Retail · Furniture
Free assembly and delivery were bundled below cost on big-ticket lines.
This marketing & margin audit surfaced $58k in recurring annual margin in a Retail business — evidenced, senior-reviewed, and delivered in 6 days.
The business
A furniture retailer bundled free delivery and assembly into its big-ticket lines as a selling point, on the assumption that the headline price comfortably absorbed the service. Large-item sales were strong and the free service was a competitive differentiator, so the actual cost of delivering and assembling those orders was never rebuilt against the margin in the price.
What triggered the audit
Big-ticket margin was thinner than the pricing implied, pointing at the bundled service rather than the product. The audit rebuilt the true cost of delivering and assembling large items — two-person crews, vehicle time, failed deliveries and returns — and compared it against the margin baked into the headline price.
What the audit found
The free delivery and assembly were costing far more than the price absorbed. Large-item fulfillment is genuinely expensive: two-person crews, long vehicle routes, time on site to assemble, and a meaningful rate of failed deliveries and bulky returns that each carry their own cost. Bundled in free, this service was quietly eating much of the margin on the very big-ticket orders the retailer promoted hardest, and on some lines it pushed the fully-loaded order close to break-even. Because the cost sat in a logistics line rather than against each order, and because the free service drove sales, the erosion was invisible. Rebuilt against the price, the under-costed delivery and assembly was worth roughly $58k a year in lost big-ticket margin.
What we changed
Rebuilt the fully-loaded cost of delivery and assembly per order and repriced the big-ticket lines so the headline price genuinely absorbs it.
Introduced tiered or threshold-based service pricing on the largest items, rather than bundling delivery and assembly free across the entire range.
Cut failed-delivery and return rates with better scheduling and pre-delivery confirmation, reducing the expensive lifecycle cost at its source.
Made big-ticket order margin, net of delivery and assembly, a monitored metric so the subsidy can’t silently return on flagship sales.
The result
$58k a year recovered by pricing big-ticket delivery and assembly to what it actually costs — a 10× return on the $5,950 Audit + Sprint fee. For any furniture or large-item retailer, the free service is the leak: two-person crews, site time and failed deliveries hide in a logistics line while the headline price looks healthy. If you bundle delivery and assembly free, your biggest orders may be your thinnest. A fixed-fee audit rebuilds the true cost in days, so your flagship sales carry real margin again.
From kickoff to signed-off findings: 6 days — inside our fixed 5–7 day window.