Setup guide

Setting up cost of goods.

COGS is the foundation of every margin number. CM6 can take it from a guided spreadsheet or straight from your Shopify unit costs — both with a fallback hierarchy so coverage is always complete.

Two sources, your choice

Guided spreadsheet

The wizard gives you a templated Google Sheet. Fill in costs at the level you have them — per variant, product, type, or brand — and CM6 imports it.

Shopify unit costs

If you maintain cost-per-item in Shopify, CM6 reads it directly. No spreadsheet to keep in sync.

Note: the two sources are kept separate. The wizard sheet and Shopify costs each have their own home, so switching between them — or using one as a backstop — is clean.

The fallback hierarchy

You rarely have a cost for every single variant. CM6 resolves each line item down a hierarchy, using the most specific cost it can find:

  1. Variant

    The exact SKU's cost, when you have it.

  2. Product

    A product-level cost applied across its variants.

  3. Type

    A cost for the product type / category.

  4. Brand

    A brand- or vendor-level fallback when nothing more specific exists.

Every fallback is visible, so you always know whether a margin rests on an exact cost or an estimate.

ID formats

Shopify identifies products and variants in two formats — long global IDs and plain numeric IDs. When you provide IDs in the spreadsheet, match the format the template expects; mixing them is the most common reason a row doesn't link.

Watch out: if some products show no COGS after import, it's almost always an ID-format mismatch or a missing row. Re-check those IDs against the template before anything else.

Optional: the Tags column

The same sheet can carry an optional Tags column — for example premium:true; range:cabin,hold. When enabled, each tag key becomes its own breakdown dimension in the Explorer, so you can see margin by any attribute you care about. It's opt-in via the wizard's “use tags column” toggle, and it's a dimension only — it never affects the cost numbers.

Common issues

SymptomFix
Some products show no COGSID-format mismatch or missing row — re-check IDs against the template and re-import.
Margins look too highA cost layer (often COGS) is incomplete. Check coverage; the wizard flags unmatched SKUs.
Tag breakdowns missingEnable the “use tags column” toggle and make sure the column follows the key:value format.

More in troubleshooting.

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