Catalog Cash Leak

What is the scale of the catalog cash leak right now?

Variants OOS %

40.8%

Monthly Cash Leak

209,720 KES

Time to Fix

~1 day

Net Cash Delta (realistic)

+176k KES/mo

40.8% variants dead. 209,720 KES/mo bleed. 1 day to fix.

Claims: CL-01

Where exactly does the cash leak at the catalog layer?

╔════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║  CURRENT — cash leak at catalog layer                          ║
╚════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

[AliExpress supplier drops product]
         │
         ▼
[DSers auto-import] ─── no inventory sync ──> [Shopify 98,303 SKUs]
                                                      │
                                                      ▼
                                         [Meta catalog: 98,303]
                                                      │
    ┌────────────┬───────────────┬────────────┬──────┴──────┬───────────┐
    ▼            ▼               ▼            ▼             ▼           ▼
 28,500 OOS  1,990 policy    ~500 title    67,000 live   4,955 shop    1,811 ever
 inv=0       (adult/tobacco) (trademark)   (ok feed)     checkout       sold
             can't serve     truncated                   blocked
    │            │               │            │             │           │
    └── DPA suppressed ──────────┘            │             │           │
                                              ▼             │           │
                                    [Meta DPA algorithm]    │           │
                                    signal-starved          │           │
                                    optimizes on 2%         │           │
                                    of catalog that         │           │
                                    actually sells          │           │
                                              │             │           │
                                              ▼             ▼           ▼
                               Some clicks → OOS landing pages → bounce
                                                          │
                                                          ▼
                                              500k KES/mo ad spend
                                              → 1.18M revenue
                                              → MER 2.35x (<2.54x break-even)
                                              → -143k/mo realized-cash loss

Supplier to DSers to Shopify to Meta. Six leaks at catalog layer.

_Drill-through: _DSers import queue (TBD)__

Claims: CL-02

How many products are fully vs partially out of stock?

9,090 products fully dead. 1,164 partially dead variants still polluting feed.

Claims: CL-01, CL-03

Which catalog leak mechanism burns the most cash per month?

DPA starvation = 62% of leak. Fix OOS first.

Drill-through: ROAS compression story

Claims: CL-02, CL-04

What is the full leak table by mechanism with annual projection?

No Results

Each row one independent mechanism. They add, not overlap.

Claims: CL-04

1,990 policy-flagged SKUs drag account-level CPM by 2%.

Drill-through: Meta feed diagnostics

Claims: CL-03, CL-05

What does the catalog look like after the fix?

╔════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║  AFTER FIX — cleaner feed, same spend, better return           ║
╚════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

[Cleaned Shopify catalog: ~67,000 live sellable SKUs]
         │
         ▼
[Meta catalog excl. adult + OOS + title-broken]
         │
         ▼
[Meta DPA algorithm: dense accurate signal]
  availability=in stock for every feed item
  no policy rejections in circulation
  titles <70 chars, no trademark strings
  product_ids match pixel content_ids
         │
         ▼
Per-impression CVR +5-10% (media efficiency, no new spend)
OOS-landing bounces eliminated
Account-level quality score improves — CPM down
         │
         ▼
Same 500k ad spend → 1.24M-1.30M revenue
MER 2.47x → 2.60x (crosses break-even 2.54x)
Net cash: -143k → +30k to +80k/mo

Same spend. Denser signal. MER crosses break-even.

Claims: CL-02

How does each fix component contribute to the net cash position change?

Monthly cash position KES (March 2026 baseline → after ~1 day catalog fix)

 +60k ┤                                                   ┌────── +33k
      │                                                   │ (realistic)
 +40k ┤                                                   │
      │                                     +10k CPM ━━━▶ │
 +20k ┤                              +72k CPC waste ━━━━▶ │
      │                       +94k DPA eff (8%) ━━━━━━━━▶ │
   0k ┼━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┼━ break-even
      │
-140k ┤◀━━ -143k start
      └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
      current                                 after catalog cleanup

Conservative (5% MER lift): -143k + 59k + 72k + 10k = -2k  (near break-even)
Realistic   (8% MER lift):  -143k + 94k + 72k + 10k = +33k (net-positive)

Catalog fix alone flips to net-positive. Total uplift 176k KES/mo realistic.

Drill-through: MER math

Claims: CL-04

What is the effort vs reward for each catalog fix action?

No Results

Total owner time ~1 day. ~20k KES/h leverage.

Claims: CL-05

What must be answered before shipping P0?

5 questions before acting

Are the 28,500 OOS products actually out of stock, or is Shopify inventory tracking disabled?
Do you still sell the ~1,000 adult products at all?
Is DSers configured for auto inventory sync?
Of the 1,811 SKUs that ever sold, how many are currently OOS?
Is anyone currently reviewing the DSers import queue before publishing?

Answer these before P0 ships.

Lineage

run_id: catalog-leak-v2-2026-04-23
bulk_extract_id: bulk_products_2026-04-23
manifest: data/raw/products_bulk/manifest.json
verified: 2026-04-23
claims: CL-01, CL-02, CL-03, CL-04, CL-05