When a platform stands between buyer and seller, is its revenue the full transaction value (gross, principal) or only its fee/commission (net, agent)? Control decides it. You ask whether the intermediary controls the good or service before it transfers to the customer. These indicators say you're the principal:
- Primary responsibility for fulfilment and acceptability. Your brand takes the return and fixes the problem.
- Inventory risk. You own the goods before sale or on return.
- Discretion in setting prices.
How does the control test sort real businesses?
Run the test on four businesses:
- DMart (Avenue Supermarts) buys groceries, owns them on its shelves, sets prices, eats spoilage. It's the principal, so it reports gross. Revenue is about ₹50,000 crore (illustrative, modeled on ~FY24 scale; pull the actual annual report).
- Costco has the same economics at US scale. Revenue is about $254bn, including about $4.8bn of membership fees (illustrative, ~FY24; pull the 10-K).
- Zomato (food delivery; the listed parent renamed itself Eternal Ltd in 2025) never owns the biryani. Control of the food stays with the restaurant. Zomato arranges delivery and collects a commission plus fees. That makes it an agent, reporting net. Food-delivery gross order value (GOV) of about ₹32,000 crore produced revenue of only about ₹6,300 crore. That's a take rate of roughly 20% (all illustrative, modeled on ~FY24 disclosures; pull the annual report). Its Hyperpure business (B2B food supplies) works differently. Hyperpure buys and owns the produce it sells to restaurants. That makes it a principal, reporting gross of about ₹3,200 crore. That's one company running both models, disclosed in the same segment note.
- DoorDash puts a marketplace GOV of about $80bn against revenue of about $10.7bn, a take rate of ~13% (illustrative, ~2024 10-K scale). Amazon is the classic hybrid. Its 1P retail (gross) and 3P marketplace commissions (net) share one revenue line.
Take rate = Platform revenue ÷ GOV (gross transaction value flowing through the platform)
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Why does the gross or net call matter to an analyst?
Why should you care? Because the gross/net call sets three traps. (1) Scale illusion. DMart's ₹50,000 crore and Zomato's ₹12,100 crore total revenue (illustrative, FY24 scale) aren't the same kind of number. On a GOV basis Zomato intermediates a food-and-grocery flow comparable to a large retailer. (2) Margin illusion. An agent's revenue is nearly all gross margin, because the COGS stays with the restaurant. So when a marketplace shows a 60 to 80% gross margin against a grocer's 15%, it's telling you about accounting basis. It says nothing about business quality. (3) Multiple illusion. EV/Sales across a gross reporter and a net reporter means nothing until you restate both to a common basis (per-GOV economics). The gross/net call has a fraud history too. Dot-com-era travel and ad businesses grossed up revenue to look bigger, and the 606/115 control test exists partly because of them. When a company chooses gross while the indicators look agent-ish, treat its reported growth with suspicion.