The Beginner’s Guide to Shopify Product Analytics
Running a Shopify store is pretty straightforward these days. Add some products, set up checkout, maybe plug in a theme – and boom, you’re live. But once you’re actually selling and want to know what’s really working (and what’s not), things get murky. Especially if you’re trying to figure out how full product groups or collections are doing. Shopify product analytics is impossible without external apps and tools, but luckily there is a great solution. We are biased of course, but read the blog post and decide yourself.
Shopify gives you a bit of insight, sure. But if you want to go deeper – like compare categories or make sense of how your product strategy is playing out – it’s just not built for that. That’s why basically every growing store needs an app to improve their sales and to keep up with the competition.
What you can see with Shopify product analytics
So here’s the deal. Shopify does offer some analytics, and they’re fine for the basics. Depending on your plan, you can see things like like:
- How many units of a product you sold
- Overall sales for a product
- A few traffic stats (like which product pages people landed on)
- Your inventory levels
You’ll find this info scattered in the product section or hidden in their Analytics > Reports area. It’s there, but it’s a bit stiff – kind of like a spreadsheet with training wheels. Or in Shopify’s case, a lot of spreadsheets spread across their 100+ reports.
Now, if you’re looking for analytics such as what were the sales in a subcategory or for all products tagged “color:yellow” forget it. Shopify doesn’t go there.
Shopify Product Analytics Tools
Even though there are plenty of Shopify reports and apps, their product analytics options are very limited and a Google search reveals about as many relevant options as did “french military victories” with Google’s try your luck option some years ago.
While Portfolytics wasn’t built for analyzing products, it does a great job analyzing where your product sales are actually coming from. With Shopify, or ANY Shopify app it is either really hard or impossible to see which collections or subcategories the products that sell are in. Portfolytics shows that to you with zero setup. Literally zero.
A quick shopify product analytics tutorial
We already have a thorough tutorial planned, but meanwhile here is something to get you started.
Start from analyzing which products are your best sellers. It is typical to see 20% of the products bringing in 80% of the sales. Then in Portfolytics (30-day free trial) head to the the Sales vs Inventory reports and check those collections and subcategories of those best selling products. There you can see both how many products you have in those collections or categories and also a nifty little metric Sales / Product.
If the Sales / Collection is high, it means that the collection or category is doing well and you should consider adding more products to it. And if it’s low, especially if it has a best seller in it, consider re-organizing the product order. Or even taking out some products that simply don’t sell.
What Portfolytics actually shows
Portfolytics is made for Shopify users who want more than “sales per product.” It gives you a clearer picture – how your product groups, and collections are performing, all without the spreadsheet headache. No for data dumps, yes for easy-to-understand dashboards.
Once you plug it in, here’s what starts popping:
- Sales broken down by collection, vendor, or product category
- A way to organize your own product structure in a hierarchy – like “Trousers > Jeans”
- Quick dashboards that show what’s gaining traction and what’s slowing down
- Filters that let you zoom in on specific dates, product group, or vendor
Nothing super fancy – just useful things store owners wish Shopify had in the first place.
Why better product analytics makes a real difference
Here’s why all of this matters:
- You stop wasting time and money on stuff that isn’t working
- You can double down on collections that are actually selling
- It’s way easier to make decisions about expanding or discontinuing product niches
- Your marketing gets tighter – you’re not just guessing anymore
You don’t need to be a data wizard or hire an analyst. Portfolytics just surfaces the info that Shopify won’t show you – and makes it make sense. For non-technical people as well.
A few other apps people use for Shopify analytics
If you’re checking out the landscape, there are a few other tools worth knowing about:
Lifetimely – Good for customer lifetime value and profit tracking, but leans more toward customer behavior than product insights.
Better Reports – Very flexible and powerful if you’re into custom reports. Not really focused on collections or product groups though.
Conversific – Has nice dashboards and even benchmarks your store against competitors. More for marketing than inventory or collection insight.
These are solid picks. But if you’re trying to understand how your products, main or subcategories, and collections are doing, Portfolytics keeps it simple and focused on just that.