Understanding your store performance is crucial to growth. The more you expand, it becomes even more important. Although the idea of analytics might seem daunting, it doesn’t have to be boring or complicated.

The WooCommerce Analytics dashboard presents all of the key metrics in an easy-to-understand visual format.

This summary is only a small part of the complete documentation. To learn more about data calculation and customize reports, you can see the full documentation.

How to get around: The key elements of WooCommerce Analytics

The WooCommerce Analytics Dashboard is composed of three sections: Performance and Charts.

The Performance section shows a snapshot of your store over a particular date range, compared to the previous period. It displays the month-to-date performance by default so that you can instantly see if sales have increased over the same period last year. You can choose to display data for the past week, quarter, or year.

The Charts section provides more information about the period that you have selected. This can help help you to dig deeper into your store’s performance.

You have the option to show:

• Total Sales
• Net Sales
• Orders
• Average Order Value
• Sold Items
• Returns
• Get Discounted on All Orders
• Gross Discounted Amount
• Total tax
• Place an order for tax
• Shipping Tax
• Shipping
• Downloads
• Gross Sales

Look to the right under “Charts” to see the most relevant data. You can choose from line or bar graphs, or click on the three dots to switch between specific reports.

You can click on any chart to see more information. You can click on the Orders Chart to see more information. A list of all sales will be displayed, which can be downloaded as a CSV file.

The Leaderboard is the final section of your dashboard. It displays your top-performing products and categories.

Use performance data and charts to improve your store

You will find the most important reports to be of great value depending on what your business does. However, let’s look at some common reports and see how we might interpret them for valuable insights.

Total sales

Your store’s heartbeat is sales. While they may not always translate into profitability, they can be a quick indicator of your company’s performance. Check your sales for a month and compare them to last year. You’ll find a percentage in the Performance section. This box should always be kept green.

Simply change the date range to get a glimpse at long-term trends. You might think that you are doing a poor job if you have never considered analytics. If you choose a range that starts at the beginning of the year you might find that you have grown, and that it is just a slow month.

The more relevant the data, the longer the date range. Let’s suppose you have been in business for five years. On January 1, your new marketing manager was hired. You can determine if the new manager had an impact on sales by selecting five years.

Why is it important to consider the date range? You might conclude that your marketing manager is not helping if you only look at one slow month. If you look at the past five years, it might be that sales have dropped year-over-year and the new employee has reversed the trend.

Average order value

It’s much easier to retain existing customers than it is to find new ones. However, if you want to increase revenue without new customers you will need to increase your average order size and purchase frequency.

Any strategy should have an average order size. Perhaps you are running a new Google Ads campaign. Although it is more expensive to acquire customers in this manner, the average order value of your campaign is sufficient to make it profitable. This helps you to evaluate other marketing strategies, such as cross-sells and upsells.

You can also look at a longer date range to determine if your average order value has changed over time. Could there have been some changes that could explain the difference?

Returns

Customer satisfaction is measured by the number of returns received. Customers who are unhappy with their products return them, do not purchase from the same company again, and don’t leave reviews.

Maybe you have recently switched suppliers. Your products are now selling at a higher margin and it seems like everything is great. However, your returns have increased by twofold since your partnership. You may need to reconsider the value of the margins and lose loyal customers.

The same goes for changing your return policy. Customer confidence and sales can be increased by offering no-hassle returns. However, if your returns processing costs rise too high, it can impact your bottom line.

It can help you forecast future returns. Are you planning a huge cyber week sale? Cash flow could be negatively affected by unexpected returns. You might be able to see that returns are expected to rise 15% more than average if you look back at last year’s sales.

Orders Discounted and Net Discount

These two reports can tell you a lot more about customer behavior and how coupons affect your store.

Coupons and discounts can be powerful tools to encourage customers to purchase, but they can also pose a problem if they are misused or not used correctly. This report will help you identify both.

Are there more coupons being redeemed this month than last? This could be alarming or completely normal. You can see the chart view to determine if there are days that have a significant peak. What could be the reason for discounts that are concentrated on a few days? It could be a simple explanation for the problem that an email with a coupon code or a flash sale is sent.

To see if discounts are becoming more frequent, look at the time frame. You should consider whether coupon fatigue will occur when customers become less motivated to buy because they have seen too many coupons.

Are your discount orders up 10% each month over the past two years? This might be worrying, but it’s worth comparing to the orders report. If orders are increasing at the same rate as before, it’s not changing.

These aren’t the only reports available. To find the most relevant reports for your store, make sure to check out the entire list at the top.

Leaderboard

The Analytics dashboard’s last section is equally fascinating. There are four leaderboards.

1. Top Customers, Total Spend

Your eCommerce business could be transformed by knowing who your top customers are. These are three ways to make the most out of this information.

First, reward them. It can be difficult to find loyal customers and marketing can get expensive. If you find someone passionate about your store, it’s important to reward them. You can give them a gift, exclusive products, or discounts.

Second, your loyal customers can teach you a lot. Send them an email or survey to find out why they love your store, and what you can do to improve it.

This metric is another indicator of the health of your store. Most customers will spend less than their best customers. Why? Losing one customer could make a big difference if they are the majority of your revenue. Financial security is enhanced when you have more customers who spend the same amount.

One caveat: If you increase the date range to at least a year and nearly all your customers spend the same amount, it could indicate that you don’t have repeat customers. Find ways to make shoppers return again and again.

2. Top Coupons, Orders

What were the most successful promotions this quarter? Are there any coupon codes out there that can be abused? These questions can be answered easily with the leaderboard.

To help you decide what type of promotion to run next time, increase your date range. What does the top coupon have in common?

This information will help you become a master promoter.

3. Top Categories and Items Sold

You can quickly see which items are the best performing. You can change the date range to see trends or if some categories perform better at different times of the year. Possibly earrings were your top-selling category last year. But this year they are near the bottom. What could be causing this decline in earring sales and what can you do?

4. Top Products and Items Sold 

Similar to categories, it is easy to quickly identify your top winners and trends that will help you grow your business. You might be able to use data from last year to predict which seasonal products will do well in the coming year if you are selling seasonal products. It is possible to spot a product that performs well in a category where the overall performance is low. You might be able to learn from the success story of a product that can improve its category.

For growth, powerful data made simple

With input from eCommerce professionals, the Analytics dashboard was created by eCommerce experts. This dashboard is designed to provide a quick overview and help you grow your business.

To make the most out of your business’s success, take a moment and identify the most important metrics. Then spend time regularly evaluating those data. It doesn’t take a data scientist to get started.