Net revenue is gross revenue minus returns minus VAT: the first number on a P&L that is genuinely yours. Every cost percentage below it uses it as the denominator, which is what makes margins comparable, and it is the figure to use whenever anyone says 'revenue' about their own store.
Getting it right depends on two details that are easy to miss. Refunds belong to the day the refund was issued, not the day the order was placed, and which day a refund belongs to decides whether a closed month stays closed. And VAT has to come out at the effective rate on what was actually kept, because at German rates the gross figure overstates what is yours by roughly a sixth.
When someone quotes a margin percentage, always ask what the denominator was. Cost of goods against gross revenue and marketing against net revenue produce two percentages that cannot be compared or added; on a nouz statement every cost percentage below this line uses this line.
Gross versus net is also the quiet difference between two stores that claim the same size: one quoting gross revenue with a high return rate can be meaningfully smaller than one quoting net, while sounding a fifth bigger.
