Analytics and your numbers

The tabs choose the stretch: Today, 7 days, 30 days, 90 days or 12 months. For anything else, press Pick dates, choose From and To, and press Show these dates. Both days are included, up to three years at a time.

Every figure, chart and download on the page follows those dates, in your shop’s own time zone.

• Revenue after refunds: what buyers paid for orders in those dates, postage included, less any refunds given in those dates.
• Orders: paid orders, counted on the day they were paid.
• Average order: what an order came to on average, before refunds.

When there were refunds, a line under the cards says how much came in and how much went back. These are before Handsold’s fees: What’s left for you takes them off.

Until your shop takes real card payments, its checkout is a demo: every order is a practice one and no money changes hands. Your figures count them, so you can see how everything works, and a note at the top of Analytics says so.

Once real payments are on, practice orders stop counting, so your figures are only real money. Getting paid says where payments stand.

Under each card is a comparison with the same length of time just before. With Today, that’s yesterday up to the same time; with 30 days, it’s the 30 days before those.

An arrow and a percentage show when there’s enough to compare. When the earlier figure was small, the card gives the earlier number in words instead, like “Up from 2”, because a big percentage of a tiny number would mislead you. New means there was nothing before.

Returning customers counts the people who paid for an order in those dates and had paid for one before. They’re matched by email address, so people who checked out as guests count too. Underneath, it says how many people bought altogether.

• Visitors: people who came to your shop. One device on one day counts once.
• Page views: every page opened.
• Conversion rate: orders divided by visitors, so how many visitors bought something.
• Money per visitor: revenue after refunds divided by visitors.
• New customer accounts: buyers who made an account in your shop.
• Joined your newsletter: new newsletter subscribers.

Visitors and page views draws both across your dates: hour by hour for one day, day by day up to three months, and month by month for longer. A sudden jump usually means someone shared or wrote about you.

From looking to buying follows visitors through four steps: Looked at a product, Added to basket, Started checkout and Bought (paid orders). Between each step it says how many dropped off, so you can see where people stop.

Where visitors come from lists the sites that sent people to you, like search engines and social sites, with the share of visitors each sent. Direct or a bookmark is people who typed your address, used a bookmark, or came from an app that doesn’t say.

What they browse on splits visitors into Phones, Computers and Tablets. When most people are on phones, it reminds you to check new listings on yours.

Top pages lists the pages opened most, with how many times and by how many visitors.

What people searched for lists the words typed into your shop search, how many people searched and how many products matched. Searches that found nothing picks out the ones with no matches: worth adding to a product’s tags, or maybe making the thing.

Sales by product lists your best sellers with Sold (items kept after refunds), Sales, Cost to make and Profit before fees. It counts orders on the day they were paid, and leaves out postage. The page shows the top 10, and the Download link beside the title gets every product as a spreadsheet.

Set a product’s Cost to make beside its price when you edit it. Buyers never see it.

What’s left for you takes your product sales, then takes off the cost to make them and Handsold’s fees, and shows what’s left. It’s a rough guide: it leaves out postage, packaging and your other costs, and uses each product’s cost to make as it’s set today.

Anything sold with no cost to make counts as costing nothing, and a line says how many. Add the cost to each product for a truer figure.

Sales by category shows what each of your categories sold, with how many items, after refunds and before postage.

Downloads vs posted puts your sales of digital files beside the things you post, so you can see how much of your work needs no packing.

Looked at vs bought lists your most viewed products with Views, Added to basket, Sold and Views to orders. Lots of views and few sales can mean a product needs clearer photos, more detail or a different price.

Visits are counted without cookies, so your shop doesn’t need a cookie banner for them. The catch: a visitor is one device on one day, so the same person on Monday and Tuesday counts twice, and so does someone on their phone and then their laptop.

Download, at the top of Analytics, gets the figures for the dates on the page as a spreadsheet:

• Sales by product: every product sold, with refunds, the cost to make and profit.
• Sales by category: what each category sold.
• Sales and visitors by day: orders, sales, refunds and visitors, a row each. For one day it goes by hour, and for long stretches by month.
• Orders placed in these dates: every order with its address, items and money, for people who can see orders.

Each download is noted in the Activity log.

On the dashboard, How the shop’s doing shows Revenue after refunds, Orders, Average order, Visitors and Conversion rate, for the same tabs as Analytics. Below them, Revenue charts money in and orders, Top products shows what sold best, Latest orders the newest orders and Recent activity the latest changes.

Staff see the dashboard’s to-do list and latest orders, but not the money figures.