Apparel & Fashion: POAS, COGS and margin benchmarks
Apparel is hard to judge from Google Ads reporting. The account counts revenue at checkout; returns, size exchanges and end-of-season markdowns happen afterwards and never reach the ROAS column. The pages below cover how far that gap reaches, what belongs in an apparel store's cost of goods, and how to scale spend on the profit that's left.
The questions, with sourced numbers
- What's a healthy POAS?
The POAS apparel stores need on Google Ads once returns, markdowns and exchanges are counted, and why the break-even line sits higher than it looks.
3.99Median Google Ads ROAS - Why does optimising for ROAS overspend?
Returns, size bracketing and markdown mix make ROAS overstate apparel profit. How the gap forms, and how to measure the number that's left.
23.4%US online apparel return rate - What counts as COGS?
Landed cost, trims, packaging, fulfilment and return handling: which apparel costs belong in COGS when you're measuring POAS, and which don't.
43.12%COGS as a share of revenue - How do you scale spend profitably?
A step-by-step way to scale Google Ads for an apparel store on return-adjusted profit: split by margin, set targets from POAS, and scale around size runs.
56%Apparel returns that are fit or size
Background reading
- What Is POAS (Profit on Ad Spend)? Full Definition
- ROAS vs POAS: Which Metric Should You Actually Use?
- ROAS vs POAS: The Metric Killing Your Shopify Profits
- How to Calculate Break-Even ROAS (With a Worked Example)
- Shopify COGS Setup: How to Track Cost of Goods Sold
- Google Ads for Shopify: The Complete Profitability Guide
- Wasted Ad Spend in Google Ads: How to Find and Fix It