of revenue on the all-Vietnam route — the route the planned US finishing workshop is meant to end, since a finished personalised board has to fly and a blank base can go by sea. Consistent too with the $5.52–6.13 FBA fee on the busy boards; the made-to-order listings ship themselves. All of Amazon’s size tiers, explained
Advertising: -16.5% of revenue — Derived, on a self-reported basis: the founders’ 30–33% marketing share, which they said included platform commissions, less the 15% referral fee. The weakest line. The ads that can be seen on Amazon model at under 2% of revenue — a floor that misses several ad types, and Amazon alone — so the founders’ figure is kept, and the Advertising section shows both. See the ad spend behind this line If you want to go in depth, go to the Advertising section
Margin: 31.5% — Derived, self-reported basis: three of the four lines are the founders’ own 2023 company-wide shares. They also predate the product this page now runs on — the four name puzzles only listed in March 2026, and are about half of the month. Returns, payroll, overhead and the US entities’ own costs are all at zero here, so this is a ceiling on profit rather than profit.

The same founders reported 2023 profit of 9.6 billion VND on 95 billion of revenue: a 10.1% net margin. Their cost shares leave 31.5%, or about 28% after the operating costs they named, so roughly 18 points of cost go unnamed — payroll, R&D, depreciation, interest, or the costs of Etsy and the websites that sit outside “marketing”. The profit on this page is what one Amazon brand contributes before those, and the company-level margin may be nearer 10%.

The margin block and the profit series on the chart are one model, so they cannot disagree. What neither can say is which side of that 18-point gap this brand sits on — the first thing to put to the owner.

KALOTOYS overview · All case studies