I am updating the cost of item variants in the static data of our online store so that I can run sales by variant sku reports that have accurate gross margin figures, but the report is not displaying the updated costs or gross margin. Is there a different place to update this static data than on the item variant page? I have double checked that the costs that I entered are saved for each variant but they still do not appear in the report.
Which report are you running to see the costs/margins?
It is the Sales by product variant SKU report from the Analytics > Reports screen.
So you are including “cost recorded” which means the cost recorded at the time of sale. Shopify retains that cost because costs can change and they want to protect the historical integrity of the data. If you have more sales subsequent to making the cost changes, they will be reflected for those orders.