Reference
Shopify analytics glossary: 20 key metrics
Analytics tools, agencies and Shopify itself do not always define the same metric the same way. This glossary gives a plain-English definition and a formula for each number, so your team compares like with like.
Written by Malick Alexandre Sarr, co-founder of Avantages. Published on . About 7 minutes to read.
Sales and order metrics
These metrics describe what your store sold. Before comparing them across tools, check whether shipping, taxes and refunds are included, because that is where most differences come from.
| Metric | What it means | How to calculate it |
|---|---|---|
| Gross sales | The value of products sold before discounts and returns. | Product price × quantity, for all orders |
| Net sales | What you sold after discounts and returns. | Gross sales − discounts − returns |
| Average order value (AOV) | How much a typical order is worth. | Net sales ÷ number of orders |
| Conversion rate | The share of store visits that end in an order. | Orders ÷ sessions |
| Refund rate | The share of sales that customers sent back. | Refunded value ÷ gross sales |
Marketing metrics
Marketing metrics connect spend with results. Platform-reported numbers such as ROAS in Meta Ads often add up to more than your store sold, because each platform counts the sales it helped with. Store-based metrics such as MER avoid that problem.
| Metric | What it means | How to calculate it |
|---|---|---|
| Return on ad spend (ROAS) | Revenue an ad platform credits to your ads for each dollar spent. | Attributed revenue ÷ ad spend |
| Marketing efficiency ratio (MER) | Total store revenue for each dollar of total marketing spend. | Total revenue ÷ total marketing spend |
| Customer acquisition cost (CAC) | What it costs to win one new customer. | Marketing spend ÷ new customers |
| Blended CAC | CAC across all channels, using total spend and all new customers. | Total marketing spend ÷ all new customers |
| Attribution | The rules that decide which channel gets credit for an order. | Depends on the model, such as last click or first click |
Customer and retention metrics
Customer metrics show whether people come back. They matter most for brands that sell products people reorder, such as skincare, food or supplements.
| Metric | What it means | How to calculate it |
|---|---|---|
| Cohort | A group of customers who placed their first order in the same period. | Group customers by first-order month |
| Retention rate | The share of a cohort that orders again in a later period. | Returning cohort customers ÷ cohort size |
| Repeat purchase rate | The share of customers with more than one order. | Customers with 2+ orders ÷ all customers |
| Churn | Customers who stopped buying, usually judged against their normal reorder cycle. | Customers past their expected reorder date ÷ active customers |
| Customer lifetime value (LTV) | The revenue or gross profit a customer brings over their whole relationship with you. | Average order value × orders per customer, or the cumulative revenue of a cohort per customer |
| RFM segmentation | Grouping customers by recency, frequency and monetary value. | Score each measure from 1 to 5 and group the combinations |
Profit metrics
Revenue can grow while profit shrinks. Profit metrics take product costs, shipping, fees and ad spend into account, so you can see what each order really leaves you.
| Metric | What it means | How to calculate it |
|---|---|---|
| Cost of goods sold (COGS) | What the products you sold cost you to make or buy. | Unit cost × units sold |
| Gross margin | The share of net sales left after product costs. | (Net sales − COGS) ÷ net sales |
| Contribution margin | What an order leaves after all variable costs, before fixed costs such as salaries and rent. | Net sales − COGS − shipping − payment fees − ad spend |
| CAC payback period | How long it takes for a new customer’s gross profit to repay what it cost to win them. | CAC ÷ monthly gross profit per customer |
In Avantages
Every metric, defined the same way everywhere
Avantages calculates these metrics from your Shopify orders with one shared definition, so a number means the same thing on your dashboard, in the daily briefing and in an AI report. Sales, cohort and RFM metrics are live today, and profit and marketing metrics are coming next.
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