GMV is the headline volume metric for marketplaces and aggregators. It is intentionally a top-of-funnel number — it shows growth and scale, but it does not reflect what the platform actually keeps. Net revenue (after fees, returns, and partner payouts) is the more meaningful number for assessing the underlying business.
For a single-brand ecommerce store, GMV is approximately gross revenue. For a multi-tenant marketplace, GMV is the gross merchandise that flowed through the platform — the take rate (the percentage the marketplace keeps) is what determines whether the business is healthy.
Watch for GMV inflation from chargebacks, mass refunds, or bot traffic. A clean GMV calculation should exclude transactions reversed within the reporting period; otherwise the metric can mask a quality problem.