Ecommerce Performance Reports: What to Include

A good ecommerce performance report answers three questions: what changed, why it changed, and what to do about it. If it takes an hour to build by hand every week, it will stop getting built.

The sections worth including

• Headline numbers: sales, orders, units, and net profit with margin, compared to the previous period
• Channel comparison: each marketplace and store side by side, on profit as well as revenue
• Top and bottom products: the five that earn most and the five that lose or barely earn
• Orders and refunds: refund rate and the products or reasons behind any spike
• Advertising: spend against the sales and profit it produced, by channel
• Stock: items about to run out and items sitting too long

Make comparisons the default

A figure on its own means little. Show every number against the last period and the same period last year where you have it, so the report says whether things are getting better or worse.

Match the report to the reader

An owner wants profit and direction. A channel manager wants listings and ad performance. A finance contact wants fees, refunds and cost lines. One data set with a few views, rather than one report that tries to do everything, keeps each reader useful.

Stop building it by hand

The most common failure is the report that depends on someone exporting five spreadsheets every Monday. Automated reports, delivered on a schedule and exportable by channel, SKU or period, remove the manual step. That is what the reports feature in /performance is for.

A simple weekly checklist

• Did profit move more than sales? If so, find the cost that changed
• Which channel changed most, and why?
• Any product with a refund rate well above your normal?
• Any ad campaign spending more than it earns?
• What one thing will we change this week?

What makes a report get read

• One page or screen, with the headline at the top
• The same layout every time, so changes stand out
• Plain labels instead of internal jargon
• A line on what changed and a suggested next step

How often should I send a performance report?

Weekly suits most sellers, with a monthly roll-up for trends. Daily is useful for alerts but rarely needs a full report.

Should a report show profit or sales?

Both, but profit leads. Sales shows activity and profit shows whether the activity was worth it.

Who should receive it?

Anyone who makes a decision from it: owners, channel managers and finance. Scheduled delivery to several recipients saves each of them building their own view.

If you would like to see automated reporting on your own data, you can /book-a-demo.