Gross merchandise value (GMV) is the total value of orders placed through a store or marketplace in a period, at the prices buyers paid, usually before returns, fees, and costs are subtracted. Net revenue is the revenue a seller recognizes as its own: gross sales minus discounts, returns, and allowances, with sales tax collected on someone else's behalf left out.
GMV is a volume measure. Platforms report it because it shows how much commerce runs through them, and sellers quote it because it is the largest number they have. It is not a figure from your income statement, and its definition changes by who is reporting it. Shopify's quarterly results, for example, define GMV as the total dollar value of orders facilitated through the platform, net of refunds, and inclusive of shipping and handling, duty, and value-added taxes. Other platforms and agencies count it before refunds. Two sellers each claiming "$5M GMV" may be describing different things.
Net revenue is the top line of the P&L. It is the base for gross margin, for net margin, and for any multiple a buyer applies when valuing the business. Sellers who plan ad budgets, inventory buys, or hiring off GMV are planning off a number that includes money they will never keep: tax they remit for the state, refunds they pay back in January, and discounts they gave away at checkout.
The gap between the two also tells you something. If GMV grew 20 percent and net revenue grew 8 percent, the difference went to returns, deeper discounts, or a shift toward channels that collect more tax on your behalf. That is a question worth answering before you celebrate the growth.
Illustrative numbers. Take a seller's Amazon month with $100,000 of order value as buyers saw it at checkout. That total breaks down into:
Against that, the month also has:
GMV, defined as order value at checkout, is $100,000.
Net revenue starts from what the seller sold: $92,000 of product plus $3,000 of shipping, or $95,000 of gross sales. The $5,000 of tax is excluded because Amazon collects and remits it; it never belonged to the seller. Subtract the $4,000 of discounts and the $6,000 of refunds, and net revenue is $95,000 minus $10,000, or $85,000.
Net revenue is 85 percent of GMV here. Every dollar of the $15,000 gap is identifiable: $5,000 of pass-through tax, $4,000 of discounts, $6,000 of refunds.
The marketplace fees come next, and they are not part of this calculation. Say referral fees are $13,800 and FBA fulfillment fees are $14,000. Most sellers present these as selling expenses below the revenue line, which leaves net revenue at $85,000 and puts $27,800 of fees in operating costs. A few net them against revenue instead, which would show $57,200. Either can be defensible; mixing the two between months or channels is not. Agree the presentation with your CPA and hold it.
The cash that lands in the bank is different again. Ignoring reserves and other adjustments, the payout would be $85,000 minus $27,800, or $57,200, and that is neither GMV nor net revenue. It is net proceeds.
ConnectBooks reconciles the sales, refunds, and fees in each marketplace settlement and syncs them to QuickBooks or Xero, as summarized entries or item-level detail, rather than as one net deposit. The profit reports carry revenue down through COGS and fees to SKU-level and channel-level profit. If you need a GMV figure for an investor deck, build it from the order data and state the definition you used.
Yes, for questions about volume. GMV is a fair way to compare order activity across periods on the same platform, or to size your share of a category. It is the wrong base for anything involving margin, cash, or valuation, because it contains money you do not keep.
On most sellers' books it does, as shipping income, with the carrier cost recorded as an expense. Some reports exclude it from net sales. Neither is wrong, but your margin percentages change depending on the choice, so state it when you compare periods or channels.
Dashboards usually report ordered product sales by order date, often including tax or before refunds. Your P&L reports net revenue by the period the sale was earned, after discounts and refunds, without pass-through tax. The two will rarely match, and the difference should be explainable line by line.
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