How to Check Shopify Sales to Grow Your Brand

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Understanding the Shopify Analytics Dashboard
3. Advanced Metrics for Long-Term Growth
4. The Strategy of Tracking Competitor Sales
5. Scaling Revenue with Digital Products and Memberships
6. Analyzing Digital Product Sales Data
7. Choosing the Right Tools for Your Store
8. The Technical Advantage of Native Shopify Integration
9. Actionable Steps to Improve Your Sales Tracking Today
10. Real-World Success: More Than Just Numbers
11. Final Thoughts on Sales Monitoring
12. Conclusion
13. FAQ

Introduction

Did you know that the global creator economy is estimated to be worth over $250 billion, with a significant portion of that revenue coming from independent educators and digital product sellers? This massive shift in how value is exchanged online has changed the way we look at e-commerce metrics. For any merchant, understanding the data behind the "Buy" button is the difference between guessing and growing. Whether you are selling high-end furniture, handmade jewelry, or digital masterclasses, knowing how to interpret your financial health is the foundational step toward scaling a sustainable business.

The purpose of this blog post is to provide a deep dive into the technical and strategic ways to monitor your revenue. We will explore the built-in Shopify analytics tools, discuss how to filter for specific data points, and explain why tracking sales is about more than just looking at a total number. We will also examine how diversifying into digital products can transform your profit margins and how to track those unique revenue streams effectively.

By the end of this guide, you will have a clear roadmap for monitoring your store’s performance. More importantly, you will understand how to use those insights to transition from a standard store into a digital learning powerhouse. Our thesis is simple: when you own your data and understand your sales patterns, you can build a brand that offers both physical value and intellectual community, all within a single, unified ecosystem.

Understanding the Shopify Analytics Dashboard

To understand the health of your business, you must first master the primary hub where all data converges. The Shopify Analytics dashboard is designed to provide a snapshot of your performance, but for those who want to scale, a surface-level glance isn't enough. When you log into your admin panel, the "Analytics" tab is your first stop. Here, you see a real-time feed of your store's activity, but the true power lies in the "Reports" sub-section.

Navigating the Sales Report

To see your actual revenue, you need to navigate to Analytics > Reports and look for the "Sales" category. Shopify provides several pre-built reports, such as "Sales over time," "Sales by product," and "Sales by channel." These are essential for identifying which parts of your business are doing the heavy lifting. For instance, if you notice that a specific product is generating high volume but low net profit due to shipping costs, it might be time to look into higher-margin digital additions.

Gross Sales vs. Net Sales

A common mistake for new merchants is focusing solely on "Gross Sales." This figure represents the total value of orders before discounts, returns, and taxes. While it looks impressive on a chart, "Net Sales" is the metric that truly determines your ability to reinvest in your brand. Net sales take your gross sales and subtract discounts and returns. Monitoring this gap helps you understand if your promotional strategies are eroding your margins or if your product quality is leading to excessive refunds.

Filtering by Date and Region

The ability to filter data is where strategy begins. By comparing this month’s sales to the same month last year, you can identify seasonal trends. If you are a brand based in the US but see a surge in orders from the UK, that is a data-driven signal to perhaps adjust your shipping rates or target localized marketing ads to that region.

Advanced Metrics for Long-Term Growth

Once you know the basics of checking your total revenue, it is time to look at the metrics that indicate long-term sustainability. E-commerce is no longer just about the first sale; it is about the Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

Average Order Value (AOV)

Your AOV tells you how much the average customer spends when they visit your store. If your AOV is $50 and your customer acquisition cost is $30, your margins are tight. However, if you can increase that AOV by offering digital add-ons or memberships, your profitability sky-rockets without needing to find new customers. This is where all the key features for courses and communities become essential, as they allow you to offer value-adds that require zero extra shipping or inventory costs.

Returning Customer Rate

Acquiring a new customer is significantly more expensive than retaining an existing one. A high returning customer rate suggests that your brand has built trust. In our experience, merchants who integrate educational content or community features see a much higher retention rate. When customers feel they are part of a learning journey, they are less likely to churn and more likely to purchase your next physical product release.

Conversion Rate by Device

Knowing how many people buy is one thing; knowing how they buy is another. If your conversion rate on mobile is half of what it is on desktop, your site might have a friction-filled mobile checkout. Keeping the user experience seamless is a core value for us at Tevello. We believe that a unified login that reduces customer support friction is vital for ensuring that customers don't drop off during the purchase process because they were redirected to a clunky third-party site.

The Strategy of Tracking Competitor Sales

While focusing on your own data is paramount, understanding the market landscape is a strategic necessity. You might wonder how your growth compares to others in your niche. While you cannot log into a competitor's Shopify admin, there are ethical ways to gauge market demand.

Using Publicly Available Tools

There are various browser extensions and third-party platforms that estimate store traffic and popular products. These tools don't give you exact dollar amounts, but they do show you which products are "best sellers" based on how they are tagged in the Shopify theme. This can help you validate a niche before you invest heavily in it.

Validating Niche Demand

If you see a competitor selling out of a specific type of kit or tool, it indicates a high interest in that topic. For a merchant, this is an opportunity. Instead of just trying to source the same physical product, you could create a digital course that teaches people how to use that product more effectively. This allows you to capture the market's interest with a product that has no manufacturing lead times.

Scaling Revenue with Digital Products and Memberships

When you look at your sales reports and see the high costs of goods sold (COGS), it becomes clear why so many Shopify merchants are moving toward a hybrid model. Digital products offer a way to diversify revenue streams and stabilize cash flow through recurring memberships.

Why Digital Products Change the Math

When you sell a physical item, your profit is Gross Sales minus COGS, shipping, marketing, and transaction fees. When you sell a digital course, your COGS is essentially zero after the initial creation. This is why we created Tevello: to turn any Shopify store into a digital learning powerhouse. By adding courses to your store, you are essentially creating a high-margin product that can be sold an unlimited number of times.

Many merchants have found immense success by generating revenue from both physical and digital goods. This hybrid approach ensures that even if there are supply chain issues with your physical stock, your digital storefront continues to generate revenue 24/7.

Scenario: The Specialized Coffee Roaster

Imagine a merchant who sells premium coffee beans on Shopify. They check their sales and see consistent orders, but the shipping costs for heavy bags of beans are eating into their profits. To increase their margin, they decide to launch a "Master the Pour-Over" video course.

Because they use a solution that keeps the customer on their own URL, the user buys the beans and the course in a single checkout. The merchant now has a higher AOV, and the customer is more engaged with the brand. This is a perfect example of digital products that live directly alongside physical stock. The merchant doesn't need to learn a new platform; they just add a new product type to their existing Shopify store.

Analyzing Digital Product Sales Data

Checking sales for digital products requires a slightly different mindset than physical goods. You aren't just looking at units sold; you are looking at engagement and completion rates, as these are the leading indicators of future sales.

Engagement as a Sales Metric

In the world of online learning, a sale is just the beginning. If a student buys your course but never opens it, they are unlikely to buy your next one. By tracking student progress and community interaction, you can predict future revenue. If you see high engagement in a specific module of your course, that is a signal that you should create a "deep dive" follow-up course or a related physical product.

We’ve seen strategies for selling over 4,000 digital courses natively that rely heavily on understanding what the community wants next. By keeping your community and your store under one roof, you don't lose that data to a third-party platform like Teachable or Kajabi. You own the customer journey from the first click to the final certificate.

Upselling to Increase LTV

The best time to sell to someone is when they have already shown trust in your brand. By analyzing your Shopify sales, you can identify your most loyal customers and offer them an exclusive membership or an advanced course. This is one of the most effective retention strategies that drive repeat digital purchases.

For example, a photography gear store might see that a customer has purchased a high-end lens. This is the perfect moment to offer a masterclass on architectural photography. By generating over €243,000 by upselling existing customers, brands can prove that the most valuable data point in your Shopify admin isn't just "Total Sales," but "Sales per Customer."

Choosing the Right Tools for Your Store

If you are serious about growing your digital presence, you need a tool that respects your brand and your bottom line. Many apps on the Shopify ecosystem charge "success fees" or take a percentage of every sale you make. We believe that is your money, and you should keep it.

Transparent and Predictable Pricing

We advocate for a model that allows you to scale without being penalized for your success. At Tevello, we reject complicated tier structures. We offer The Unlimited Plan for $29.99 per month. This plan is designed to be the only tool you need to manage your digital empire.

When you are comparing plan costs against total course revenue, a flat fee is always more beneficial than a percentage-based model. Whether you have 10 students or 10,000, your cost stays the same. This allows for securing a fixed cost structure for digital products, making your profit margins much easier to forecast.

What’s Included in the Unlimited Plan?

To truly compete in the modern e-commerce landscape, you need more than just a place to host videos. You need an ecosystem. Our Unlimited Plan includes:

• Unlimited courses and students: Grow as big as you want without worrying about the next tier.
• Unlimited video hosting and bandwidth: No hidden costs for hosting your content.
• Community features: Create member directories, social feeds, and profiles to keep users engaged.
• Drip content and quizzes: Control the learning pace and test student knowledge.
• A 14-day free trial: Build your entire curriculum before your first payment.

If unifying your stack is a priority, start by a simple, all-in-one price for unlimited courses.

The Technical Advantage of Native Shopify Integration

One of the most overlooked aspects of checking Shopify sales is the "attribution" of those sales. If you use an external platform for your courses, your Shopify analytics won't show the full picture. You'll have two different sets of data, two different customer lists, and two different checkout experiences.

Keeping Customers on Your URL

When a customer leaves your store to go to a third-party site to access their course, you lose control of the experience. It feels disjointed. By using a Native Shopify Integration, the checkout happens through Shopify’s own secure system. This means you use the payment gateways you already trust, like Shopify Payments, Stripe, or PayPal, and your sales reports reflect everything in one place.

This native approach is why we say our mission is to turn any Shopify store into a powerhouse. You shouldn't have to be a developer to create a world-class learning platform. You should be able to start your 14-day free trial and build your first course now without leaving the environment you already know.

Reducing Support Tickets

A fragmented system leads to login issues. "I can't log into the course site" is a common support ticket when merchants use external platforms. By using a unified system, the customer uses their Shopify store account to access their digital content. This creates a seamless experience that naturally leads to better reviews and higher sales. By seeing how the app natively integrates with Shopify, you can understand how to eliminate the most common customer hurdles.

Actionable Steps to Improve Your Sales Tracking Today

Now that we’ve covered the "how" and the "why," let's look at some immediate actions you can take to get a better handle on your Shopify sales.

1. Audit Your Best Sellers: Go to your Sales by Product report. Look at your top 5 items. Is there a digital guide or a "How-to" video you could create to bundle with these items?
2. Check Your Abandoned Checkouts: Are people leaving because of shipping costs? This is a prime opportunity to offer a digital-only version of your product or a membership that includes "free shipping" as a perk.
3. Review Your Marketing Attribution: Use the "Sales by Traffic Source" report to see which social media platform is actually driving revenue, not just likes.
4. Set Up a Recurring Revenue Stream: Look at your most consistent customers. Could you offer them a monthly "Insider" membership using a flat-rate plan that supports unlimited members?
5. Simplify Your Tech Stack: If you are paying for multiple subscriptions across different platforms, look for ways to consolidate. Not only will this save you money, but it will also make avoiding per-user fees as the community scales much easier.

Real-World Success: More Than Just Numbers

We often talk about data, but behind every data point is a real person and a real business. We have seen merchants transform their lives by taking their expertise and turning it into a digital product.

Consider the case of a crafter who sold physical patterns. By switching to a model where they sold video-based workshops alongside their kits, they were able to reach a global audience without increasing their workload. They weren't just checking sales; they were building a legacy. This kind of how one brand sold $112K+ by bundling courses success isn't about luck; it's about using the right tools to amplify your existing efforts.

Similarly, we have helped brands achieve high levels of retention by driving 50% of sales from repeat course purchasers. When you provide enough value that a customer wants to come back and buy from you again and again, you have moved past "transactional e-commerce" and into "brand building."

Final Thoughts on Sales Monitoring

Checking your Shopify sales is the heartbeat of your business. It tells you when you're healthy, when you're growing, and when you need to pivot. But don't let the numbers intimidate you. Use them as a guide to discover where your customers are finding the most value.

In the modern market, the most successful merchants are those who provide a "complete" experience. They don't just sell a product; they sell the knowledge of how to use it, the community to discuss it, and the support to master it. By integrating digital products into your Shopify store, you are not just increasing your sales today; you are building a more stable, high-margin business for tomorrow.

At Tevello, we are committed to helping you on this journey. We believe in transparency, which is why we offer predictable pricing without hidden transaction fees. We believe in your brand, which is why we keep your customers on your site. And we believe in your success, which is why we charge 0% transaction fees. You earned that money; you should keep it.

Conclusion

Understanding how to check and analyze your Shopify sales is an essential skill, but it is only the first step. The real magic happens when you take those insights and use them to evolve your business model. By diversifying your revenue with online courses, digital products, and memberships, you create a more resilient brand that isn't solely dependent on physical inventory or fluctuating shipping rates.

We’ve explored the depth of Shopify’s native reporting, the importance of focusing on Net Sales and Customer Lifetime Value, and the strategic advantage of adding high-margin digital content to your store. Remember, your goal is to build a community that trusts your brand and returns to it time and time again. With the right tools and a data-driven mindset, you can turn your store into a digital learning powerhouse that scales effortlessly.

To build your community without leaving Shopify, start by reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from. Take advantage of our 14-day free trial and experience how a native integration can streamline your operations and maximize your profit. You keep 100% of your earnings because we never charge success fees. Install the app today and start building the future of your brand.

FAQ

1. Can I track digital course sales separately from physical products in Shopify?

Yes, Shopify allows you to categorize your products by "Product Type." By labeling your courses and memberships correctly, you can filter your sales reports to see exactly how much revenue your digital offerings are generating compared to your physical goods. This helps you identify which side of your business has the best margins.

2. Why should I sell courses on Shopify instead of a dedicated platform?

Selling natively on Shopify ensures that you own your customer data and that your branding remains consistent. It also simplifies your checkout process, as customers don't have to create multiple accounts on different sites. Furthermore, using a native app like Tevello allows you to avoid the high transaction fees often found on third-party platforms.

3. Is it possible to see which specific customers are buying my courses?

Absolutely. Within your Shopify admin, every sale is linked to a customer profile. When you use a native integration, you can see the entire purchase history of a customer in one place. This makes it easy to target your most loyal students with special offers or advanced content, further increasing your lifetime value.

4. How do transaction fees work with Tevello?

Unlike many competitors who take a percentage of your sales (often 3% to 10%), Tevello charges 0% transaction fees. You only pay your standard Shopify payment processing fees. We believe you should keep 100% of the revenue you generate from your hard work and expertise.