What counts as COGS for an outdoor gear store

For measuring POAS, "cost of goods" means every cost that scales with each order you sell. Ad spend is not included, because it's the other side of the ratio. For an outdoor or sporting goods store, what counts depends first on whether you resell other brands or make your own, and then on how big and heavy the product is.

What goes in

Cost	Count it?	Why
Wholesale cost of branded gear you resell	Yes	The base of unit cost for resold products
Factory cost of own-brand products	Yes	The base of unit cost for your own range
Inbound freight and duty	Yes	Part of landed cost, and large for bulky goods
Pick, pack and parcel shipping you pay	Yes	Scales with orders and size
Freight delivery for oversize items	Yes	Bikes, kayaks and fitness equipment can need it
Assembly or set-up done before dispatch	Yes	A per-unit labour cost
Payment processing fees	Yes	A share of every order
Warranty claims and replacements	Yes, as an allowance per unit	Paid long after the sale
Returns that can't be sold as new	Yes, spread across orders	Worn footwear and used gear lose value
Athlete sponsorships and ambassadors	No	Marketing
Product design and testing	No	Paid once per product
Google Ads spend	No	It's what POAS divides by

Warranties are a cost that's easy to forget because it arrives years later. YETI's annual report notes that warranty claims on defective products could exceed its current reserves, which is to say it sets reserves aside for them. A store selling products with a warranty should do the same: carry an allowance per unit in cost of goods, not treat each claim as a surprise.

Building one order's cost

Three levels of accuracy

Selvra OS works with three tiers of cost data and shows which one a figure is based on.

T1: one flat margin (labelled "estimated")

One percentage for the whole range. This only works for a store with one kind of product from one source. It misleads once resold brands and your own products sit side by side.

T2: margin by category (labelled "approximate")

A margin per category: resold footwear, own-brand apparel, camping, cycling, fitness. Brand type matters as much as activity here, because resold and own-brand products in the same activity can have very different margins.

T3: cost per product (labelled "verified" once synced)

Shopify's Cost per item field, per variant, read directly. Sizes and colours may share a cost for resold products; check, since some brands charge more for extended sizes.

Reading the benchmark above

The figure above is one listed company: YETI's cost of goods sold was 42.6% of net sales in fiscal 2025. Two things to bear in mind. YETI sells only its own brand, so it isn't paying another brand's wholesale price. And its annual report says its direct-to-consumer variable costs sit in selling, general and administrative expenses, and are "generally higher as a percentage of net sales" than its wholesale distribution costs. Some per-order fulfilment costs that a Shopify store should count in POAS are outside YETI's cost of goods figure, so treat it as a reference point, not a target.

Common COGS mistakes in outdoor stores

• Using one margin for resold and own-brand products.
• Leaving out freight on oversize items.
• Forgetting warranties, which arrive long after the sale.