18 Essential Retail Reports to Evaluate Store Performance

Reporting and analytics are essential because they help you know exactly how your business is doing. There are reports to help you run your business better—from being more cost-effective with your inventory to measuring your customer acquisition and retention efforts, top-line revenue growth, and more. 

But it’s not always easy to know which data to look at, when that data is relevant, and what the data means. No matter how big your business is, it’s important to refer to the right reports and interpret that data correctly. 

That’s why we put together this list of the top retail reports and metrics you should refer to, grouped by data category. Keep reading to learn how to pull insights around your inventory, sales, staff, customers, and retail stores in Shopify.

Inventory reports

Keeping track of your inventory is essential to running a profitable business. You want to know how much merchandise you have in-store, how quickly it sells, and which items contribute the most to your bottom line. 

Make a habit of viewing the following reports in Shopify admin for more cost-effective inventory purchasing, timely promotions and discounts, and accurate accounting. 

• Sell-through rate by product
• ABC analysis by product
• Percent of inventory sold
• Days of inventory remaining
• Month-end inventory snapshot
• Month-end inventory value

1. Sell-through rate by product

Your sell-through rate shows how much inventory you sold in relation to the amount you purchased from a supplier. It’s often expressed as a percentage. Use your sell-through rate to see how quickly you sell through a product’s inventory and time your restocks better. 

To see the sell-through rate of each product and variant you carry, view the Sell-through rate by product report in Shopify admin. 

2. ABC analysis by product

An ABC analysis gives a snapshot of your best- and worst-selling inventory over a period of time. A-grade inventory are your bestselling products that account for 80% of total revenue. B-grade inventory counts for 15% of total revenue. C-grade inventory is the rest of your products, which account for 5% of revenue. 

Use the ABC analysis by product report in Shopify admin to ensure you always have A-grade inventory on hand, invest in stock that’s likely to sell, discount C-grade inventory to sell it off quickly, and more.  

3. Percent of inventory sold 

Percent of inventory sold tells you how much stock you have left of each product and variant you carry, expressed as a percentage. This number is based on the product’s starting quantity and quantity sold over a period of time. 

Use the Percent of inventory sold report in Shopify admin to see how much stock you have left for each product and variant you carry. 

4. Days of inventory remaining

Days of inventory remaining gives you an overall sense of how many days your inventory will last. This is based on the product’s average daily sales and the amount of inventory you have left. 

To see how many days of inventory you have left for each product and variant you carry, view the Days of inventory remaining report in Shopify admin. 

5. Month-end inventory snapshot 

Physical inventory counts are a necessary but time-consuming way to reconcile inventory quantities. What if there were a simpler way to find discrepancies and keep inventory levels balanced? 

The Month-end inventory snapshot report in Shopify admin shows the ending quantity for each product and variant you carry at a glance.  

6. Month-end inventory value

To prepare for tax season, you need to know the total cost and value of your inventory. While some merchants may wait until the end of the fiscal year to dig up that information, we recommend viewing that data each month to stay on top of your finances. 

To see the value of your inventory at the end of each month, view the Month-end inventory value report in Shopify admin. 

Sales reports

Tracking sales is the best way to know whether or not your retail stores are contributing to your revenue. Are they performing to your expectations, or do you need to course correct to meet your monthly sales targets? 

Here are some sales reports you can view in Shopify admin to get a clear idea of how your retail stores and staff are performing: 

• Sales by channel
• Average order value over time
• Sales by billing location
• Retail sales by staff at register 

7. Sales by channel

If you sell in more than one place—online and at your store, for example—it’s important to know how these channels contribute to total revenue. This gives you a big-picture view of which channels are most impactful for your business. 

To see how much revenue each sales channel generates over a period of time, as well as total orders and more, view the Sales by channel report in Shopify admin. 

8. Average order value over time 

Your average order value (AOV) is the total sales divided by the number of orders over a period of time. Use your AOV to get a broad sense of how effective your store staff are at selling, measure the impact of digital marketing efforts and promotions, spot seasonal revenue trends, and more.  

View the Average order value over time report in Shopify admin to track your hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual AOV. 

9. Sales by billing location

Sales by billing location shows the total revenue your brand generates from online orders in certain regions. It’s a versatile report that can help measure how your physical stores impact online sales and even find favorable areas where opening a retail store could help acquire new customers and retain existing ones. 

Retail stores often have a halo effect and lift online sales in the surrounding area. Merchants who use Shopify for their online and physical stores can see whether online sales increase or decrease in the area around their stores. 

10. Retail sales by staff at register 

Knowing how retail staff contribute to a store’s sales helps store managers keep employees accountable and ensure their store hits its objectives. We recommend viewing this report on a daily basis to give kudos to your top staff and ensure struggling staff get the feedback and coaching they need. 

Use Shopify’s Retail sales by staff at register report to see the average order value, items per transaction, and total sales value for store associates across all of your retail store locations.

Retail reports

In addition to viewing general sales data, it’s also important to keep tabs on your sales for each of your products and store locations. 

When combined with your inventory data, these retail reports will help you be more cost-effective with your purchase orders and ensure you have enough inventory of your best-selling products to always satisfy demand: 

• Retail sales by product variant SKU
• Retail sales by product type 
• Retail sales by point-of-sale location

11. Retail sales by product variant SKU

Retail sales by product gives you a breakdown of the total sales of each product and variant you carry over a period of time. It’s a simple way to see your top-selling products both in terms of units sold and total sales. 

To get started, view the Retail sales by product variant SKU in Shopify admin. 

12. Retail sales by product type 

When planning your next purchase order (PO), take a look at which product categories contribute the most to your total sales. This will help inform which product categories each store should carry stock of per season. 

To get started, view the Sales by product type report in Shopify admin. 

13. Retail sales by point-of-sale location

If you have more than one retail store, you’ll want to get a high-level comparison of each store’s sales. Which store is your flagship? Which sells the most units? Which has the highest total sales? 

We recommend viewing the Retail sales by location report in Shopify admin to keep tabs on your ecosystem of retail stores and measure each of their contributions to total sales. 

Customer reports

Shopify’s Future of Commerce report found that customer acquisition costs are on the rise—a trend that’s showing no signs of slowing down. 

The best way for you to hedge against increased ad spend to acquire new customers is to focus on retaining the ones you have. To make your retention marketing as successful as possible, it needs to be fuelled by customer data. View these reports in Shopify admin to see how many customers you serve per store location, the value of first versus returning customers, and how many new and returning customers you serve over a period of time:  

• Customers by location
• First-time vs. returning customers

14. Customers by location

If you sell internationally through your online store and retail stores, you may want to know how many customers you’ve served in each country, the total number of orders, and the value of those orders. 

This helps you know the AOV of customers per region, plan marketing activities to boost sales in certain regions, and more. To get started, view the Customers by location report in Shopify admin. 

15. First-time vs. returning customers

To measure how effective your business is at attracting new customers and compelling them to keep coming back, we recommend a side-by-side comparison of your new and returning customers on a regular basis. 

While this can be challenging if you’re using different systems to run your online and physical stores, it’s easy with Shopify. View the First-time vs. returning customers sales report in Shopify admin and select the time period you’re interested in seeing. 

Point-of-sale analytics

For store managers, Shopify POS comes with store-level analytics to help them run the store, manage staff, and ensure they’re on-track to hit sales goals. 

Store managers—or any staff who you assign the appropriate permissions—can view the data specific to their store location from Shopify POS without needing access to Shopify admin.  

• Net sales
• Net sales by staff
• Average order value
• Average items per order
• Top products by net sales 

16. Net sales

Net sales are the sum of a store’s total sales minus its returns and discounts. Oftentimes, net sales represent a store’s top line revenue. Use this metric to get a high-level understanding of your store’s daily sales and track weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual revenue growth.  

17. Net sales by staff

Net sales by staff shows the total revenue each store staff makes in sales over time. See who makes the most sales and who could use some retail sales tips to be more effective.  

18. Average order value

Average order value (AOV) calculates the mean value of all the transactions a store processes per day, month, quarter, or year. Store managers can track this metric to see how effective store associates are at upselling products. 

19. Average items per order

Average items per order calculates the average amount of items customers purchase per transaction. Store managers can use this metric to see how effective store associates are at cross-selling related products, measure the effectiveness of point of purchase displays, and more. 

20. Top products by net sales 

Store managers can use the top products by net sales report to see which products or product types were their bestsellers that day, week, month, quarter, or year. This can help measure how effective a promotion for a certain product was, as well as give more insight into which items you should prioritize for restocks. 

Retail reporting best practices

Using the insights you find in reports is an excellent way to inform the decisions you make and run your business with confidence. With that in mind, here are a few tips and best practices for store reporting and analytics. 

Unify your sales channels 

Many digitally native merchants have challenges applying the same data-driven approach they use for ecommerce to run physical stores. 

One way to make that easier is to centralize ecommerce and store data to the same back office. This helps you compare and contrast sales channels, spot trends, and get a clearer understanding of your brand’s overall performance.

Create a routine 

Reports are a great way to keep tabs on your business, spot opportunities, and manage issues before they become too big. 

We recommend scheduling when you look at business data and working it into your schedule, as well as the schedule of your store managers. This way, everyone’s on the same page. You can monitor overall brand performance, while store managers can ensure inventory levels are accurate, store associates are productive, and their store is on track to achieve its sales targets. 

Use retail reports to run your business with confidence 

Reporting and analytics gives you insights into your sales, products, inventory, customers, and staff. When used correctly, it can help you spot trends, take advantage of opportunities, and grow your business everywhere you sell.  

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