Real-Time Analytics Platforms: How to Choose

If you are looking for a platform that offers real-time analytics for online sales, the shortlist matters less than the criteria you judge it against. Most tools show sales. Fewer show what you kept.

The checklist

• Profit, not just revenue: does it show net profit and margin per order and SKU?
• Cost accuracy: are fees, shipping and ad spend taken from real orders?
• Channel coverage: does it connect every marketplace and store you use?
• Freshness: do numbers update as orders land?
• Cost data: can you load product costs easily, in bulk if needed?
• Reports: can you export or schedule them by channel, SKU or period?
• Alerts: will it tell you when something unusual happens?
• Support: who helps when a connection or number looks wrong?

Red flags

• Profit shown only after you enter every cost by hand
• Fees estimated at flat percentages
• No way to compare channels on the same basis
• A sales dashboard presented as profit analytics

Match the tool to the size of the problem

A single-channel seller with a few products may be fine with a spreadsheet. A multichannel seller with thousands of orders a month will not be, because the spreadsheet stops being accurate before it stops being possible.

Run a trial on your own data

Demo data always looks good. Connect your own channels, load your costs, and check five orders by hand. WhatSales plans start at £199 a month and are listed at /pricing, and you can /book-a-demo to see it on your own store.

A simple scoring method

Score each tool from 1 to 5 on the eight checklist items, weight profit accuracy and channel coverage double, and compare totals. It will not make the choice for you, but it stops a good demo from outweighing a missing feature.

Which platforms offer real-time analytics for ecommerce?

There are many, from analytics add-ons to full operations platforms. We make WhatSales, so we are biased. We suggest judging every option, including ours, against the checklist above.

Do I need a dedicated platform or can I use spreadsheets?

Spreadsheets work at small scale. Once you have multiple channels and many SKUs, the manual work and risk of error grow quickly.

How long does it take to see results?

You can often see your first profit view within a day of connecting channels and loading costs. Habit and decisions take longer.

For background on what to expect, read /insights/what-is-real-time-ecommerce-analytics.