- Short answer
- A cost adjustment records shipping, duties or other fees on a transfer shipment; the variant's Cost per item stays fixed.
- No published list of types
- Both Help Center pages we read say "such as" — neither publishes a complete list of adjustment types.
- Cost summary documented with a purchase order
- Only the purchase-order page we read documents the Cost summary, which totals adjustments and compares them with agreed cost.
- Units already sold
- Profit is reported from the cost recorded at the time of sale; a later adjustment does not reach it.
- If you want freight inside margin
- For weighted-average costing or landed cost allocation Shopify points to a third-party costing app, not to the transfer.
- As of
- Help Center pages on inventory transfers, purchase orders, profit reports and migrating from Stocky, read September 6, 2026.
What counts as a cost adjustment on a Shopify transfer?
A cost adjustment is money you add to a shipment on the transfer: you click Shipment cost on a transfer you have moved to in transit, or Manage in the Cost summary on a purchase-order-linked transfer, then pick an adjustment type and enter an amount.
Shipping and customs duties are the examples Shopify names, and both Help Center pages we read on September 6, 2026 word the list as "such as", not as a complete set.
Those fees often aren't known when you write the order, which is why they land on the shipment later — the purchase order and the transfer do different jobs.
Does a cost adjustment change your Cost per item?
No. The money settles on the shipment: on a purchase-order-linked transfer the Cost summary aggregates all shipment adjustments, so you can compare the agreed cost on the purchase order with the actual cost to receive the goods.
What a cost adjustment does not settle on is the product record:
Each product variant has a single static Cost per item field. This cost stays fixed when you receive a purchase order or transfer.
Shopify's example of a Cost per item for a product you resell is the price you paid the manufacturer, "excluding taxes, shipping, or other costs" — the very categories a cost adjustment records.
That field, not the shipment total, is what your profit reports actually read.
Can you fix the cost on units you already sold?
Not through the transfer. Shopify reports profit "only for products and variants that had cost recorded at the time they were sold", and calls Cost per item static data.
So an adjustment entered today reaches no orders — past or future — because receiving the transfer leaves Cost per item where it was, whether it arrived in full or in part.
If you want freight and duties inside your margin, Shopify points to a third-party costing app — that is where weighted-average costing and automatic landed cost allocation live, not in the transfer.
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