GMV AOV explained: cohorts and actual profit
"How much did we sell?" wants a different number than "are customers coming back?", which wants a different number again from "are we actually making money?" Conflate them and a growth chart can go up and to the right for months while the bank balance tells a different story. Four numbers, four questions — here is which answers which.
Four numbers, one question each
| Metric | What it is | The question it answers |
|---|---|---|
| GMV | Total value of orders that went through — placed, not cancelled or refunded | Is demand moving? |
| AOV | GMV divided by the number of orders in the same period | More buyers, or bigger baskets? |
| Cohort retention | The share of each month's first-time buyers who buy again, month by month | Are customers actually coming back? |
| Gross margin | Revenue minus cost of goods sold, as a percentage of revenue | Which products are worth pushing? |
What it is
- GMV
- Total value of orders that went through — placed, not cancelled or refunded
- AOV
- GMV divided by the number of orders in the same period
- Cohort retention
- The share of each month's first-time buyers who buy again, month by month
- Gross margin
- Revenue minus cost of goods sold, as a percentage of revenue
The question it answers
- GMV
- Is demand moving?
- AOV
- More buyers, or bigger baskets?
- Cohort retention
- Are customers actually coming back?
- Gross margin
- Which products are worth pushing?
None of the four answers "are we making money?" — that's profit: revenue minus cost of goods minus operating expenses, and it's a different sum.
Reading them together
GMV is the pulse-check — the first number anyone looks at, and genuinely useful for that one job. AOV, tracked over time, splits growth into its two very different causes: more people buying wants traffic and acquisition; each person buying more wants bundling, upsells or pricing.
Cohorts group customers by the month of their first order and follow each group forward — the one view that shows whether growth compounds or gets re-purchased every month with fresh ad spend. And margin is where "worth selling" lives: two products can carry identical revenue and wildly different margin, and only one of them deserves the push.
A simple watch-list, in order
1
GMV and AOV, weekly
The pulse-check — is demand moving, and is it more orders or bigger baskets.
2
Cohort retention, monthly
The slower-moving question — are the customers you already won coming back.
3
Margin by product, monthly
What's actually worth selling more of, once cost of goods is accounted for.
4
Profit for the period, monthly
Revenue minus cost of goods minus operating expenses — the one number that answers whether the business is actually making money.
How Olmira handles this
GMV, AOV, cohort retention and margin all live in Olmira's commerce analytics, part of the Commerce module — available on Pro and above, not on Starter or the free trial, since it's the online store itself that these reports are computed from. The actual-profit view — revenue minus cost of goods minus operating expenses, called Balance — is a different feature, part of the Management suite, and it's reachable earlier: included on Pro and above, or as a standalone €10/month add-on on Starter, without needing the online store at all. In other words, you can start tracking real profit before you're on a plan that unlocks GMV and cohort reporting. Full picture of dashboards, share links and everything else Analytics covers: Analytics.
Close, but conventions vary by platform. GMV as commonly computed excludes cancelled and refunded orders — a "what actually sold, net of the sales that fell through" figure rather than every order ever placed.
There isn't a universal benchmark — a good AOV is a trend, specific to your own business and pricing, moving in the direction you want. Comparing your AOV to an unrelated business's tells you very little.
At least two or three months of real history behind a cohort before its retention curve says much of anything, and the picture keeps sharpening the longer you track it — it's a slow-building metric, not a first-week one.
No. Margin is per-sale (revenue minus the direct cost of what was sold); profit also subtracts the operating costs that keep the business running regardless of any single sale — rent, tools, wages. A healthy margin on every sale can still add up to a loss once those are subtracted.
Because the two can tell opposite stories. GMV growing entirely on new, one-time buyers is a business that has to keep spending more to stand still — cohort retention is what shows whether growth is actually compounding or just being re-purchased every month with fresh acquisition spend.