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You wouldn’t drive a car blindfolded, so why run a Shopify store without looking at your reports?
Shopify reporting is the steering wheel of your ecommerce business, guiding decision-making and helping you identify what’s working and what’s not. Just like a car dashboard shows you how fast you’re going, how much fuel you have left, and whether your engine needs attention, an ecommerce store's reports provide a snapshot of its performance. From sales trends and customer behaviour to inventory levels and marketing ROI, reports can give you all of the information about your store that you could possibly need.
Yet, many merchants and store owners are so focused on sales and marketing that they overlook reporting, even when it’s one of the most powerful tools at their disposal. It’s easy to get caught up in product launches, social media campaigns, and customer acquisition, but without proper reporting, you’re essentially driving without a map. Neglecting reports means missing out on key insights that could be driving revenue growth, improving customer retention, and streamlining operations.
A well-structured reporting strategy allows you to spot trends early, understand customer behaviour, and make data-backed decisions that can significantly improve your ecommerce store’s profitability. Whether it’s identifying underperforming products, uncovering customer drop-off points, or adjusting pricing strategies, reports provide the data you need to fine-tune your store and stay ahead of the competition.
Think of Shopify reporting as your business toolbox. It’s packed with insights into your store’s performance and is crucial for driving growth. The data gained from Shopify reporting helps you track key metrics, analyse customer behaviour, and monitor trends that could change your thought processes and strategic direction - basically, they give you insight into what's working and what’s not! There are 5 key business questions that Shopify reporting data can help you understand - if used with intention.
The insights provided by each aspect of your Shopify reports are essential to making informed decisions, spotting new opportunities, and identifying areas for improvement, which can massively help increase revenue and business expansion.
Reports aren’t just for tracking numbers, they’re for making smarter decisions. When you use reports right, they can transform your Shopify store’s performance.
Firstly, decision making. The data you get from Shopify reporting allows you to remove guesswork and make decisions based on facts and figures. We might think we know our customers or our product’s performance, but the data knows it better! Shopify reports allow for real-time data to help steer your decisions.
Shopify reporting also allows you to identify trends and opportunities within a business. By tracking data over time, you will start to notice patterns which you can consequently act upon. This not only helps with inventory but also opportunities across the board, especially when acted upon early.
Improving customer retention is another key area that Shopify reporting can help with. By analysing customer purchase history and identifying repeat buyers Shopify merchants are able to execute specific marketing campaigns to target repeat or abandoned purchases with intention. These can include campaigns aimed at customers signed up to a loyalty program, or specific email marketing touchpoints to customers that abandoned their cart.
Reports can give Shopify merchants tailored insight into how specific products are performing. This is beneficial because, by keeping track of stock levels and product turnover merchants can prevent overselling, running out of stock, and can strategically make price adjustments based on trustworthy, data-driven decisions.
Customer experience is at the heart of all good websites and online businesses, so it should be no surprise that the insights garnered from Shopify reports can also be used to improve a website’s customer experience. Once a Shopify merchant knows the problems that’s affecting their customer experience, they can take the steps required to correct them! Through analysing behaviour across a site, identifying where users are dropping off, and reacting to this data, we can improve the overall customer experience and sales.
There are endless benefits to Shopify reporting and endless ways that it can be used to leverage and improve a Shopify store.
In order to receive the maximum possible value from your Shopify store’s reports, you have to go beyond just reviewing the data. You also need to act upon what you analyse based on set goals and KPIs. You will need to look for trends and identify opportunities in order to adjust your strategies accordingly and effectively.
Ultimately, business improvements come from going beyond just measuring your performance with reports - you also need to use the insight gained from them to drive smarter decisions.
Set aside a designated time to review your key reports, such as on a weekly or monthly basis. Each time, ensure you compare the data to look for trends.
The data can then be broken down into segments, such as locations, specific purchase history, the marketing channel a customer has entered from, and so on. Segmenting your reports in this manner will make it easier to spot patterns.
Focus on core metrics like sales growth, conversion rates, etc. but make sure you’re only tracking metrics relevant to your business.
Finally, use the data! Adjust your strategies based on the data provided to you.
Showcasing this to a real life example will help you visualise and understand the true benefits of reporting and the importance it can have on a business and their strategies.
Fashion brand Slackjaw had been seeing solid 8% year-on-year growth with their business on Shopify - a decent number, but not exactly game-changing for a smaller brand with room to grow. While performance marketing, CRM, and social media were doing their job by driving traffic, Shopify reports revealed a clear problem: the product page was underperforming. Low conversion rates and high drop-off rates at the product page were stalling sales, which was made immediately visible through analysing reports.
After spotting these trends, Cake Agency collaborated with Slackjaw to implement the following, targeted changes to the product page:
As a result, Slackjaw saw a 150% increase in conversion rate, a 159% rise in add-to-cart actions, a 74% boost in checkouts, and a 129% increase in total sales revenue, all from a few smart product page updates. That’s the power of knowing, analysing and using your data.
Shopify reporting isn’t just about tracking numbers, it's about using the numbers, understanding the trends and building on the opportunities identified to grow your business. It's crucial that, to make smarter and impactful decisions, you review your Shopify reports, analyse your data, and act on your insights.
Where to start? Set out your key metrics, start reporting regularly and use the data to adjust your strategy. The more you start to understand your store's performance, the further your business will grow.
Want to learn more about Shopify Reporting? Contact us to find out more.
Olivia joined Cake as a Junior Account Executive fresh off from the oft travelled digital marketing fast track course at Birmingham City University.
Bringing with her a wealth of experience working in social media management and client facing content creation, Olivia has got stuck right into the world of eCommerce and delivering projects for our vast range of clients. Assisting in managing some of our toughest projects from ideation through to completion across the full mix of digital marketing channels, Olivia ensures that our work is to the high standard that we pride ourselves on, that our clients are happy, and that everything is finished on time.
