Online shop tab - orders & sales

The Online shop tab appears once you've connected your online shop. It shows what your shop sold in the selected period, what your advertising cost to get those sales, and where they came from.

Your shop's own reports can tell you what sold. What they can't tell you is what it cost to sell it - so when an ad platform is connected, that comes first here.

The brain's read

At the top: the weekly AI read of your shop, and underneath it what your brain has noted about the shop - movements it recorded in sales, orders, refunds or first orders, and any decisions or theories about your checkout and sales. It only appears when there's something to show.

Sales against ad spend

These tiles appear when at least one ad platform (Google Ads, Meta Ads or TikTok) is connected, or when ad spend has been logged by hand. Without either, the tab shows your shop's figures alone.

• Net sales - what customers paid for products after discounts and refunds, excluding shipping and tax. When they differ, the gross figure, discounts and refunds are shown underneath.
• Ad spend - what your advertising cost in the period: every connected ad platform, plus any spend logged by hand.
• Sales per 1 of ads - net sales divided by all ad spend. It counts every sale, not only the ones an ad platform claims, so it's your whole shop's return on advertising. It won't match the ROAS an ad platform reports, and it's a different figure from the blended ROAS on Attribution, which counts only sales from paid channels.
• Cost per new customer - all ad spend divided by orders from first-time customers, with what a first order is worth on average beside it. When winning a customer costs more than their first order brings in, the ads only pay back if they buy again. Shown only when new vs returning is shown (see below).

The comparison with the previous period is shown when both periods' spend comes from the ad platforms. Spend logged by hand is only known for the current period, so no comparison is given then.

Your shop's own figures

• Orders - orders placed in the period.
• Average order value - net sales divided by orders. Shown from 5 orders upwards; below that, one large order swings it too much to mean anything.
• New vs returning - the share of orders from customers who had bought before, and what a first order is worth on average. Shown when your shop could identify the customer behind at least 80% of orders; with lots of guest checkouts it's hidden, and a note says why.
• Refund rate - money refunded as a share of gross sales. Shown when something was refunded in the period.

A tile only appears when your shop has the thing it measures, so you never see a zero that stands for "not available". Refunds count on the day they're processed, including refunds of older orders - so a week with a large refund can show low net sales, or even below zero.

Net sales by day

A chart of net sales and orders day by day, with ad spend alongside when you advertise. Days run midnight to midnight UTC, so a single day can differ slightly from your shop's own reports; totals for the period agree. Spend logged by hand in Budget has no day, so it's in the totals but not on the chart.

Which channels paid their way

Every order credited to the source your shop recorded for it - paid search, paid social, organic search, email, referral, direct or other. A refund counts against the channel of the order it refunds. A Gross column appears when there were discounts or refunds, and a First visit / Last visit switch appears only if your shop records both.

When you advertise, each paid channel also shows its ad spend and its sales per 1 of spend, and - where new vs returning is shown - its new customers and cost per new customer. Channels with no ad platform behind them, such as organic search, email and direct, show "no spend". Sales are credited by your shop's own record of each visit, so a channel's return here can differ from what its ad platform reports.

From gross to net, and top products

How gross sales became net sales - discounts and refunds taken off - beside your best sellers by net sales, with orders and units. A product whose only activity in the period was a refund can read below zero. Custom items and deleted products share one row, so the table accounts for every sale.

Attribution coverage

How many orders have a recorded source. Orders without one show as Other, and can't be credited to your advertising. WooCommerce 8.5 and later records where each order came from - if coverage is low, check it's up to date and that order attribution is switched on.