How to Use Shopify Analytics in a Weekly Store Review

How to use Shopify analytics is a weekly loop in Shopify admin. Open the Analytics dashboard, pull a short set of default reports, and leave with named actions for restock, promotion, and traffic.

Shopify documents that the main analytics features are available on any subscription plan. The types of reports you can view can depend on your plan. Staff need Analytics permissions to open dashboards and reports.

A store-wide sales number is a warning light. The useful output is a SKU, a collection URL, or a traffic source, plus the next move.

Start on the Analytics dashboard

From Shopify admin, go to Analytics. Shopify says this page shows key sales, sessions, and fulfillment metrics, updated within about 1 minute. Metric cards can be added, removed, rearranged, and grouped into labeled sections.

Set one date range before you click any report. Last 7 days answers what changed this week. Last 30 days answers what is durable. Compare the two ranges on the same metric so a one-day spike does not look like a new bestseller.

Open Analytics and pick last 7 days, then last 30 days on the same cards.
Scan net sales, sessions, and fulfillment status. Write one sentence on what moved.
Click through only the cards that changed. Ignore the rest until the weekly review.

From each card you can open the matching report. That is the path into the Reports library. Filter the list by Category (Sales, Inventory, Behavior, Acquisition) so you are not scrolling every default report Shopify ships.

Sales reports that name the products

Go to Analytics, then Reports, then filter Category to Sales. Shopify says a sales report is up to date give or take about 1 minute. Refresh if you just processed a refund.

Read net sales and total sales as different numbers. Shopify defines net sales as gross sales minus discounts minus sales reversals. Total sales then adds taxes, duties, shipping charges, and fees. Use net sales when you are ranking products. Use total sales when you want the all-in figure that includes shipping and tax.

Total sales by product and variant

Open Total sales by product, then Total sales by product variant. These reports break down sales by title, and at variant level by SKU. Shipping is excluded because one order can hold several products and a single shipping charge.

Sort by net quantity and by net sales for the last 30 days. Copy the top 10 SKUs. Repeat for the last 7 days. A product that ranks in both windows is a working seller. A product that only ranks in 7 days is a spike until it proves otherwise.

Write the 10 SKUs with the highest net sales over 30 days.
Flag any of those SKUs that disappear from the 7-day list. Demand cooled, or stock ran out.
Open the variant report when size or color mix matters. Reorder the variant that sold, not the parent product in bulk.

Shopify captures product details at the time of the sale. If you renamed a product mid-period, the same item can appear on two rows. Treat that as a labeling issue, not two SKUs.

Total sales by referrer

Open Total sales by referrer. Shopify groups the last-interaction source as Direct, Search, Email, Social, or Unknown, and shows the host (for example a search engine or an email client). This report answers which channel produced orders, not which channel produced sessions.

Pair it later with Sessions by referrer. High sessions and weak sales from one host is a traffic quality problem. High sales from a host you are not funding is a channel to protect. For a tighter metric list at product level, use the ecommerce performance metrics checklist and demand those same fields on the SKUs you just ranked.

Inventory reports that time the reorder

Filter Reports by Category, then Inventory. These reports track quantity, sell-through, and estimated days of cover. Shopify notes that historical data for inventory-based metrics only goes back to October 1, 2023. Deleted locations do not keep historical inventory in these reports.

Inventory remaining per product

Open Inventory remaining per product. Shopify calculates days of inventory remaining as ending quantity divided by average units sold per day. Average daily sales use the last 28 days. Variants with no sales in that window show N/A. Negative ending quantity is treated as 0 days remaining.

Compare days remaining to supplier lead time yourself. A SKU with 12 days of cover and a 21-day lead time is already late, even if Total sales still looks healthy. Put that SKU on the reorder list today. For alert setup around low stock, follow the Shopify inventory alerts walkthrough.

ABC product analysis

Open ABC product analysis. Shopify grades each variant on revenue share over the last 28 days. The window cannot be changed. A-grade variants collectively account for 80% of revenue, B-grade the next 15%, C-grade the last 5%. Cost is not part of the grade.

Protect A-grade cover first. Treat C-grade overstock as cash sitting on a shelf. Shopify’s own note on this report is direct: selling out of A-grade products costs sales, and overstocking C-grade products raises warehousing cost. A fuller operating method is in the ABC analysis for Shopify inventory guide.

Products by sell-through rate

Open Products by sell-through rate. Shopify calculates sell-through as units sold divided by (units sold plus units still in inventory). The newest complete window is about two days behind the current date because of processing time. Negative on-hand quantities are ignored in the formula.

Read sell-through next to days remaining. Fast sell-through with few days of cover is a reorder. Slow sell-through with high ending quantity is a markdown, bundle, or stop-replenish decision. Formula, examples, and next actions are in the sell-through rate guide.

Behavior and acquisition reports

Sales tell you what paid. Behavior and acquisition tell you where the session started and where it dropped. Filter Reports by Behavior, then by Acquisition. Shopify says these reports are up to date give or take a few seconds when you open them.

Conversion rate breakdown

Open Conversion rate breakdown. The default funnel is All sessions, Sessions with cart additions, Sessions that reached checkout, then Sessions that completed checkout. Each step is sessions at that step divided by total sessions.

Use Open funnel when you want every path, including visitors who land on checkout. Use Closed funnel when you only want sessions that walked the steps in order. Store-wide conversion is a warning light. It does not name the product that wasted the click. For that comparison, use the product conversion rate method against your own catalog average.

Also open Conversion rate over time and group by week. If sessions rose and conversion fell, you bought traffic that did not match the catalog. If both fell, you have a demand or availability problem, not only a page problem.

Sessions by landing page and referrer

Open Sessions by landing page and Sessions by referrer. Landing page shows where sessions start (product, collection, or home). Referrer shows Direct, Search, Social, Email, and the host. Acquisition reports cover the Online Store channel and do not include converted sales. That is why you already opened Total sales by referrer.

Shopify counts a session as ending after 30 minutes of no activity, and at midnight UTC. One visitor can produce several sessions. Do not treat session count as unique people.

High sessions on a collection URL with weak sales is a merchandising job. Sort order and which SKUs sit in the first row change what that landing page can convert. The operating fix is in the Shopify collection optimization guide.

Leave Analytics with three SKUs and three moves. A dashboard without a work order is unfinished.

Run this 30-minute weekly review

Put this on Monday. Do not add reports until this loop is boring.

Set last 7 days and last 30 days on the Analytics dashboard. Write one sentence on what moved.
Open Total sales by product (and variant if you sell sizes or colors). List the top 10 SKUs by net sales.
Open Inventory remaining per product. Any A-grade or top-seller SKU whose days of cover sit inside supplier lead time goes on the reorder list.
Open ABC product analysis. Confirm those reorder SKUs are A-grade or B-grade before you spend cash on C-grade replenishment.
Open Products by sell-through rate. Fast sellers with thin cover reorder. Slow sellers with fat cover get a markdown, bundle, or stop-replenish note.
Open Conversion rate breakdown and Conversion rate over time. If checkout drop-off grew, fix checkout before you buy more traffic.
Open Sessions by landing page and Total sales by referrer. Pause spend on hosts or URLs that send sessions without orders. Feature high-selling SKUs that sit on quiet landing pages.
Hand the operator a ranked list of five actions. If you cannot name the SKU and the move, the review is not done.

Five actions is enough. Restock, promote, pause traffic, rewrite a collection grid, or stop replenishing. Anything else waits a week.

Save the views you reuse

Shopify lets you filter columns, change date ranges, and save a modified default report as a custom report. You can also start from an empty exploration, export a report, or ask Sidekick in plain language to investigate a sales change.

Save a 7-day Total sales by product view with net sales and net quantity only.
Save Inventory remaining sorted by fewest days of cover, limited to tracked variants.
Save Sessions by landing page for last 7 days, limited to product and collection URLs.
Export only when someone outside admin needs the file. Do not rebuild the same sheet every Monday.

Gift card product sales do not belong in sales reports. Shopify records them in finance reports instead. Deleted orders and Shopify Payments test-mode orders are excluded from sales reports. If a number looks short, check those cases before you assume demand fell.

When a second layer is worth adding

Native reports explain what already happened. You still join days of cover to lead time, product sales to landing-page sessions, and collection grids to conversion by hand. Add software when that join is a weekly spreadsheet, not when you want another chart of last week’s orders.

A product-level layer is useful when you need conversion, traffic, and revenue on the same SKU without an export. Skymetrics product analytics is built for that view. Pair it with stock intelligence when reorder dates, not on-hand units, are the missing field. Skip both if your actual gap is a messy native setup. Clean the baseline first.

If you are shopping categories of software rather than learning the native loop, use the separate guide on how to choose ecommerce analytics tools. Finish this week’s review before you book a demo.

Open Analytics this morning. Set last 7 days. Write three SKUs and three moves before you close the tab.