New cost property on InventoryItem

[KieranMasterton]

@clement interesting question, can I ask for more context on the use case of a 0.00 cost? The cost can be set to null via GraphQL (coming to REST shortly) but I'm guessing perhaps your merchant has a specific use case for zero cost?

@sam this is still in the works, sorry for the delay and thanks for your patience. 

[Adriano_S]

As a merchant, I'd like to add my vote to Clement's request for a 0.00 cost.

We often have promotional inventory provided by suppliers free of charge, which we then re-sell. These sales should be recorded as 100% profit. It's my understanding that a product with a "null" cost field is ingored in the profit reporting.

[ClementG]

Hi Kieran,

Would you like me to put you in touch with a merchant that requires $0.00 costs?

Like Adriano said, setting the cost to null doesn't work for reporting. A null cost is semantically different from a $0 cost. If the cost is null, we might want to exclude from profit reports or assume the margin is 0.

[PaulNewton]

Seeing what type of information can be stored in this field via admin as is shopify tradition to be able to repurpose everything as a store needs with unexpected data. Just like most shopify handling of currency as pennies:

• cost can't be less than 0.01 , e.g. foodstuff  $/lb to$/oz, etc bulk.
• admin will automatically round off with very little warning eg. 0.054
• not relevant just trivia: can't store a negative number 

[John_R]

HI Kieran,

Please be informed that Google has already made the decision that the "Cost" field is important with how an item is presented for sale.  

We need to map it properly to the Google Merchant Center "Cost_of_goods_sold" field so that we can optimize our marketing and the selling of our items.

Please confirm how we can do that.

[KarlOffenberger]

Subscribed

[ClementG]

Kieran, any update on allowing $0 cost?

I've just been pointed to another obvious use case by a merchant: digital products.

It's hard to argue with that one!

[ClementG]

And yet another case with a merchant selling services.

Hello Shopify? Can you please allow $0 cost? It's impacting real merchants and real scenarios.

[KieranMasterton]

Hi Clement, sorry for the delay in replying over the holiday period. The development team working on product cost are in the process of implementing the zero cost option and it should be available very soon, I'll update the thread as soon as the feature is shipped. Thanks for your patience.

[ClementG]

Thanks Kieran, great news!

Any update on capturing the historical cost on the order line items?