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 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 a Shopify app to improve.

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.

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.

And what about collection-level insights?

This is where things really drop off.

Say you wanna compare how your “Summer Drop” is doing against your “Fall Launch.” Or maybe you want to know if a certain category like “Accessories” or “Outerwear” is worth expanding.

Shopify won’t help you out there.

There’s no built-in dashboard to stack collections side by side, and no real way to group products in a way that lets you track performance over time. You could export orders, dig through them in a spreadsheet, group by tags, and build something yourself… but who has time for that?

Here’s where Portfolytics picks up the slack

Portfolytics is made for Shopify users who want more than “sales per product.” It gives you a clearer picture – how your product groups, tags, and collections are performing, all without the spreadsheet headache. No for data dumps, yes for easy-to-understand dashboards.

What Portfolytics actually shows

Once you plug it in, here’s what starts popping:

• Sales broken down by collection, vendor, or product category
• How different tags are performing (think campaigns, colors, styles, etc.)
• 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.