Shopify Reports: Types and How to Analyze Them

Shopify reports provide the data you need to understand your store's performance and make informed business decisions. From tracking sales trends to analyzing customer behavior, reports help you identify what's working and what needs improvement. This guide covers the main report types and how to analyze them effectively.

Types of Shopify Reports

Sales Reports

Sales reports show revenue, orders, and product performance over time:

• Sales over time: Daily, weekly, or monthly revenue trends
• Sales by product: Which products generate the most revenue
• Sales by channel: Performance across online store, POS, and other channels
• Sales by traffic source: Which marketing channels drive sales
• Average order value: Typical order size over time

Customer Reports

Understand who your customers are and how they behave:

• Customers over time: New vs. returning customer trends
• First-time vs. returning: Revenue split between customer types
• Customer by location: Geographic distribution of orders
• Returning customer rate: Percentage of repeat buyers

Behavior Reports

See how visitors interact with your store:

• Online store sessions: Traffic volume over time
• Online store conversion: Visitor-to-customer conversion rate
• Top landing pages: Pages where visitors enter your store
• Top referrers: Sites sending traffic to your store

Finance Reports

Track the financial health of your business:

• Total sales: Gross sales minus discounts and returns
• Payments: Breakdown by payment method
• Taxes: Tax collected by region
• Payouts: Scheduled and completed payouts

Accessing Shopify Reports

1. Go to Analytics in your Shopify admin
2. Click Reports to see all available reports
3. Use the search and filter options to find specific reports
4. Set date ranges to analyze specific time periods

Note: Report availability varies by plan. Basic Shopify includes limited reports, while Shopify, Advanced, and Plus plans include the full analytics suite.

Analyzing Sales Reports

Identify Trends

• Compare sales across different time periods
• Look for seasonal patterns (holidays, weather, events)
• Correlate sales spikes with marketing campaigns

Product Performance

• Identify your top sellers by revenue and units sold
• Find underperforming products that may need better marketing
• Spot products with high views but low conversion (pricing or description issues)

Analyzing Customer Reports

Customer Acquisition

• Track new customer growth month-over-month
• Calculate customer acquisition cost (marketing spend ÷ new customers)
• Identify which channels bring the most valuable customers

Customer Retention

• Monitor returning customer rate over time
• Compare revenue from new vs. returning customers
• Identify opportunities to improve retention (loyalty programs, email marketing)

Using Reports with Collections

Reports can inform your collection strategy:

• Create collections featuring your best-selling products
• Build collections based on popular product categories
• Use product performance data to prioritize collection products

Custom Reports

On Shopify, Advanced, and Plus plans, create custom reports:

1. Start with an existing report or create from scratch
2. Add or remove columns to show the data you need
3. Apply filters to focus on specific products, channels, or time periods
4. Save the report for quick access later

Exporting Report Data

• Export reports as CSV files for analysis in Excel or Google Sheets
• Use the CSV data in Google Sheets or Excel for deeper analysis
• Use exported data to create custom visualizations

Key Metrics to Track Regularly

• Total sales: Overall revenue health
• Conversion rate: How effectively you turn visitors into customers
• Average order value: Opportunity for upselling and cross-selling
• Returning customer rate: Indicator of customer satisfaction and loyalty
• Top products: What's driving your business

Common Analysis Mistakes

• Ignoring time context: Compare similar periods in Shopify's date picker — weekday to weekday, season to season, not random ranges
• Focusing on sessions alone: Shopify's Analytics > Overview shows sessions and conversion rate side by side — track both together
• Not filtering by channel: Use the Sales by channel report to separate online store, POS, and marketplace performance
• Skipping product-level data: The Sales by product report reveals which SKUs actually drive revenue vs. which just generate traffic

Conclusion

Shopify reports provide the insights you need to grow your business. Focus on the metrics that matter most to your goals, look for trends rather than daily fluctuations, and use data to inform decisions about products, marketing, and customer experience.

Related Resources

• Shopify Help: Reports and Analytics
• Shopify Analytics Guide
• What is a Shopify Collection?