Ecommerce Reporting: What to Check Every Week and Every Month
Ecommerce reporting is the habit of checking the same few numbers on a fixed schedule and comparing them with your own past. It is not about having more dashboards. A short weekly report catches problems while they are still cheap, and a monthly report tells you whether growth is actually profitable. This guide shows what goes into each, where every number should come from, and how to build a one-page report you will actually open.
What is ecommerce reporting?
Ecommerce reporting answers one question on repeat: what happened in my store, and is it different from normal? It works best as a routine with three parts: a fixed set of numbers, a fixed schedule, and a fixed comparison.
Reporting is the first half of the job. It tells you that revenue fell 8% last week. The second half, analysis, asks why and what to do about it. If you want the full picture of which metrics exist and how they connect, start with our complete guide to ecommerce analytics. This article focuses on turning those metrics into a report you run every week and every month.
The weekly ecommerce report: 5 numbers
The weekly report is an early warning system. It should take ten minutes to read and tell you whether anything is broken or suddenly different.
| Number | What it tells you | Best source |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | Whether the week went well overall | Store platform |
| Orders | Whether revenue moved because of volume or price | Store platform |
| Sessions by channel | Whether a traffic source dropped or spiked | GA4 |
| Conversion rate | Whether visitors still buy at the usual rate | GA4 (orders ÷ sessions) |
| Average order value | Whether baskets got smaller or larger | Store platform |
Show each number next to the previous four weeks and the same week last year. A single week compared with the week before is noisy: a holiday, a payday or one newsletter can move it on their own.
If conversion rate drops while traffic holds, look at the funnel next. Compare sessions that started checkout with sessions that ended in a purchase, as described in our checkout optimization guide.
Roughly 70% of online carts never turn into an order. The Baymard Institute puts the average cart abandonment rate at 70.19%, based on an aggregate of 49 separate studies. A sudden change in your own rate is one of the fastest signals that something in checkout broke.
Source: Baymard Institute, Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics
The monthly ecommerce report: is growth profitable?
The monthly report steps back from “is anything broken” to “are we growing the right way.” Keep the five weekly numbers and add these:
| Number | Question it answers | Best source |
|---|---|---|
| Customer acquisition cost (CAC) | What does a new customer cost us? | Ad platforms + store platform |
| New vs returning customers | Is growth coming from new buyers or loyal ones? | Store platform |
| Repeat purchase rate | Do customers come back? | Store platform |
| Revenue and ROAS by channel | Which channels deserve more budget? | GA4 + ad platforms |
| Top and bottom products | What sells, and what needs attention? | Store platform |
| Refunds and returns | Is revenue we booked actually staying? | Store platform |
Two of these deserve their own deep dive. Our guides to customer acquisition cost and customer lifetime value show how to calculate them, and the free break-even ROAS calculator tells you which ROAS your margin needs before a channel is profitable.
Where each number should come from
The most common reporting headache is three tools showing three different revenue figures. That is normal, because each tool counts differently. The fix is to decide in advance which source owns which number, and never mix them in one comparison.
Store platform for money. Revenue, orders, refunds, average order value and customers come from Shopify, WooCommerce or your platform’s own reports. These are your real sales.
GA4 for behavior. Sessions, channels, devices, conversion rate and the checkout funnel come from Google Analytics. GA4 usually shows less revenue than your store, for example because some visitors decline analytics cookies, so use it for patterns rather than accounting. Our guide to why your GA4 conversion rate can mislead you covers the usual gaps.
Ad platforms for spend. Take cost from Google Ads, Meta and other ad accounts, but be careful with the conversions they report, because each platform credits itself. Consistent UTM tags make channel numbers in GA4 far easier to trust.
How to build a one-page ecommerce report
You don’t need a paid reporting tool to start. A free Looker Studio dashboard or a simple spreadsheet is enough for most small and mid-sized stores.
Check that your data is right first. Place a test order and confirm it appears correctly in your store and in GA4. If ecommerce events are missing, fix them with our GA4 ecommerce tracking guide before you build anything.
Connect your sources in Looker Studio. Looker Studio connects to GA4 for free. Add your store data through your platform’s export or a spreadsheet, so revenue and orders come from the store, not from GA4.
Put everything on one page. A row of number cards at the top, each with its comparison, and one trend chart below. If it doesn’t fit on one screen, something on it is not essential.
Add a short notes box. Write what changed that week, such as a sale, a new campaign or a site update. Three months later, these notes explain spikes and dips that numbers alone can’t.
Put it on a schedule. Looker Studio can email the report to you automatically. Pick a fixed time, such as Monday morning for the weekly report and the first working day for the monthly one.
Common ecommerce reporting mistakes
Reporting too many numbers. A 40-chart dashboard gets opened once. If a number never changes what you do, drop it.
Comparing single days. Daily numbers swing with weekdays, weather and email sends. Compare whole weeks or months, except during big campaigns such as Black Friday.
Mixing sources in one comparison. Store revenue this month against GA4 revenue last month will show a change that never happened.
Reporting without acting. Every report should end with one decision, even if the decision is “no change this week.”
The best ecommerce report I see in audits is rarely the prettiest one. It is the one that is opened every Monday, fits on one screen and ends with a single decision. Consistency beats sophistication.
About Patrik Vavrovič
Key takeaways
Ecommerce reporting means checking the same few numbers on a fixed schedule and comparing them with your own past, not building more dashboards.
A weekly report needs only five numbers: revenue, orders, sessions by channel, conversion rate and average order value.
A monthly report adds CAC, new vs returning customers, repeat purchase rate, channel performance, products and refunds.
Take money from your store platform, behavior from GA4 and spend from ad platforms, and never mix sources in one comparison.
End every report with one decision, so the numbers lead to action.
FAQ
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