Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Navigating the Shopify Analytics Dashboard
- Understanding the Key Data Fields
- How to Filter and Customize Your Geographical Data
- Turning Data into Strategy: Why Country Sales Matter
- The Tevello Approach: Scaling Beyond Physical Borders
- Practical Scenario: The Global Coffee Educator
- Maximizing Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) Regionally
- Overcoming the Challenges of International Sales
- Leveraging Success Stories for Your Global Strategy
- Predicting Future Trends with Historical Data
- Integrating Tevello for Global Scalability
- Building a Unified Brand Experience
- Final Steps for Global Dominance
- FAQ
- Conclusion
Introduction
Did you know that cross-border e-commerce is projected to account for over 20% of all online retail sales in the coming years? For many Shopify merchants, the dream of a global brand is closer than ever, yet most struggle to identify exactly where their growth is coming from. While your dashboard might show a healthy upward trend in total revenue, failing to understand the geographical distribution of those sales is like navigating a ship without a compass. Are your marketing dollars being wasted on a high-traffic country with low conversion? Is there a hidden goldmine in a small European nation that you haven't yet localized for? Understanding how to see sales by country in Shopify is the first step toward turning a generic storefront into a calculated, international powerhouse.
In this guide, we will walk you through the precise steps to access and interpret geographical sales reports within the Shopify ecosystem. We will explore the difference between billing locations and shipping addresses, how to filter data for actionable insights, and most importantly, how to use this information to scale your business. Beyond simple data retrieval, we will discuss how to pivot your strategy when shipping costs become prohibitive in certain regions—specifically by leveraging digital products and learning communities. At Tevello, our mission is to turn any Shopify store into a digital learning powerhouse, and understanding your global audience is the foundation of that transformation. By the end of this article, you will have a clear roadmap for analyzing your international performance and maximizing your customer lifetime value across every border.
Navigating the Shopify Analytics Dashboard
To begin your deep dive into geographical data, you must first navigate to the correct section of your Shopify admin. Shopify provides a robust set of default reports, but finding the specific "Sales by Country" view requires knowing exactly where the platform hides these details.
Accessing the Sales Reports
Log in to your Shopify admin and look at the sidebar on the left-hand side. Click on "Analytics" and then select "Reports." This is the nerve center of your store's data. Shopify categorizes reports into sections like Sales, Acquisition, Customers, and Behavior. To find geographical data, you want to focus on the "Sales" category.
Finding the Sales by Billing Location Report
Within the Sales category, you will find a report titled "Sales by Billing Location." This is the most accurate way to see where your customers are actually located. While "Shipping Location" tells you where the package is going, "Billing Location" tells you the origin of the purchase and the customer's financial footprint.
When you open this report, you will see a table that breaks down your revenue by country. For many stores, this will initially show a mix of domestic and international regions. You can adjust the date range at the top right of the screen to compare this month’s international performance against the previous year. This comparison is vital for identifying seasonal trends in different hemispheres.
Understanding the Key Data Fields
Once you have the report open, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the columns. To make data-driven decisions, you need to know which metrics actually move the needle for your business.
Gross Sales vs. Net Sales
Gross sales represent the raw price of the products sold before any deductions. However, net sales are what truly matters for your bottom line. Net sales subtract discounts and refunds from the gross amount. If you notice a country has high gross sales but significantly lower net sales, you might have a problem with high return rates or over-aggressive discounting in that specific region.
The Role of Shipping and Taxes
Shopify’s reports allow you to see the total amount collected for shipping and taxes per country. This is crucial for international merchants. If shipping costs in a particular country are eating up 30% of the total transaction value, it may be time to rethink your physical product strategy for that region. This is often where merchants find the most value in diversifying into digital offerings, as these require no logistics and have near-zero overhead.
Order Count and Average Order Value (AOV)
Comparing the number of orders to the total sales gives you the Average Order Value (AOV) by country. You might find that customers in the United Kingdom order less frequently than those in Canada, but when they do, they spend twice as much. This insight allows you to tailor your marketing: perhaps you offer "Free Shipping" at a higher threshold for the UK to capitalize on their higher spending habits.
How to Filter and Customize Your Geographical Data
The default view is just the beginning. To get the "gold" out of your data, you need to use filters. Shopify’s reporting engine is quite flexible, allowing you to narrow down your view to specific subsets of your audience.
Filtering by Product Category
Are your premium products selling better in Northern Europe while your entry-level items dominate the Southeast Asian market? By clicking "Manage Filters" and selecting "Product Type," you can see the geographical breakdown for specific segments of your inventory. This helps in inventory planning; you wouldn't want to stock a local warehouse in a country that only buys your low-margin items.
Analyzing Discount Code Usage by Region
If you’ve been running a global influencer campaign, you can filter your sales by country and then add a column for "Discount Code." This reveals which regions are most responsive to promotional offers. If a specific country shows high sales but 90% of those sales use a heavy discount, you might be training that market to only buy during sales, which can hurt your long-term brand equity.
Using Custom Reports for Deeper Insights
For those on the Shopify Advanced or Plus plans, you can create custom reports that combine geographical data with customer behavior. For example, you could create a report that shows "Sales by Country" specifically for "Returning Customers." This highlights which countries have the highest brand loyalty, allowing you to focus your retention efforts where they are most effective.
Turning Data into Strategy: Why Country Sales Matter
Seeing the numbers is one thing; knowing what to do with them is another. Your "Sales by Country" report is a roadmap for your next year of business growth.
Identifying New Market Opportunities
If you see a steady trickle of sales from a country where you aren't currently running ads, you’ve found "organic pull." This is the strongest indicator that you should start localized marketing efforts there. You might consider translating your product descriptions or offering local payment methods to increase the conversion rate in that burgeoning market.
Optimizing Ad Spend
Most merchants waste money by targeting "the whole world" or broad regions like "Europe." By analyzing which specific countries have the highest return on ad spend (ROAS), you can tighten your targeting. If your Shopify data shows that your highest-margin sales are coming from Australia, you should shift your Meta or Google Ads budget toward that territory to maximize your profitability.
Managing Logistics and High-Cost Regions
Shipping fragile or heavy items halfway across the world is a logistical nightmare. If your report shows high demand in a region with astronomical shipping costs, you have two choices: raise prices for that region (which might kill demand) or introduce a digital alternative.
For a merchant selling specialized photography gear, shipping a heavy tripod to a remote country might be unprofitable. However, that same customer might be desperate for knowledge. By securing a fixed cost structure for digital products, you can serve that international demand with a high-margin video course on "Mastering Landscape Photography" instead of a physical item.
The Tevello Approach: Scaling Beyond Physical Borders
At Tevello, we believe merchants should own their customer data and brand experience. This becomes incredibly powerful when you look at your global sales. When you identify a country with high interest but difficult physical logistics, you can use our platform to offer an immediate, digital solution that keeps the customer on your own URL.
Native Shopify Integration for Global Sales
One of the biggest hurdles in international sales is the checkout experience. Customers trust Shopify's native checkout. Because Tevello is built with a "Native Shopify Integration," your international customers use the same trusted payment gateways and local currencies they are already comfortable with. There are no redirects to third-party platforms that might trigger fraud alerts or lower trust.
Keeping Customers "At Home"
When a customer in Germany buys a course from your store, they shouldn't be sent to a generic "hosting" site. Our mission is to ensure that your digital learning powerhouse stays under your brand. By keeping the student experience on your Shopify domain, you maintain a unified brand image across every country you serve. This also makes it easier to track their behavior using the same Shopify analytics we’ve been discussing.
Practical Scenario: The Global Coffee Educator
Consider a merchant who sells premium coffee beans and brewing equipment. Their Shopify reports show a massive spike in sales from Japan, but the shipping costs and customs delays are leading to customer complaints and thin margins.
Instead of pulling out of the Japanese market, the merchant decides to pivot. They use Tevello to create a "Mastering the Pour-Over" digital masterclass. They then bundle this course with their smaller, lighter items that are cheaper to ship.
By analyzing their sales by country, they realized that the Japanese market valued the "ritual" of coffee more than the bulk product. This shift allowed them to see how one brand sold $112K+ by bundling courses with physical goods, effectively lowering their shipping-to-revenue ratio while increasing customer satisfaction.
Maximizing Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) Regionally
Customer Lifetime Value is the total amount of money a customer spends in your store over their lifetime. Your sales by country report can help you identify which regions have the "stickiest" customers.
Identifying High-Retention Markets
If your report shows that customers in the United States tend to buy once, but customers in Scandinavia buy three or four times, you have discovered a high-retention market. You should invest more in community features for these regions.
Building Global Communities
Within the Tevello ecosystem, you can build communities where your students can interact. If you see a cluster of sales in a specific country, you can even create a "Sub-Community" or a specific "Social Feed" for those users. This localized engagement builds brand loyalty that transcends a single purchase.
Upselling to Digital
Digital products are the ultimate tool for increasing LTV without increasing inventory risk. Once a customer has bought a physical product, use your Shopify data to see which country they are in and then offer a localized digital upsell. You can see examples of this in retention strategies that drive repeat digital purchases, where brands use digital content to keep international customers engaged long after their first box arrives.
Overcoming the Challenges of International Sales
While the data provides the "what," you still need to handle the "how." International sales come with hurdles like taxes, language barriers, and currency fluctuations.
Dealing with VAT and International Taxes
The "Sales by Billing Location" report includes a column for taxes. This is essential for remaining compliant with regulations like the EU's VAT. Shopify handles much of the calculation, but you must monitor these reports to ensure you are hitting the thresholds that require you to register for tax in specific countries.
Currency Localization
Seeing sales in your "Store Currency" is standard, but some reports allow you to see the "Presentment Currency." If you notice a high cart abandonment rate in a country where you don't offer local currency checkout, that is a clear signal to enable Shopify Markets and allow customers to pay in their native money. This simple change, combined with all the key features for courses and communities that Tevello offers, can significantly boost your international conversion rates.
Leveraging Success Stories for Your Global Strategy
Success in e-commerce rarely happens in a vacuum. By looking at how other merchants have navigated the path from local to global, you can avoid common pitfalls.
For instance, some merchants find that their most profitable move wasn't finding more customers, but selling more to the ones they already had across the globe. We have seen merchants generating over €243,000 by upselling existing customers through digital memberships that complement their physical product lines.
Another merchant was able to scale by strategies for selling over 4,000 digital courses natively, proving that when you remove the physical barriers of shipping and logistics, your "Sales by Country" report can become a list of limitless opportunities rather than a list of shipping headaches.
Predicting Future Trends with Historical Data
Don't just look at where your sales are today—look at where they are going. By exporting your Shopify sales data and comparing it quarter-over-quarter, you can spot emerging markets before your competitors do.
Spotting "Emerging" Countries
If a country moves from 0.5% of your sales to 2% over six months, that is a 300% growth rate. Even if the total dollar amount is small, the trend is what matters. This is the perfect time to start a small, localized ad campaign or to reach out to a local influencer in that region.
Seasonal Shifts by Hemisphere
Remember that the seasons are flipped in the Southern Hemisphere. If you sell seasonal products (like gardening courses or summer fashion), your "Sales by Country" report will show distinct patterns. You can use this to keep your revenue stable year-round by marketing to the "other side of the world" when your local market is in its off-season.
Integrating Tevello for Global Scalability
As your store grows, you need tools that grow with you without eating into your margins. Many platforms charge "success fees" or take a percentage of every sale, which becomes a major burden as your international volume increases.
Transparent, Fixed Pricing
At Tevello, we believe in simplicity and fairness. That’s why we offer The Unlimited Plan for just $29.99 per month. We don't believe in complicated tier structures that punish you for being successful. Whether you have 10 students in one country or 10,000 students across 50 countries, your cost stays the same.
0% Transaction Fees
We reject the model of taking a cut of your hard-earned revenue. Tevello charges 0% transaction fees. This means when you use your "Sales by Country" data to launch a new digital product that goes viral in a new market, you keep 100% of the profits (minus your standard Shopify payment processor fees).
If unifying your stack is a priority, start by a simple, all-in-one price for unlimited courses.
Building a Unified Brand Experience
The ultimate goal of analyzing your sales by country is to provide a better experience for your customers, no matter where they live. A customer in Tokyo should feel just as connected to your brand as a customer in New York.
Digital Products as the Universal Language
Physical products often require "localization" in terms of plugs, sizes, or ingredients. Digital products, however, are much easier to adapt. You can offer subtitles for your videos or translated PDFs for your community. By selling digital products that live directly alongside physical stock, you create a multi-layered brand that can pivot as quickly as your data suggests.
The Power of Native Integration
Because Tevello lives inside your Shopify store, all your data remains in one place. You don't have to piece together reports from three different apps to figure out your global performance. Your Shopify "Sales by Billing Location" report will accurately reflect your total revenue, whether it’s from a physical book or a digital masterclass.
Final Steps for Global Dominance
To wrap up, seeing your sales by country is about more than just curiosity—it’s about strategic action.
- Check your report weekly: Don't let trends pass you by.
- Analyze the "Why": If sales are low in a high-traffic country, look at your shipping costs and currency settings.
- Bridge the gap with digital: Use Tevello to serve markets that are too expensive to reach with physical goods.
- Keep your costs fixed: Use predictable pricing without hidden transaction fees to ensure your growth remains profitable.
The e-commerce world is shrinking, and the barriers to entry for international brands have never been lower. By mastering your Shopify analytics and utilizing a platform like Tevello to diversify your offerings, you are not just running a store—you are building a global learning powerhouse.
FAQ
How do I see my Shopify sales by country on a mobile device?
You can access your reports through the Shopify mobile app by tapping the "Analytics" tab at the bottom of the screen. While the mobile view is slightly more condensed, you can still access the "Sales by Billing Location" report. For the most detailed filtering and customization, however, we recommend using the desktop version of the Shopify admin.
What is the difference between Sales by Billing Location and Sales by Shipping Location?
The Sales by Billing Location report reflects where the customer's credit card or payment method is registered. This is generally considered the most accurate representation of where your "customer" lives. The Shipping Location report shows where the physical items are being sent. For digital products sold via Tevello, the billing location is the primary metric, as there is no physical shipment involved.
Can I see which specific cities or states are buying my courses?
Yes! Within the "Sales by Billing Location" report, you can add a column for "Billing City" or "Billing Province/State." This is incredibly useful for localized marketing. If you see that 40% of your Australian sales are coming specifically from Melbourne, you can run a highly targeted local ad campaign or even host a local meet-up for your community members.
How does Tevello help with international sales taxes?
Because Tevello is natively integrated into Shopify, it uses your store's existing tax settings. When a student buys a course, Shopify calculates the appropriate tax based on the customer’s billing address and the tax rules you have configured in your Shopify settings. This ensures that your digital sales are just as compliant as your physical ones, without any extra manual work.
Conclusion
Understanding how to see sales by country in Shopify is the difference between a merchant who is guessing and one who is growing. By diving into your "Sales by Billing Location" reports, filtering for specific product types, and comparing regional AOV, you gain the clarity needed to scale your business with confidence. Whether you are identifying a new market for your physical goods or realizing it’s time to launch a digital course to serve a high-shipping-cost region, data is your greatest ally.
At Tevello, we are here to help you amplify those efforts. Our platform is designed to seamlessly integrate with your existing Shopify store, allowing you to sell unlimited courses and memberships without the headache of hidden fees or third-party redirects. You’ve already done the hard work of building a brand; now it’s time to turn it into a digital learning powerhouse that reaches every corner of the globe.
Ready to see how digital products can transform your international sales strategy? We invite you to install Tevello from the Shopify App Store today and start your 14-day free trial and build your first course now. Remember, with Tevello, you keep 100% of your earnings thanks to our 0% transaction fee model.
To build your community without leaving Shopify, start by reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from.
