The short version
Gross merchandise value (GMV) is the total value of goods your store sold in a set time, calculated as price multiplied by units sold. Market-level ecommerce grows about 8 to 10% year-over-year (ECDB Global E-Commerce Compass 2026; US Census Q1 2026 reported +9.8%). High-performing SMB/DTC brands on aggregated platforms typically grow 15 to 30%; hypergrowth challengers like TikTok Shop grew +94% in 2025.
This guide covers the formula, examples, per-platform GMV definitions, 2025 to 2026 platform figures, take rates, return-rate and AOV benchmarks, AI-impact data, and when GMV can be misleading.
What is gross merchandise value (GMV)?
GMV is the total value of merchandise sold in a store or marketplace in a set time. It counts every sale at the price the buyer paid. It excludes returns, refunds, discounts, or fees.
It’s the top sales number that store owners and marketplaces watch to track how much they sell. GMV adds up every closed sale at the buyer’s price, then rolls that total up for a day, month, quarter, or year.
The metric started in marketplace reports. The platform never owned the goods, but it still needed a single number to show the total business. Today, you’ll see GMV used by Shopify stores, Amazon sellers, TikTok Shop merchants, and DTC brands alongside revenue, conversion rate, and AOV.
GMV = Price per unit x Number of units sold
For a store that sells 1,200 units at an average price of $45 in one month, the GMV is $54,000. That number stays the same even if 60 units get returned, 100 buyers use a 10% coupon, or the platform takes a 5% cut. Those costs belong in net revenue, not GMV.
Does GMV include tax, refunds, and discounts?
The top question about GMV is what is included and what is excluded. The answer depends on the platform, and the definitions diverge more than most people expect.
Shopify’s primary definition (Q1 2026 earnings release, May 2026): “GMV is the total dollar value of orders facilitated through the platform, net of refunds, and inclusive of shipping and handling, duty, and VAT.”
That is one of the cleaner definitions in the industry. Most platforms are less precise, and some count orders that were later returned or canceled.
| Platform | Includes shipping? | Includes tax? | Net of refunds? | Source |
|---|
| Shopify | Yes | Yes (VAT, duty) | Yes | Shopify 10-K / Q1 2026 release |
| Amazon (analyst construct) | Yes (1P) | Varies | Approx (1P) | No official GMV definition published |
| Alibaba (2025 onward) | Varies | n/a | Yes, shifted to GMV net of refunds | Tmall festival releases, 2025 |
| TikTok Shop | Yes (buyer shipping) | No (tax excluded) | No, includes canceled and refunded orders | TikTok Seller Center docs |
| eBay | Yes | Yes | No | eBay IR Fast Facts |
| Etsy (GMS) | No (excludes shipping) | Varies | Yes, net of canceled | Etsy filings |
The key point: definitions diverge, so cross-platform GMV comparisons are unreliable without adjusting for method. TikTok Shop counts refunded orders, which inflates its headline by the platform’s return rate. Shopify is net of refunds. Etsy excludes shipping. In 2025, Alibaba shifted to reporting GMV net of refunds as its headline festival metric, driven by buy-to-threshold-then-return behavior on Tmall.
Always confirm the reporting method before comparing GMV across platforms. The same store and same month can produce three different figures depending on which dashboard you pull.
How to measure gross merchandise value
Calculating GMV takes three inputs: the price each customer paid, the number of units sold, and the reporting window. Pull the figures from your order export or platform analytics, then apply the formula:
GMV = sum of (price per unit x units sold)
Simple ecommerce example
A skincare brand sells three SKUs in March:
| Product | Units sold | Price per unit | Line GMV |
|---|
| Vitamin C Serum | 420 | $38 | $15,960 |
| Retinol Cream | 290 | $52 | $15,080 |
| Hydrating Toner | 610 | $24 | $14,640 |
| Total | 1,320 | | $45,680 |
March GMV is $45,680. Returns, discount codes, and Shopify processing fees are excluded from the GMV line and tracked separately.
GMV is reported differently across platforms. Shopify aggregates GMV inclusive of shipping and net of refunds. WooCommerce surfaces a “gross sales” figure that behaves similarly. Amazon Seller Central groups GMV under “ordered product sales,” which counts orders the moment they ship. Each platform exposes a settings toggle to switch between gross and net views, so audit the toggle before pulling numbers into a board report.
GMV vs. other ecommerce metrics
GMV is one of five sales financial metrics ecommerce companies track on the same dashboard. Confusing them in a board deck is the fastest way to lose credibility with investors.
| Metric | What it measures | Includes returns? | Includes fees? |
|---|
| GMV | Total transaction value | Usually no | No |
| Net revenue (NMV) | GMV minus returns, fees, discounts | Yes | Yes |
| GTV (Gross Transaction Value) | Marketplace synonym for GMV | Usually no | No |
| Gross profit | Revenue minus COGS | Yes | Yes |
| AOV | GMV divided by number of orders | N/A | No |
GMV vs. net revenue is the comparison that matters most for ecommerce founders. GMV tells the platform story. Net sales data tells the cash story. A marketplace can report $10 million GMV and $1 million net revenue once you subtract returns, discounts, and 15% in marketplace fees.
GMV vs. GTV is mostly a vocabulary difference. Marketplaces like Etsy, Faire, and TikTok Shop call this number “GTV” because they never own inventory. Shopify and DTC sites call it “GMV.” Treat them as interchangeable unless a specific platform defines them differently.
GMV vs. AOV is a hierarchy question. AOV is one of the levers that move GMV. If GMV is the destination, AOV is the speed. See the deeper breakdown on lifting the average order value for tactics.
GMV vs. gross profit sits at opposite ends of the funnel. GMV is the top of the funnel. Gross profit is what remains after subtracting the cost of goods sold, returns, and discounts. A high-GMV brand with thin gross margins can still go cash-negative.
GMV is how platforms communicate scale. The table below is the citable reference for each platform’s latest reported or estimated figure. Estimates are flagged clearly.
| Platform | GMV (latest reported) | Period | Note |
|---|
| Amazon | ~$830B (analyst estimate) | FY2025 | Marketplace Pulse construct; Amazon publishes no single GMV line |
| Shopify | $378.44B | FY2025 | Shopify 10-K / Q4 2025 release (primary); Q1 2026 GMV was $100.7B, +35% year-over-year |
| Alibaba (Taobao + Tmall) | ~$566B (estimate) | CY2025 | ECDB estimate; Alibaba stopped reporting a USD total GMV figure |
| eBay | $79.6B | FY2025 | eBay Q4/FY2025 release (primary), +7% year-over-year |
| TikTok Shop | $64.3B (third-party estimate) | CY2025 | Momentum Works estimate, +94% year-over-year; US share was $15.1B to $15.8B |
| MercadoLibre | ~$60B to $65B (estimate) | FY2025 | 10-K reports +26.4% growth; Q4 GMV was $19.9B |
| Walmart Marketplace (3P) | ~$15B (estimate) | CY2025 | Marketplace Pulse; Walmart does not disclose third-party GMV separately |
| Etsy (GMS) | $11.92B | FY2025 | Etsy uses GMS (Gross Merchandise Sales); core marketplace was $10.42B |
These figures use different definitions (see the per-platform table above), so they are not directly comparable. Amazon, TikTok Shop, Alibaba, MercadoLibre total, and Walmart 3P are estimates, not directly disclosed by the platforms.
Take rate is platform revenue divided by GMV. It is the clearest bridge between the GMV headline and what actually flows to revenue.
| Platform | Take rate | Source |
|---|
| Shopify | ~3% | Derived from Shopify 10-K ($11.6B revenue / $378.4B GMV) |
| eBay | ~14% | eBay Q4 2025 |
| Amazon (3P) | ~15% | Marketplace Pulse estimate |
| TikTok Shop (US) | ~5% to 9% commission | TikTok Seller Center; rising |
| Etsy | ~24.5% | Etsy Q4 2025 filing |
| Faire | 15% repeat / 25% first order | Faire Help Center |
Shopify’s ~3% take rate is why $378B GMV becomes ~$11.6B in revenue, a roughly 32x gap. The platform earns primarily from subscriptions and payments, not from a traditional marketplace commission. This is the clearest illustration that GMV is not revenue.
Why GMV alone can be misleading
GMV is a useful headline number, but it can hide three problems that only show up later in the P&L.
Returns inflate GMV. The average online return rate is about 19 to 20% of sales (NRF 2025 Retail Returns Landscape), roughly double the in-store rate of 8.9%. By category: apparel 20 to 40%, footwear 17 to 31%, home and furniture 15 to 23%, electronics 8 to 15%, beauty 4 to 12%. DTC brands average about 14%. A store with $1 million in monthly GMV and a 20% return rate is closer to $800,000 in confirmed orders.
Discounts compress margin asymmetrically. The average ecommerce discount rate is roughly 12 to 18% of revenue. A 20% discount on a product with a 50% gross margin cuts that margin to 37.5%. Flash-sale months inflate GMV with deep discounts that erase margin without showing up in the GMV line itself.
Marketplace fees eat deeper than the take rate suggests. On marketplaces, all-in costs including commission, ads, logistics, and affiliate fees can exceed 30 to 40% of GMV for competitive categories.
The GMV-to-net-revenue formula: Net revenue approximately equals GMV x (1 minus return rate) x (1 minus discount rate) minus platform fees. For a typical apparel DTC brand, that is roughly 63% of GMV as clean revenue before fees, and 40 to 50% on a marketplace channel.
The table below shows when GMV is the right number to report and when to switch.
| Situation | What to watch instead |
|---|
| High return rate (>15%) | Net revenue, not GMV |
| Marketplace with variable take rates | GTV minus fees |
| Flash sale or BFCM month | Month-over-month GMV vs. baseline |
| Investor reporting | Confirmed GMV (post-return) |
| Seasonal categories | Trailing twelve-month GMV |
GMV is also subject to definition differences across reporters. Alibaba moved to annual GMV reporting in 2016 after quarterly festival figures drew scrutiny. TikTok Shop counts refunded orders in its headline. Some platforms exclude seller-initiated cancellations; others include them. The pattern: GMV is a directional metric for traffic and conversion. Pair it with take rate, contribution margin, and active-buyer trends for the full picture. A growing gap between gross GMV and net revenue is an early signal of margin pressure.
AOV benchmarks by industry (a primary GMV lever)
GMV = AOV x order volume. AOV is one of the two primary levers that move GMV without requiring more traffic. The benchmarks below give a sense of where each category sits.
| Industry | Typical AOV |
|---|
| Luxury and jewelry | $300 to $500+ |
| Consumer goods | ~$296 |
| Home and furniture | $150 to $264 |
| Consumer electronics | $150 to $250 |
| Apparel and accessories | $90 to $150 |
| Travel | ~$126 |
| Beauty and personal care | $60 to $90 |
Blended ecommerce AOV is about $150 to $189 (Dynamic Yield live benchmark, 2026). Platform-level notes: Shopify store average AOV is $85 to $92; TikTok Shop US AOV is about $38, reflecting its impulse-buy, sub-$50 category mix (Attribuly, 2025 to 2026).
AOV varies significantly by channel mix. A brand selling the same catalog on Shopify and TikTok Shop will report materially different AOVs by channel, so report them separately rather than blending.
Tips to increase your gross merchandise value
GMV grows through three levers: more orders, higher AOV per order, or higher prices. Each tactic below moves one of those levers.
1. Improve product discovery
Most ecommerce sites lose GMV on the catalog page because shoppers cannot find what they want fast enough. Better filtering, faceted search, and predictive search reduce time-to-product and lift conversion on long catalogs. Track click-to-product-page rate as the leading indicator.
2. Raise conversion rate on product pages
Conversion rate is the multiplier on every traffic source you pay for. A 1% lift on a store doing 100,000 monthly visits at $50 AOV is $50,000 in additional GMV. Add real photos, social proof, and visible shipping ETAs to remove friction.
AI-driven chat on product pages removes the final friction point for high-intent shoppers: unanswered questions about sizing, fit, compatibility, or returns. McKinsey estimates AI personalization can drive a meaningful share of revenue, with recommendations delivering conversion lifts of 15 to 30% on high-intent surfaces. Salesforce data shows personalized upsells lift attach rate roughly 20%. The important caveat: shoppers who engage with AI recommendations are already higher-intent, so session-comparison figures overstate the incremental effect. The 15 to 30% range is the more defensible incremental lift.
Zipchat puts that lift on the highest-intent surface: AI product questions on the product page, where a shopper is one answer away from adding to cart.
3. Recover abandoned carts
Shoppers abandon carts for two reasons: surprise costs (shipping, tax) and unanswered questions about sizing or returns. A WhatsApp recovery flow that fires within 30 minutes of abandonment converts at 13 to 40%, compared to email’s 5 to 15%, in mobile-first markets.
4. Lift average order value with bundles and upsells
Bundles, kits, and progress-bar shipping thresholds nudge AOV without discounting. A $5 shipping threshold pushes a $42 AOV cart to $50 more often than a flat 10% discount. Pre-purchase upsells convert better than post-purchase add-ons in most categories. The best Shopify upsell apps in 2026 handle these cart-stage and post-purchase mechanics natively.
5. Use AI product recommendations at checkout
AI-driven recommendations increase GMV by converting browsers into buyers at the moments that matter. Zipchat’s recommendation engine reads the live catalog and surfaces relevant items in chat and at checkout, lifting AOV without extra ad spend.
Zipchat lifts all three GMV levers on the highest-intent surface: agentic AI search for product discovery, AI product questions on the product page, and in-chat recommendations. Customers using Zipchat see a +37.8% lift in conversion on average. See the AI shopping assistant guide for a full breakdown.
See it on your store: Zipchat increases GMV by converting browsers automatically. Book a demo and see how it works.
6. Expand to a new channel
Adding WhatsApp, Instagram, or TikTok Shop on top of an existing storefront unlocks new GMV from buyers who never reach the dot com. Channel mix matters more than channel count: pick the channel where your buyers already are.
7. Offer pre-orders
If a customer is ready to buy, stock availability should not be the reason you lose the sale. Offering pre-orders lets shoppers reserve upcoming or restocking products in advance, helping brands capture demand early instead of sending buyers to competitors. Tools like PreProduct make it easy to launch pre-order campaigns, validate demand, and generate revenue before inventory is even available.
8. Re-engage past buyers
Returning buyers convert at higher rates and higher AOV than first-time visitors. A win-back flow triggered at the 60-day mark recovers GMV that would otherwise show up as churn.
Where GMV is heading in 2026 and beyond
Three shifts are reshaping how GMV gets generated and reported.
Agentic commerce is becoming a measurable GMV stream. During Cyber Week 2025, roughly 1 in 5 orders involved an autonomous AI agent, representing an estimated ~$70B in GMV (Very Good Security). Raw GMV climbs, but discount-driven and recommendation-driven orders carry thinner margins on average, which widens the gap between GMV and gross profit. Forrester’s State of Agentic Commerce (Q2 2026) adds an important nuance: most “agentic” experiences are still conversational rather than fully autonomous, and true end-to-end autonomous purchasing is a 2027 to 2030 inflection, not a 2026 accounting reality. Agent-initiated transactions are not yet distinguished from human ones in most platform reports, creating GMV attribution noise. See the full breakdown on agentic commerce for how this changes reporting.
Real-time GMV dashboards replace weekly reports. Operators are moving off month-end exports onto live dashboards that surface GMV by channel, product, and customer cohort within minutes of an order. TikTok Shop and Alibaba now surface real-time store-level GMV inside their seller portals. Decisions on ad spend, restocks, and promotions get made on the same data the warehouse uses.
Social commerce is approaching a $100B GMV stream in the US. US social commerce reached $87B in 2025, up 21.5% year-over-year, and is on track to surpass $100B in 2026. Social commerce accounts for about 17% of global online sales (eMarketer, December 2025). TikTok Shop holds roughly 18% of US social commerce GMV; Instagram Shopping accounts for about $37B in the US. Tracking GMV by channel becomes non-negotiable when social surfaces generate a meaningful share of total orders.
GMV definitions are tightening. Alibaba’s 2025 shift to reporting GMV net of refunds as its headline festival metric is a sign that platforms are under pressure to report cleaner figures. Expect more platforms to follow as the gap between gross and net GMV draws scrutiny.
Conclusion
GMV is the headline number for sales activity. It shows whether sales are rising or falling, but it does not tell you if the business is healthy. Pair GMV with net revenue, gross profit, and AOV for the full picture, and watch the gap between gross and net. A growing gap is an early signal of margin pressure.
The fastest way to grow GMV without more ad spend is to convert more of the traffic you already have. AI product recommendations and AI chat sit closest to the buying moment. That makes them one of the highest-impact GMV tools for most stores.
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FAQs
How do you calculate GMV?
Multiply the number of units sold during the reporting period by the sales price per unit, then add the results across all SKUs: GMV = sum of (price per unit x units sold). Returns, refunds, discounts, and platform fees are excluded by default.
What is a good GMV growth rate for an ecommerce business?
Market-level ecommerce grows about 8 to 10% year-over-year (ECDB Global E-Commerce Compass 2026; US Census Q1 2026 reported +9.8%). High-performing SMB/DTC brands on aggregated platforms typically see 15 to 30% (Shopify platform GMV grew +29% in FY2025, +35% in Q1 2026). Hypergrowth challenger platforms can reach 50 to 100%+. A 20 to 30% rate is realistic for a healthy, share-gaining SMB/DTC brand, but it is above the market-level average.
Does GMV include refunds?
It depends on the platform. Shopify reports GMV net of refunds. TikTok Shop includes refunded and canceled orders in its headline GMV. Etsy reports GMS net of canceled transactions. Always specify which version is being reported and check the platform’s definition.
Does GMV include tax?
This depends on the platform. Shopify’s primary definition includes VAT and duty in GMV. Amazon includes taxes in gross GMV in some reports. For clean comparisons across stores or boards, specify whether the GMV figure is gross (pre-tax) or net (post-tax).
What is the difference between GMV and revenue?
GMV is the total dollar value of transactions processed in a period. Revenue is what the platform keeps after applying its take rate. Shopify reported $378.44B in GMV for FY2025 and $11.6B in revenue, a roughly 32x gap, because its take rate is about 3%. A marketplace reporting $10 million in GMV might net $1 to $2 million in revenue after fees and refunds.
What is the difference between GMV and NMV?
NMV (net merchandise value) is GMV minus returns, refunds, and discounts. NMV is the cleaner measure of confirmed, kept orders. On a platform with a 20% return rate, NMV is roughly 80% of GMV.
What is the difference between GMV and GTV?
GTV (gross transaction value) is the fintech and payments equivalent of GMV. It covers the same concept but sometimes includes non-merchandise services like subscriptions, fees, or financial products processed through the platform. The terms are often used interchangeably in marketplace contexts.
What is Shopify’s GMV?
Shopify reported $378.44B in GMV for FY2025 (Shopify 10-K / Q4 2025 release). Q1 2026 GMV was $100.7B, up 35% year-over-year. Shopify defines GMV as the total dollar value of orders facilitated through the platform, net of refunds, and inclusive of shipping, handling, duty, and VAT.
What is Amazon’s GMV?
Amazon does not publish a single GMV figure. Analysts at Marketplace Pulse estimate Amazon’s total GMV at roughly $830B for FY2025, covering both first-party retail sales and third-party marketplace orders. The third-party share is approximately 60 to 62% of total units sold.
What is the difference between GMV and gross revenue?
GMV is the total sales value of transactions processed in a period. Gross revenue is what the business keeps after subtracting returns, discounts, and platform fees. A marketplace can report $10 million in gross value and $1 million in revenue once fees and refunds come out.
