Sales reports
You can use sales reports to view information about your customers' orders based on criteria such as sales over time, by product, or by channel. For point of sale reports, refer to Retail sales reports.
When you open a sales report, the data is up to date, give or take about 1 minute. You can reopen or refresh the report to display newer data. However, it can take 12-72 hours before sales are reflected in the Sales by discount report.
On this page
Sales and returns
Sales reports track the value of products moving between you and your customers as you make sales and process returns.
A sale is made when a customer places an order. The reports include every line item and shipping charge (if applicable) in an order as a separate sale item.
A return is where goods pass from the customer back to you after the customer has bought the goods but decided not to keep them. A return is different from a refund because a return deals with the value of goods, but a refund deals with the value of tender that you issue the customer when you process a return.
Sales display in your sales reports as a positive value for the day that they were made, and returns display as a negative value for the day that they were processed. The sales reports include sales and returns from open, archived, and pending orders, as well as draft orders that have been converted into orders. The sales reports don't include sales and returns from deleted, canceled, or test orders.
Deleted orders and test orders
Deleted orders and test orders that were placed while Shopify Payments was in test mode aren't included in the sales reports.
Sales versus payments
Sales reports don't track money moving between you and your customers. When a sale is made, the reports display the value of goods included in the sale, not the amount of money that you've received. Depending on how you've set up your payment methods, you might not receive the actual payment until a later date.
Similarly, when you process a return, the reports display the value of goods that you're receiving, not the amount of money that you're issuing to the customer.
Chargebacks aren't included in the sales reports.
View your sales reports
Steps:
Desktop
- From your Shopify admin, go to Analytics > Reports.
- Click Categories.
- Click Sales to filter the reports to display only sales reports.
iPhone
- From the Shopify app, tap the … button, and then tap Analytics.
- Tap Reports.
- Tap Categories.
- Tap Sales to filter the reports to display only sales reports.
Android
- From the Shopify app, tap the … button, and then tap Analytics.
- Tap Reports.
- Tap Categories.
- Tap Sales to filter the reports to display only sales reports.
Common sales report terms
The sales reports use the following common terms:
Units per transaction | Equates to net quantity / total_orders. |
Average order value | Equates to gross sales (excluding adjustments) - discounts (excluding adjustments) / number of orders. Adjustments include all edits, exchanges, or returns that are made to an order after it's initially created. |
Orders | The number of orders that were placed on a given date. |
Gross sales | Equates to product price x quantity (before taxes, shipping, discounts, and returns) for a collection of sales. Pending and unpaid orders are included. Test, canceled, and deleted orders aren't included. |
Gross profit | The total profit made on the product during the time period of the report. It's calculated by subtracting the product cost from the net sales. Learn more about profit by product. |
Discounts |
|
Returns | The value of goods returned by a customer. Returns display as a negative number on the date the return was created. |
Return fees | The value that you charge your customers for returning goods, such as restocking fee or return shipping fee. This doesn't include the returned item value. |
Net sales | Equates to gross sales - discounts - returns. |
Shipping | Equates to shipping charges - shipping discounts - refunded shipping amounts. |
Tax | The total amount of taxes based on the orders. |
Duties | The total amount of duties based on the orders.
Duties display by default only on applicable reports for stores that have activated the collection of duties and import tax at checkout. Duties don't currently display on the following reports: |
Total sales | Equates to gross sales - discounts - returns + taxes + duties + shipping charges + fees.
Total sales will be a positive number for a sale on the date that an order was placed, and a negative number for a return on the date that an order was returned. |
Pending and unpaid orders are included in the reports. Test, canceled, and deleted orders aren't included.
Changes to product details
The reports capture the details of an order at the time of the sale. If you change any product details, such as renaming a product or adding a product to a different product type category, then both the original product details and the changed details might display in a report.
As a result, sometimes you might have a report that seems to list a product or order more than one time, or a report that leaves out certain sales. Usually, this happens because a product detail was changed between orders and the report covers a time period that includes orders before and after the change.
Example: On June 1, you sell a product that has the title Coffee mug with logo
. The next day, you change its title to Coffee mug - with logo
, and then make another sale on June 7. When you open a sales report that includes the date range of June 1 to June 7, the coffee mug orders display on 2 lines of the report because the product titles were different on the two sale dates.
Example: You sell various types of jewelry on your online store. Last year, you sold a variety of gold rings and silver rings, but none were identified with a Product type. This year, you add some product type values (Gold
and Silver
) to organize your ring collections. If you view a report that covers the time period both before and after you created the product type values, and that is filtered to include only rings of one of your specific product types, such as Gold
, then the report won't include orders of gold rings from last year. They're left out of the report because they didn't belong to the product type category at the time of the sale.
Detailed sales reports
If your store is on the Shopify plan or higher, then you have access to the following sales reports:
- Sales over time
- Sales by product
- Sales by product variant SKU
- Sales by product vendor
- Sales by discount
- Sales by traffic referrer
- Sales by billing location
- Sales by checkout currency
- Sales by channel
- Sales by customer name
- Average order value over time
Sales over time
The Sales over time report displays the number of orders and the total sales that you've made over time.
You can select a unit of time in the Group by drop-down menu to control how the data is grouped. You can also compare data from different date ranges.
The sales reports use several common terms.
If you edit an order after the day the order was placed, then the edit displays as a separate order on the Sales over time report. The report displays the edit as if it's a new order, even though a new order hasn't been created.
Adding custom columns to a Sales over time report can affect how the report is presented. Custom columns will create a new row for each product in an order. When you export the report as a CSV, each individual row counts as an order, resulting in a higher number of orders than shown in the admin. For example, if an order has five line items, then the report will have five rows for that order. The exported CSV will have four additional rows for the same order, resulting in an additional four orders in the total order count.
Sales by month
The Sales by month report displays the number of orders and the total sales that you've made each month.
The sales reports use several common terms. This report uses the following additional terms:
Month | The month that the orders were placed. |
Sales by day
The Sales by day report displays the number of orders and the total sales that you've made each day.
The sales reports use several common terms. This report uses the following additional terms:
Day | The day that the orders were placed. |
Sales by product
The Sales by product report displays the breakdown of total sales of your products, but doesn't include shipping.
Shipping isn't included because an order can consist of several products, but has a single shipping charge. For reporting purposes, the shipping charge can't be apportioned between the products in the order.
Because shipping amounts are filtered out, the tax that displays in this report doesn't include taxes on shipping.
The sales reports use several common terms. This report uses the following additional terms:
Product vendor | The vendor of your product if you purchase it from a third party. |
Product type | The type of product you are selling. For example, hats, shirts, or shoes. |
Product title | The name for your product. |
Net quantity | Equates to number of sold items - number of returned items. |
Sometimes the data in the product fields, such as Product type or Product title, displays as a dash (—). This occurs if the data didn't exist at the time of the order.
Similarly, if any of this data is changed between orders, then the report might display multiple rows for the same product because the identifying information isn't exactly the same. The reports always display the original values from the time of the order.
Sales by hour
The Sales by hour report displays a breakdown of sales by hour during a day.
The sales reports use several common terms. This report uses the following additional terms:
Hour | The hour that the orders were placed. |
Sales by product variant SKU
The Sales by product variant SKU report displays the breakdown of gross sales, but not the shipping cost, of your top-selling products on a more granular level than the Sales by product report.
Shipping isn't included because an order can consist of several products, but has a single shipping charge. For reporting purposes, the shipping charge can't be apportioned between the products in the order.
The sales reports use several common terms. This report uses the following additional terms:
Product title | The name for your product. |
Variant title | The name of the product variant. |
Variant SKU | The identification code of the product variant. |
Net quantity | Equates to number of sold items - number of returned items. |
Sales by product vendor
The Sales by product vendor report displays your vendors, and the products provided by each vendor.
The sales reports use several common terms. This report uses the following additional terms:
Product vendor | The name of the vendor providing a product. Click the name of a vendor to view the list of products that the vendor supplies. |
Net quantity | Equates to number of sold items - number of returned items. |
Sales by discount
The Sales by discount report displays your sales grouped by the name of the discount, such as the automatic discount name or discount code. This report helps you view how often your discount codes are applied and can help you understand which discounts are converting into the most sales.
The sales value in this report includes the total order value, not just the discounted items in the order. If you have combinable discounts on your store, then the same order might be included multiple times. The order displays one time in each row for every applied discount.
This report gathers and includes information for sales that you made after May 1, 2017, 12:00am UTC, regardless of your store’s time zone.
It can take 12-72 hours before sales are reflected in the Sales by discount report.
The following terms are used in this report:
Discount name | The name entered when the discount was created in the admin. |
Discount ID | The ID in the admin URL for the discount. |
Discount class | 'shipping', 'product', 'order' or 'unknown'. |
Discount method | The way that the discount is applied in the checkout, for example automatically or by entering a code. |
Discount type | Percentage, fixed amount, free shipping, buy X get Y, or App. |
Discount code | The code that was applied to receive the discount. |
Automatic discount title | The name of the discount that was automatically applied. |
Discount amount | The total value of the reported discount. |
Other discounts | The total value of other discounts applied to the same orders as this discount. |
Other non-shipping discounts | When multiple discounts apply to orders where the named discount is present, this field displays the total value of other non-shipping discounts applied to the same orders as this discount. |
Other shipping discounts | When multiple discounts apply to orders where the named discount is present, this field displays the total value of other shipping discounts applied to the same orders as this discount. |
Non-shipping discounts | The total value of all non-shipping discounts on orders with this discount. |
Shipping discounts | The total value of all shipping discounts on orders with this discount. |
Non-shipping script discounts |
The total value of product discounts that are the result of a script that is run by the Script Editor app.
This column displays only if you use Shopify Plus. Script discount amounts are reported for an order only if a discount code was also used on the order. |
Shipping script discounts | The total value of shipping discounts that are the result of a script that is run by the Script Editor app.
This column displays only if you use Shopify Plus. Shipping script discount amounts are reported for an order only if a discount code was also used on the order. |
Orders | The number of orders that the discount was applied to. |
Total sales | The total sales of all orders that the discount was applied to. |
Shipping | The shipping amount, not including shipping discounts. |
Sales by traffic referrer
The Sales by traffic referrer report displays your sales based on the specific site that your customers are coming from.
The sales reports use several common terms. This report uses the following additional terms:
Traffic referrer source |
Indicates how the customer who placed an order reached your online store. Possible values are:
|
Traffic referrer host |
The site of the referral, for example www.google.com where the referrer source is Search, and outlook.live.com where the referrer source is Email. For Direct sources, if the referrer can't be determined, then the host displays as a dash. This can occur for many reasons, such as the following situations:
|
The report displays the last interaction referrer. For more information about referrers and interactions, which are also called attribution models, view Referrers and interactions.
Sales by billing location
The Sales by billing location report displays the country or region of the billing address for an order.
The sales reports use several common terms. This report uses the following additional terms:
Billing location | Country or region of billing address. |
Sales by checkout currency
The Sales by checkout currency report displays the breakdown of your sales by customer currency used at the checkout.
The Total sales column reports the value of the sales in your local currency.
For example, Sarah's local currency is Canadian dollars, but she accepts payments in Australian dollars and US dollars as well. In her Sales by checkout currency report, Canadian, Australian, and US dollars are listed in the Checkout currency column, followed by the number of orders made in those currencies, and the value of those orders in Canadian dollars.
Sales by channel
You can use the Sales by channel report to view the amount of sales for your various sales channels.
The sales reports use several common terms. In this report, the Sales channel name displays the name of the channel or app that the customer used to place their order, such as Online Store or Buy Button. For sales that originated as draft orders, the report displays Draft Orders. If an app that has no name was used, then the report displays Other.
Sales by customer name
The Sales by customer name report displays the breakdown of orders by customer over a period of time.
The sales reports use several common terms. This report uses the following additional terms:
Customer name | The name of the customer. |
Customer email | The customer's email address. |
Average order value over time
The Average order value over time report displays how the average order value has changed over time.
You can click Group by to select the time unit that you want to view your sales by: hour, day, week, month, quarter, year, hour of day, day of week, or month of year. The time unit specifies how the order values are grouped. You can also compare data from different date ranges.
Customize your sales reports
Use the filtering and editing features to customize your sales reports.
Most of the metrics are the same as the common terms that are used in the sales reports. You can add other columns to a report, such as the following columns:
Average order value |
Equates to gross sales (excluding adjustments) - discounts (excluding adjustments) / number of orders. Adjustments include all edits, exchanges, or returns that are made to an order after it's initially created. |
Ordered quantity | Ordered quantity = Net quantity + Returned quantity |
Returned quantity | The number of items returned. |
Purchase option | The type of purchase made by your customer, such as a subscription or a one-time purchase. |
Example: Returns for the last 30 days
Suppose you want to view all of your returns for the last 30 days organized by product. You can filter the Sales by product report, and remove some columns that you don't want to view.
The resulting report will display each returned product's title, the returned quantity, the value of the returns, the total tax applied to the returned products, and the total sales number. Since the report deals only with returns, the total sales number for each product will be negative.
To customize the Sales by product report:
Desktop
- From your Shopify admin, go to Analytics > Reports.
- In the Sales section, click Sales by product.
- For the date range, select Last 30 days.
- Click Manage filters.
- Click Add filter.
- Select a filter of Sale kind from the list, and then select return.
- To display fewer columns, click Edit columns and then deselect Product vendor and Product type, Net sales, and Discounts.
iPhone
- From the Shopify app, tap the … button, and then tap Analytics.
- Tap Reports.
- In the Sales section, tap Sales by product.
- For the date range, select Last 30 days.
- Tap Manage filters.
- Tap Add filter.
- Select a filter of Sale kind from the list, and then select return.
- To display fewer columns, tap Edit columns and then deselect Product vendor and Product type, Net sales, and Discounts.
Android
- From the Shopify app, tap the … button, and then tap Analytics.
- Tap Reports.
- In the Sales section, tap Sales by product.
- For the date range, select Last 30 days.
- Tap Manage filters.
- Tap Add filter.
- Select a filter of Sale kind from the list, and then select return.
- To display fewer columns, tap Edit columns and then deselect Product vendor and Product type, Net sales, and Discounts.
The condensed report now displays the value of your returns by product for the last 30 days.
Gift card amounts in the reports
Gift cards are displayed in a few places in your reports. There are specific conditions that affect where they get recorded.
When you create a gift card from your Shopify admin:
- It isn't included as a sale in any report, nor in the total sales number in the Home sidebar.
When you sell a gift card product:
- It isn't included in any sales reports, nor the total sales number in the Home sidebar.
- It's included in the Gift cards sales finance report.
- The amount paid for the gift card is included in the Payments finance report under the payment method that the customer used, such as Visa or Cash.
When a customer uses a gift card to purchase something from your store:
- It's included in sales reports. The full value of the item is claimed as sales. For example, a $20 USD t-shirt with $5 USD of that purchase paid for by a gift card displays as $20 USD in sales.
- The amount paid by or refunded to a gift card is included in the Payments finance report as a gift card entry.
- The amount paid by gift card is subtracted from the gift card balance, which is displayed in the Gift cards balance finance report.
When a gift card expires:
- Any remaining outstanding balance on the gift card will continue to count toward your outstanding gift card balance, which is displayed in the Gift cards balance report.
When you deactivate a gift card:
- Any remaining outstanding balance on the gift card is returned to zero and is removed from the outstanding gift card balance in your Gift cards balance finance report. This adjustment applies from the date the card is deactivated, and doesn't affect historical data.
- It can take up to 24 hours for deactivated values to display in your Gift cards balance report.
Gift card amounts in custom reports
You can create a custom report that displays gift card gross sales, gift cards sold, and gift card discounts:
- Gift card gross sales refers to the actual value of gift cards you sold. This represents your outstanding liability.
- Gift cards sold refers to the amount that you sold the gift cards for, which could be less than their actual value.
- The difference is the gift card discounts amount.
For example, you sell a $50 USD gift card for $40. The gift card gross sales amount is $50. The gift card sold amount is $40. The gift card discounts amount is $10.
Gift card sales amounts aren't included in other sales reports.