When assessing a Shopify store's performance, start with the three core metrics that make up sales: sessions, conversion rate and average order value. Then track whether customers come back (returning customer rate), what it costs you to win a customer (CAC and ROAS), where visitors drop out of the purchase journey (the conversion funnel and abandoned checkouts) and the page experience (Core Web Vitals). None of these metrics is enough on its own; meaningful conclusions emerge when they're read together and compared across the right periods.

This is the first overview we at Booster Wizard, an official Shopify Partner, put together when reviewing a store. Below, we explain what each metric means, where to find it in Shopify Analytics and Google Analytics 4 (GA4), and how to read it. Shopify's reports are in the admin under Analytics > Reports; we give report names as they appear in English in Shopify's help documentation, and if your admin is in Turkish, they appear under their Turkish equivalents.

The Core Equation: Sessions, Conversion Rate and Order Value

Your online store's revenue is roughly the product of three factors: how many visits you get, what share of those visits turn into orders, and the average value of those orders. When sales fall, the first job is to find which factor the drop is coming from. If traffic is unchanged but the conversion rate has fallen, the problem is most likely inside the store; if the conversion rate is unchanged but sessions have fallen, you need to look at your marketing channels.

Conversion Rate

By Shopify's definition, conversion rate is the share of all sessions that completed checkout. It appears on the card in the Analytics overview dashboard and in the Conversion rate over time report; in GA4, it can be tracked through sessions in which the purchase event occurred.

  • Compare it with your own history rather than with general averages, and break it down by device, channel and landing page. A large gap between mobile and desktop often shows on its own where the problem lies.
  • Shopify updated its session measurement on 21–23 September 2026: detected bot sessions are now excluded from reports by default, and some sessions without page views are also counted. Shopify recommends treating data from this date onwards as a new baseline, so take this into account when comparing with earlier periods.
  • According to Shopify's metric definitions, sessions are counted for visitors who accept cookies through the cookie banner. A change to your cookie consent set-up can change your conversion rate even if sales stay the same.

Average Order Value

Shopify calculates average order value by taking gross sales minus discounts and dividing by the number of orders; post-order adjustments such as returns aren't included in this calculation. It appears on the card in the Analytics overview dashboard and in the sales reports; in GA4, it can be tracked with average purchase revenue in the Monetization reports.

  • Free shipping thresholds, product bundles and complementary products recommended in the cart directly affect average order value. After a change like this, track the conversion rate too; if order value goes up while the number of orders falls, the overall effect may be negative.
  • During promotional periods, discounts pull the average down, so assess periods with and without promotions separately.

Returning Customer Rate

This is the proportion of customers placing orders who have ordered before. Shopify defines a returning customer as one who has at least one order in their order history at the time they place an order. Besides the card on the overview dashboard, two reports make the job easier: the New vs returning customers report compares new and returning customers period by period, while the Customer cohort analysis report groups customers by the date of their first order to track repeat purchases.

This rate depends on the product's natural purchase cycle: a frequently used cosmetic product and a piece of furniture bought once a year can't be judged by the same yardstick. Rather than a single rate, look at the trend in the cohort report: are the customers you've won recently coming back more often than earlier ones?

CAC and ROAS

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the marketing spend on winning new customers divided by the number of new customers. Return on ad spend (ROAS) is the revenue generated from advertising divided by ad spend.

Shopify's Performance by marketing channel report shows ad spend, ROAS, cost per acquisition (CPA) and CAC for channels that send cost data to Shopify; in rows with no cost data, these fields appear as a dash. By default, the report uses the “last non-direct click” attribution model; other models, such as first click and linear, can also be selected.

  • Because ad platforms' own dashboards and Shopify use different attribution rules, the same campaign's ROAS can look different in each. When making decisions, take a single source as your reference and use it consistently.
  • ROAS shows revenue, not profit. Compare CAC not just with the first order but with the gross profit a customer brings in over time; that's why the returning customer rate can't be considered separately from CAC.

The Conversion Funnel

The funnel shows at which step of the purchase journey visitors drop off. Shopify's Conversion rate breakdown report starts from all sessions and shows, step by step, the sessions that added a product to the cart, reached checkout and completed checkout; the open funnel option also accounts for visitors who go straight to checkout without adding to the cart. GA4's Purchase journey report runs from session start through viewing products, adding to cart and beginning checkout to purchase, while the Checkout journey report shows the shipping information, payment information and purchase steps after checkout begins.

The step with the biggest loss tells you which page to look at first:

  • If add-to-cart is low: the product page, meaning missing information, images, variant selection or price perception.
  • If the move from cart to checkout is low: the cart page and surprises such as the shipping cost appearing there for the first time.
  • If checkout completion is low: the checkout page, instalment options, errors caused by the payment provider and the 3D Secure step.

We've gathered the design problems we see most often at these steps in a separate article: Common design mistakes in Shopify stores

Abandoned Checkouts

Shopify records a checkout as abandoned when it isn't completed for more than ten minutes after the customer has entered their email address. Visitors who add products to the cart but never reach checkout don't appear in this list; you'll see them at the cart step of the funnel. The records are listed under Orders > Abandoned checkouts, and those older than three months are deleted automatically. Reminder emails can be sent with an automation in the Shopify Messaging app.

Open your abandoned checkouts one by one and look for what they have in common. If a particular shipping option, carts above a certain amount or a particular payment method stands out, that's most likely where the problem lies.

Core Web Vitals

These are the three metrics Google uses to measure page experience: LCP for loading speed, INP for responsiveness to interaction and CLS for visual stability. According to Google, good values are 2.5 seconds or less for LCP, 200 milliseconds or less for INP and 0.1 or less for CLS. Shopify's Web performance reports show these metrics over time using real user data, by page type and URL, and also help you track the impact of app installs and theme updates. The Core Web Vitals report in Search Console and PageSpeed Insights show the same metrics too.

Track these metrics alongside your conversion rate; a worsening LCP or INP, especially on mobile, can be behind an unexplained drop in sales.

Our detailed article on the factors that affect speed and the steps to improve it: Shopify speed and performance

Why Do Shopify and GA4 Show Different Figures?

As Shopify itself notes, analytics platforms calculate sessions differently. Cookie consent, bot filtering, ad blockers and attribution models pull the two sources' figures apart. A practical rule: rely on Shopify for orders and revenue, use GA4 for the detail of channel and page behaviour, and always track each metric from the same source.

Four Rules for Reading Metrics

  • Compare with the right period: In strongly seasonal categories, the same period last year gives a more meaningful comparison than the previous month.
  • Look at the breakdowns: Breakdowns by device, channel and landing page reveal problems that the average hides.
  • Note your changes: Recording the dates of theme updates, new apps, price changes and promotions makes it easier to find the cause of a break in the figures.
  • Don't decide based on a single metric: A discount that raises the conversion rate can lower average order value and profit.

Conclusion

Reading performance correctly means tracking the right metrics in the right place: the three factors behind sales, whether customers come back, what it costs to win a customer, where the funnel loses people and the page experience. Teams that track this picture regularly spot problems before sales fall.

To check your store's Core Web Vitals, your GA4 and ad pixel set-up and your cookie consent configuration for free: Start your free store audit