At a glance
Average order value with VAT removed, the merchant’s net per-order revenue before tax. Most ecommerce dashboards default to AOV inc-VAT (matches the customer’s view of price). B2B-heavy stores prefer ex-VAT because their accounting and forecasting is denominated in net revenue, and because their B2B customers reclaim VAT (so the inc-VAT AOV overstates the customer’s effective spend). The card answers “what did we earn per order, net of tax?”
Calculation
subtotal_ex_tax is not directly available, compute as total_inc_tax - total_tax - shipping_inc_tax + shipping_ex_tax per order, then divide by order count.
Worked example
A UK-based BigCommerce home-and-garden store, AOV reading on Wednesday 15 May 26.
What the ex-VAT reading is telling us:
- The merchant’s net AOV is £217.58. This is the figure that flows to the P&L and matters for margin math. At a 50% gross margin assumption, contribution per order is £108.79 before fulfilment, ad-spend, and overhead. Compare this directly against per-order CAC (typically £15-£40) to compute true contribution per order.
- The tax wedge is consistent at 16.7%. This indicates the merchant’s customer mix is stable across geographies (no recent shift between UK + EU + non-EU shipping). A divergence in the tax wedge across periods would signal a customer-mix change worth investigating.
- Why the ex-VAT and inc-VAT trends are identical at +7.3%. When tax rates and customer mix are stable, the two AOVs move in lockstep. Divergence between the two trends signals either: (a) a tax-rate change in a major jurisdiction, (b) a customer-mix shift between taxable and zero-rated regions, (c) a product-mix shift between standard-rate and reduced-rate categories.
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Use cases for ex-VAT AOV:
- Margin reporting: feeds directly into P&L without requiring tax-back-out.
- B2B reporting: matches B2B customer experience (they reclaim VAT).
- Cross-border comparison: normalises across jurisdictions with different tax rates.
- Investor decks: most ecommerce KPI benchmarks are quoted ex-VAT for international comparability.
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Cross-reference cards:
aov(inc-VAT): customer-facing AOV.aov_trend: percentage change.bc_aov_discount: AOV with vs without discount.bc_aov_by_country: geography decomposition.total_revenue: revenue companion.
- Read ex-VAT AOV. Compare to inc-VAT AOV.
- Confirm tax wedge is stable across periods.
- Use ex-VAT for margin and P&L work; use inc-VAT for customer-experience and conversion analysis.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in BC: Analytics → Insights → Orders (toggle tax-inclusive vs ex-tax view if available); Reports → Sales Tax Report. Why our number may differ:
Cross-connector:
shopify.aov_ex_vat, adobe_commerce.aov_ex_vat for cross-platform parity (when same merchant uses multiple platforms).
Quick rule: confirm the tax-field source and shipping-tax handling first.
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
Q: We’re a US-only store. Should we use ex-VAT or inc-VAT? US sales tax is typically not part of the order subtotal in BC’s data (it’s collected as a separate line). The two AOV values will be effectively identical for US-only stores. Stick with inc-VAT (aov) as the headline; treat ex-VAT as informational. The distinction matters for UK + EU + multi-jurisdiction merchants.
Q: Why does ex-VAT AOV not have its own alert threshold?
Because the trend behaviour is identical to inc-VAT AOV when tax rates and customer mix are stable. The alert-threshold logic lives on aov_trend, which reads the percentage change. The ex-VAT version is a presentation variant for stores that prefer the net view.
Q: Our tax wedge changed from 17% to 14%. What happened?
Likely a customer-mix shift toward lower-tax-rate jurisdictions (e.g., more EU OSS-zero-rated B2B customers, or more US shipping addresses). Investigate via per-country revenue decomposition (bc_revenue_by_country or bc_aov_by_country).
Q: B2B customers reclaim VAT, does this card account for that?
Indirectly. The ex-VAT AOV shows what the merchant earned net of tax; whether the customer reclaims their input VAT is the customer’s tax position, not the merchant’s. The merchant’s revenue recognition is at ex-VAT regardless.
Q: Our shipping is sometimes inc-VAT and sometimes ex-VAT depending on jurisdiction. How does that affect AOV?
Configurable per profile. Default behaviour: align with the order’s tax inclusion setting. A consistent ex-VAT view requires consistent shipping treatment; if your shipping varies, the trend may show small artefacts. Audit the BC shipping tax configuration.
Q: When should I quote ex-VAT to investors and when inc-VAT?
Investors and benchmarks typically use ex-VAT (net revenue) for international comparability. Internal customer-experience metrics use inc-VAT (customer-facing). For a board pack, lead with ex-VAT; for a marketing dashboard, lead with inc-VAT.
Q: GMV vs revenue, which does this card reflect?
Revenue (net of refunds, cancellations, returns). GMV (gross merchandise value) typically includes those and is higher. If you need GMV, sum subtotal_ex_tax across all orders including refunded; the difference between this card and GMV is the refund-rate adjustment.
Q: How does this card differ from aov?
aov is inc-VAT (customer-facing); this card is ex-VAT (merchant accounting). Different audiences, same underlying data. Run both alongside on stores with mixed audiences.