Merch cost and profit is optional. Merch > Inventory > Edit product.
COST. Beside each product's Price there is a Cost box: what one unit cost you to make or buy (the printer's or the label's price per piece), in US dollars. A size can carry its own cost (2XL often costs more); a size left blank uses the product's cost. Leave Cost blank and nothing changes anywhere.
WHAT YOU SEE ONCE A COST IS IN.
- The editor shows the profit on each one as you type, or how much each sells below what it cost.
- The product's page adds Cost each and Profit this tour: what that item sold for, less what it cost. Comped items count as a cost, because they were still paid for.
- Merch > Reports adds a Profit tile, a Profit tab on Top products, and one line: what items with a cost sold, what they cost and the profit on them. When every night in the range is settled and counted and every item sold has a cost, it also says what the artist net leaves after item cost. The PDF and Excel carry the same figures.
BLANK IS NEVER FREE. An item with no cost is left out of profit and the report says how many items and units are missing, rather than counting them as free.
WHO SEES IT. Cost and profit are merch money: only people who run the booth (Merch edit: the TM, merch seller, tour accountant) or who can see Money. An artist without Money, for example, gets no cost at all. A management or business-management firm connected to the artist does not get item cost through its merch report.
WHERE IT STAYS. Cost lives in Merch only. It never changes a settlement, the venue's cut, the artist net or anything in Money.