Why products are missing from Shopify profit reports, and how to find those with no cost
Shopify reports profit only for variants that had a cost when they sold. Everything else is left out, so a profit report can cover less of your sales than you think. Find the gap first, then the variants causing it.
Updated
Step 1: measure the gap
Open the finance summary in Shopify’s reports. Its gross profit breakdown separates net sales with cost recorded from net sales without cost recorded. The second figure is revenue that no profit report is counting.
If that number is small, a few variants are slipping through. If it is a large share of sales, your reported margin describes only part of the business.
Shopify also gives the symptom: if orders are missing from the profit margin by order report, the variants on them probably have no cost.
Step 2: list the variants
In the bulk editor
- Go to Products, select all products and open the bulk editor.
- Add the Cost per item column.
- Scan for empty cells.
Workable for a small catalog. There is no way to sort or filter on an empty cost here.
In an export
- Export all products to CSV.
- Open the file and filter the Cost per item column for blanks.
- Ignore the extra rows that only carry additional images; those have no variant data.
This gives a complete list with SKUs that you can fill in and import back.
In an app
Cogsy lists every variant with a “No unit cost” filter, alongside filters for low and negative margins and for variants with no SKU. A bundle is included when any of its components has no cost.
Step 3: fix the cause
Empty costs come back. The usual sources:
- New variants. A colour or size is added and the cost field is skipped.
- Duplicated products. Check that the copy carried its costs.
- Imports. A CSV with a blank Cost per item column clears existing costs.
- Bundles and gift sets. The bundle product is created and never given a cost.
- Products added by apps. Print-on-demand and dropship integrations do not all fill the field.
A monthly check takes minutes. Remember that a cost added today does not reach back: sales made while the cost was empty stay out of profit reports.
Questions
- Does Shopify treat a missing cost as zero?
- No. A variant with no cost is excluded from profit reports. Its sales are not counted as 100% profit; they are not counted in gross profit at all.
- Why do my sales report and my profit report show different net sales?
- Shopify's explanation is that profit reports only include variants that had cost information when they were sold. The difference is the sales of variants without a cost.
- Is a cost of 0.00 the same as no cost?
- No. A zero is a value, and a variant with a cost of zero can be reported as all profit. If the item really costs something, a zero is worse than an empty field because nothing flags it.
Sources
Related
Feature
Missing cost and low-margin flagsA variant with no cost shows as missing, never as zero. Set a margin threshold and everything under it is flagged.
Guide
How to bulk update cost per item in ShopifyThree ways to update cost per item for many Shopify variants at once: the bulk editor, a product CSV import, or an app. Steps and pitfalls for each.
Guide
What happens to past orders when you change a cost in ShopifyShopify records cost at the time of sale. What that means for old orders when you change cost per item, for orders sold with no cost, and what you can do about it.
Guide
How to cost a bundle in ShopifyShopify's docs do not say how a bundle's cost is set. How to work out a bundle's cost from its components, test what your reports use, and keep it current.