> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Gross Margin, BigCommerce > Gross Margin for BigCommerce stores. Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it. **Metrics type:** [Supporting Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained) • **Category:** [Ecommerce Platform](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) ## At a glance > Store-wide gross margin gauge: total gross profit divided by total revenue across all line items over the trailing 30 days, with prior-30 comparison. The single most important profitability signal on the BC dashboard. Where individual brand or product margins live in [BC Margin by Brand](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/margin-by-brand), this card aggregates everything to one number and fires an alert when it slips below 35%, the floor at which most BC stores are no longer covering their fully-loaded operating costs. | | | | ------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **What it counts** | `(SUM(line_revenue_ex_tax) - SUM(line_cost)) / SUM(line_revenue_ex_tax) * 100` over the trailing 30 days, vs prior 30. Cost from `cost_price` field per SKU; revenue from line items (excluding shipping). | | **API endpoint** | `GET /v3/catalog/products` for `cost_price` per SKU; `GET /v2/orders/{id}/products` for line revenue. The OpenSearch index materialises per-SKU revenue and cost per day, then aggregates store-wide. | | **VAT / tax treatment** | Ex-tax revenue (VAT and sales-tax stripped before margin computation). | | **Shipping** | Excluded from both revenue and cost; shipping has its own margin equation. | | **Discounts** | Deducted from revenue side; cost stays the same, so heavy promo periods compress margin. | | **Refunds** | Not deducted (gross margin). For net margin including refunds, configure under Settings → Refund handling. | | **Cancelled orders** | Excluded. | | **`Incomplete` orders** | Excluded. | | **Currency** | Multi-currency aggregated using daily FX. **Cost is in primary currency by convention.** | | **Channels** | All channels included by default. **Per-channel margin** would be valuable for B2B-vs-DTC visibility; configure under Settings → Margin scope → Channel filter. | | **B2B Edition behaviour** | B2B price-list orders carry lower margin (wholesale price \< retail). **B2B-active stores see headline margin pulled down 5-15pp** from the DTC-only equivalent. **Configure DTC-only view** to read pure DTC margin separate from B2B. | | **Cost data quality** | `cost_price` is merchant-maintained in BC; missing values default to zero, inflating margin to 100%. **The card warns when cost-data coverage is below 90%** of revenue-weighted SKUs. Run a cost-data audit before relying on the margin number. | | **Promotional cycles** | Cart-level discounts pro-rate across line items, depressing margin during promo days; expect 3-7pp margin compression on heavy promo days. The card's 30-day window smooths this; weekly views show more volatility. | | **Time window** | `30D vsP` (rolling 30 days vs prior 30). | | **Alert trigger** | `<35% (margin pressure)`. The 35% floor is the BC-ecosystem-wide threshold below which most stores struggle to cover fully-loaded operating costs (3PL, ad spend, payment fees, customer service). Stores with structurally lower-margin assortments (commodity goods, electronics) should configure their own floor. | | **Roles** | owner | ## Calculation Calculated automatically from your BigCommerce data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading. ## Worked example A US specialty foods retailer on BigCommerce Pro with own-label + reseller brands, B2B Edition active. Snapshot for 1 Apr to 30 Apr 26 vs prior 30 days. | Metric | Current 30D | Prior 30D | Delta | | ------------------ | ------------------------- | --------- | ---------- | | Revenue (ex-tax) | \$354,000 | \$341,000 | +3.8% | | Cost (COGS) | \$185,330 | \$176,200 | +5.2% | | Gross profit | \$168,670 | \$164,800 | +2.3% | | **Gross margin %** | **47.7%** | **48.3%** | **-0.6pp** | | **Alert status** | Healthy (above 35% floor) | | | Decomposition (DTC vs B2B): | Cohort | Revenue | Margin | | ------------------------ | --------- | --------- | | DTC (web + Amazon + POS) | \$186,000 | 54.2% | | B2B Edition portal | \$168,000 | 40.5% | | **Aggregate** | \$354,000 | **47.7%** | What's interesting: 1. **Headline 47.7% (-0.6pp) is healthy and within normal MoM variance.** The 35% alert floor isn't close. The slight compression (-0.6pp) is within the noise band of ±1pp; not yet trend-worthy. 2. **DTC at 54.2% vs B2B at 40.5% = a 13.7pp gap.** This is the structural wholesale discount, perfectly normal. The headline 47.7% is the volume-weighted blend of the two cohorts. **For DTC-only assessment, read 54.2%; for finance and board reporting, read 47.7%; both are correct at their own scope.** 3. **Cost grew 5.2% MoM while revenue grew 3.8%.** Cost is outpacing revenue, the leading indicator of margin compression. Investigation: did a key supplier raise prices? Did shipping cost (when included in `cost_price` as landed cost) increase? **Cost growth above revenue growth is the canary; track for two more months before calling it a trend.** 4. **The 35% floor is conservative for specialty foods** (typical specialty-foods margin 45-60%); a more realistic alert floor for this merchant is 42% (5pp below their typical baseline of 47-50%). **Configure category-aware floors** under Settings → Alerts → Margin floor. 5. **B2B at 40.5% is healthy for B2B Edition.** B2B margins of 35-45% are normal; below 30% suggests over-discounting wholesale; above 50% suggests under-using B2B's wholesale pricing capability (you're missing the wholesale-discount opportunity). Action priority order: 1. **Read alongside [BC Margin by Brand](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/margin-by-brand)** to decompose; a 0.6pp headline drop usually traces to one or two brands. 2. **Audit cost-data coverage.** If \<90% of SKUs have populated `cost_price`, the headline number is unreliable. 3. **For 2 consecutive periods of margin compression, investigate**: supplier price increases, mix shift toward lower-margin SKUs, increased promo density. 4. **Configure category-aware alert floor.** The 35% default is a floor for general retail; specialty / premium categories should be 5-10pp higher. 5. **For B2B-active stores, run separate DTC-only and B2B-only margin reads** to separate operational signals. ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together | Card | Why pair it with Gross Margin | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [BC Margin by Brand](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/margin-by-brand) | Brand-level decomposition; identifies which brand is moving the headline. | | [Total Revenue](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/total-revenue) | Revenue side of the margin equation. | | [BC Top SKUs Revenue](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/top-skus-by-revenue) | Hero-SKU contribution to overall margin. | | [BC Top Coupons](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/top-coupons) | Promo cycles compress margin. | | [BC AOV with/without Discount](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/aov-with-without-discount) | Discount-density's margin impact. | | [BC Channel Refund Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/refund-rate-by-channel) | High-refund + thin-margin = bleed. | | [BC Revenue by Brand](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/revenue-by-brand) | Volume context for margin contribution. | | [BC Revenue by Category](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/revenue-by-category) | Category mix impact on overall margin. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in BigCommerce Control Panel:** BigCommerce **does not natively surface gross margin as a single dashboard tile.** [Reports → Sales](https://login.bigcommerce.com/deep-links/manage/reports) (Plus / Pro / Enterprise) shows revenue but cost / margin requires Custom Reports or Insights add-ons. For per-product cost: [Products → individual product → Identifiers](https://login.bigcommerce.com/deep-links/manage/products) shows the `cost_price` field. **The lack of native margin reporting is the single most-common reason BC merchants implement Vortex IQ.** **Why our margin may differ from BC reports / accounting:** | Reason | Direction | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------- | | **Cost data freshness**. We use whatever `cost_price` is currently in BC; stale costs inflate margin. | Vortex IQ HIGHER (using stale low cost) | | **VAT / tax handling**. We use ex-tax revenue; BC's reports vary. | Vortex IQ MARGIN MATCHES if both ex-tax | | **Refund treatment**. We don't deduct refunds (gross); accounting does (net). | Vortex IQ HIGHER | | **Currency conversion**. Daily FX vs accounting month-end FX. | Sub-1% gap | | **Bundle costs**. Bundle parent vs component cost varies. | Either direction | | **Cancelled-order impact**. We exclude cancelled; accounting may include reversal entries. | Vortex IQ HIGHER | | **Landed-cost vs FOB**. We use whatever's in `cost_price`; if you populate FOB only and landed includes freight + duty, accounting will show lower margin. | Vortex IQ HIGHER | **Cross-connector reconciliation (when accounting integrations are connected):** | Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [`netsuite.netsuite_gross_margin`](/nerve-centre/netsuite/netsuite_gross_margin) | NetSuite GL-grounded margin should match within 1-3% | NetSuite uses costing method (FIFO, weighted avg); BC's `cost_price` is point-in-time. | | [`quickbooks.qb_gross_margin`](/nerve-centre/quickbooks/qb_gross_margin) | QuickBooks gross margin correlates strongly | QuickBooks accrues COGS at fulfilment; we attribute at order. Timing differences. | | [`xero.xero_gross_margin`](/nerve-centre/xero/xero_gross_margin) | Xero's GP report should match within 1-2% | Xero's COGS includes some operational costs; we measure pure product cost only. | | [`shipbob.sb_landed_cost`](/nerve-centre/shipbob/sb_landed_cost) | Adds 3PL fees to COGS | Configure landed-cost mode if your books include 3PL fees in COGS. | **The gross margin gauge is BC-aligned with similar cards on Shopify (per `cost_per_item`) and Adobe Commerce (per `cost`); merchant-facing semantics are equivalent.** ***
Same-metric documentation cross-reference (for agencies running multiple platforms) * [`shopify.gross_margin`](/nerve-centre/shopify/gross_margin) (planned) * [`adobe_commerce.gross_margin`](/nerve-centre/adobe_commerce/gross_margin) (planned)
## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **My margin reads 100%. Is the brand a gold mine?** Almost certainly not. Most likely cause: missing `cost_price` data. BC defaults the field to zero, so revenue minus zero cost = 100% margin. **Audit cost coverage** in [Products → Inventory](https://login.bigcommerce.com/deep-links/manage/products) by filtering for `cost_price = 0`. Populate cost data; the margin will normalise. **Why is the alert floor 35%?** Because most BC stores below 35% gross margin can't cover their fully-loaded operating costs (3PL \~5-8%, ad spend \~10-15%, payment fees \~3%, customer service \~2%, platform fees \~2-3%). Total operating typically 25-30%; gross margin needs to be at least that plus net profit target. **Below 35% gross is structurally hard to be profitable.** Configure a higher floor for premium-category stores. **My margin reads 47% but my P\&L says 38%. Why?** Most likely we measure gross margin (revenue minus product cost) while your P\&L measures operating margin (gross minus operating expenses). The 9pp gap is your operating cost. **Both are correct at their own scope**; reconcile by adding operating costs to our gross to land on operating margin. **My B2B margin is 40% but DTC is 54%. Should I stop selling B2B?** No, don't confuse gross margin with business value. B2B at 40% gross with $0.5-1M revenue may net more than DTC at 54% gross with $0.2M revenue. Compute net margin (gross minus B2B operating costs: sales rep, support, payment terms financing) before making cohort-shutdown decisions. **My alert fires on every promo period. Is that wrong?** Promo periods compress margin temporarily; the 30-day rolling smooths most of this but heavy promo days can drop the headline below 35% briefly. **Configure promo-period silence** under Settings → Alerts → Silence calendar to suppress alerts on known promo dates. **Should I include shipping in margin?** Generally no. Shipping is a separate equation (collected from customer minus paid to carrier). We exclude both shipping revenue and shipping cost. **For total-margin including shipping**, configure Settings → Margin scope → Include shipping; the headline will shift by 1-3pp. **Why doesn't this card include refunds?** Default is gross margin (pre-refund). Refunds are post-fact and have their own cards. Configure net margin under Settings → Refund handling if your finance team prefers net. **For most operational decisions gross is the right view**; for accounting reconciliation use net. **My multi-storefront has different prices per storefront. How does this card aggregate?** Default aggregates across storefronts. Configure per-storefront filter for storefront-specific margin (UK premium pricing produces different margin than US discount pricing). **Per-storefront margin is the right read for multi-brand merchants** running different pricing strategies per market. **My cost data is stale; some `cost_price` values are 18 months old. What's the impact?** If supplier costs increased and you didn't update BC, your margin reads HIGHER than reality. **Run a cost-data refresh quarterly.** Most BC merchants have stale `cost_price` data; this is the single most common cause of margin overstatement. **Can I see the alert fire history?** Yes, the alert log under Settings → Alerts → History shows when this card crossed the 35% threshold over the past 12 months. Useful for "how often did margin slip into the danger zone?" pattern analysis. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Gross Margin* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across BigCommerce and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. [Start for free](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.