what does total sessions mean on shopify

all right guys we got a,very very very,interesting topic to cover today,okay it's not that interesting honestly,it's kind of boring but,it's pretty essential when you are,starting an online business with your,shopify account,and what that actually is is how to read,your shopify,analytics aka,all the data that shopify collects as,people start interacting with your store,it gives you back a lot of valuable data,analytics reports whatever,inside your shopify um some of which is,more important than other information,i'm just going to share with you in this,video the things that i look at and the,things that i think are important,and what some of these things mean and,how to read them,and yeah that's pretty much it,so let's hop into this video and,hopefully by the end of it you'll have a,better understanding,of your shopify dashboard and what all,these numbers and all these data points,actually are telling you about your,store,so yeah that's that's it all right guys,welcome back yes i'm wearing a,completely different outfit because i,rewatched this video that i shot,yesterday,and it was completely blurry so i am,going to reshoot my,video and yeah this is just the life of,trial and error so this is how you get,better at the things that you're trying,to get good at so i'm gonna hop,into my desktop view now and we're gonna,see the inside of a new,shopify store that i have just started,i'm gonna share with you some of the,analytics that i personally,look at and how i calculate the numbers,that i think are important,so i can't speak for anyone else this is,just what i do based off my experience,so yeah if you enjoy this video make,sure you give it two thumbs up and,subscribe,to the channel because that just helps,my channel so,all right we're gonna hop into desktop,view right now,okay cool so this is the inside of a new,shopify store that i'm currently,building,out and off the top of the bat the,column or the area that you're going to,be looking at is this analytics section,here so i just want to go over a few,key data points that i personally look,at every day and what that means,for your store so the first thing off,the bat obviously something you,look at every single day is your total,sales um but one thing to note about,this box here is this is actually your,net,sales so it's the gross sales minus,discounts and returns,so if you sold a thousand dollars with,the product that day and 500 of that,you issued 500 with a return product,it's only going to show you 500,it's not gonna show you the thousand,dollars if you issued refunds for that,day or something,also discounts so if you're running,sales if you're giving 10 off 20 percent,off whatever and,the product was 50 bucks they had 10,bucks off it's gonna show,forty dollars there in that sale it's,not gonna show the fifty dollars,but another thing to know about that,column is that it's including your taxes,and shipping labels so if you're giving,free shipping,obviously that's not going to show in,that column but if they're paying for,shipping,and say the project was fifty dollars,and shipping was three dollars it's,gonna show the 53 dollars there,as well as taxes if you are collecting,taxes for your state,so that's just something to note because,that's actually not your money at the,end of the day,that is money that you're gonna either,be spending buying the labels or,the taxes that you're gonna readmit to,your state so the next,thing that i look at is an online store,session,so a session if you think about it,similarly to,when you walk into a store every time,you walk,in and then leave the store that is a,session whether you bought something or,not right,so say you went to the into the store,you picked some stuff up you added them,into your shopping bag and then you,didn't buy anything you put everything,back and you left,that was a session if you came back to,that store,30 minutes later after you ate lunch,that would count as a new store session,so technically one person could have,five sessions,in one day on your store but the,important thing to know with your store,sessions your sessions in,comparison to your actual conversions,that you're getting,which will bring us to this column down,here which is an online store conversion,rate,and i don't want you to think of a,conversion as just a sale because the,conversion in the marketing world can,mean,a number of different things it's,whatever the goal is that you're trying,to get the person to do so,if the goal was you're trying to acquire,leads for real estate and you wanted to,get their name and their phone number,that is a conversion right it's whatever,action you want someone to take on your,store,and so that's why you are going to see,these two data points down here which is,added to cart and reach checked out,because technically those are,conversions,those are goal oriented activities that,we want all of our customers to be doing,when they're on our website your,purchase conversion rate which is going,to be,the amount of sessions that you had for,the day divided the amount of purchases,that you actually,got so it's going to be if you had 10,purchases and 100 people,um visited your store that day it would,be 10 divided by 100 which is gonna give,you that percentage,and a good versus bad conversion rate is,gonna look different,for per niche right and so you don't,really know what,the goal of your conversion rate niche,is per se,especially when you're starting out,unless you can find like a,cross-the-board niche average you want,to go above the average of,the niche that you're in whether it's,sportswear where it's fast fashion or,maybe you're selling furniture,or home decor whatever it is if you can,find accurate data points somewhere that,shows you what an industry averages,if you can beat that industry average,obviously that's what you're going for,even if you do find the industry average,and,you know you're running traffic to your,store and the numbers make,sense and i always say as long as the,numbers make sense,i mean it matters you're always trying,to do better than what you have,but for instance like if it only costs,you,in your store a certain amount of money,in marketing right,to get people to your store and you know,that every time you get 100 people to,your store two and a half people are,gonna buy right,and you have a 2.5 conversion rate as,long as you're profitable in making,money after marketing and fees and,product costs and taxes and,merchant fees as long as you're making,money and you're happy with that with,that number,at that point you're just trying to keep,getting your conversion rate higher and,higher and higher,but again a good conversion rate,compared to a bad conversion rate is,depending on the back end of your store,and your cost,and what it's actually costing you to,acquire people to get that traffic to,your store because,different niches some are going to cost,more and some are going to cost less,so for me i know that in my other store,if i get 100 people to my store and two,and a half,of those people actually make a purchase,then i am profitable,after my marketing expenses my my costs,my employees everything else um you,always want to do,higher than that for me even a one,percent is,not that bad um but obviously you're,always going to want to try,to do better in the time that you're,actually gonna look at these,conversion rates um i don't really look,at them that much,but they will be key point indicators,when something is going wrong so if you,have a 10,add to cart rate and then all of a,sudden your reach checkout rate is 0,that's telling you that something's,probably wrong in your website,whether it's your loading time whether,there's a piece of copy that's written,in there that's just like throwing,people off and getting them to like quit,your store,maybe they're reaching a checkout point,and they see something that says no,returns or something,and that makes them drop off knowing,these data points will,be like a key point indicator of whether,or not like you're doing something wrong,or you need to change something with,inside your business or with inside your,store and so,basically the whole game of online,business or any business in general is,just,much like me making this video it's,trial and error and trial and error and,seeing what's working and what's not,working it's kind of like filling out a,puzzle,and the data is going to tell you what,your next step is or what next step,you're going to try,so another thing that i look at up here,is a return,customer rate again per niche whether,you're,in a good rate of having returned,customers it's going to depend on what,you're selling,and what your niche is on one of my,stores is between 13 and 17,which i think the industry average might,be like 15,or something which is good so you can,always try to find industry averages,just by doing like a google search,and seeing if you can hit those numbers,or beat those numbers,like you want to look at those data,points the return customer rate over a,period of time as well,so as you start doing marketing and,trying to get new ways of people getting,traffic and influencers or whatever,you're doing to get people to your store,you're always trying to increase that,number increase that number and you can,do that in,a number of different ways through email,marketing there's a couple of,applications like shopify apps that i,use one of them is called recard i'll,actually put a link to that in the,description,so just different ways of upselling your,customer back to like,right after they buy and getting them to,buy time and time and time again,because obviously that's the goal and,the more time people make,commitments to your store of actually,going through that purchase process,the more likely they're gonna be,thinking about your store when it comes,to holidays or uh,birthdays or christmas whatever it is,so getting people to buy from you back,to back,and making those commitments and,building that relationship with your,store,is key so yeah i'll link some of the,apps that i use in the description,if you want to try some of those out for,your store and all of them are highly,profitable for,all my stores okay how many orders have,you gotten,and then of those hundred orders what is,the average amount people are spending,when they purchase something from my,store,that's a data point you're gonna get,some data on it and you're gonna see,okay,my first three months the average was 35,let's try to get this to 50,right so how do we do that maybe you,know we come over,to to this data point over here where it,says top,products by units sold and there you go,it's going to tell us what are our top,products that are selling,and so maybe to increase this average,order value,we look at some of our best sellers and,then we go into,into the back end of our store and,figure out okay where do we source more,products like this,how do i source products that this,product we think is a really good,product that someone would buy,with something else so now how can we,bundle these items together to get,people spending more money,than just buying one of the best sellers,do i have to match it with a bestseller,could it be an accessory to the best,seller how could i,test out more items to get people to buy,more and spend more,as they're going through this checkout,process with us,obviously the total orders is how many,orders are you getting,we have online store sessions by device,type,online source sessions by social source,sales traffic by source,sales attributed to marketing top,landing pages,by sessions so a lot of these ones in,here as you start running traffic from,other platforms whether you're running,ads on instagram whether you're using,influencers whether you're using,pinterest whether you're using,third-party platforms whatever the case,is however you're getting the traffic to,your store,a lot of those platforms that you're,running the ads on are actually going to,give you this data,so and the data that those platforms are,going to give you are is probably going,to be a little bit more,helpful because you're going to be,optimizing your ads based off of that,actual data from those platforms,so i personally don't really look at,this one of the things that i,do look at though is i look at,maybe potential sources of traffic that,i'm getting that aren't from,places that i'm running ads on so a,great example back in the day of this,was when,i created a pinterest board for my store,i never ran pinterest ads but i was,getting crazy traffic from pinterest,organically,so that was an interesting data point to,see within here,like a traffic source and then if those,actually pinterest,organic traffics were converting,then that was a great key point,indicator for me personally,for somebody that was doing pinterest,just like posting on pinterest but,not actually trying to utilize that,traffic and,you know spend money with pinterest to,run some pinterest ads,if you're getting organic traffic from,anywhere right,if we all could just run our businesses,off organic traffic then,we would all be like millionaires but,obviously that's not the case but if you,can tap into some organic sources or you,see that you're actually getting,you know some traffic from some places,where you're not running ads or you're,not spending money then maybe,that could be a really good key point,indicator that maybe you should,or maybe do more with that source of,traffic to get,more you know lower clicks cheaper,clicks per se,when it comes to actually me personally,trying to calculate,my profit i look at some of the reports,sections over here so if you click over,to reports this is just what i do,also just to note this marketing right,here,like shopify is doing a lot of new,things with like i guess you can,do marketing within shopify now i can't,even speak about it because i don't know,anything about it but it could be,something cool to look into,but the really the only other thing when,it comes to my personal analytics that i,look at besides the taxes section,is this finance section over here if you,find another video that teaches you how,to do it better i'm not telling you i'm,an expert i'm just showing you guys,what i do when you come into this,finance summary over here,it's gonna give you a few things that,to look at right so right here you have,your gross sales,so the total sales before discounts and,before,returns so this is an interesting,column for me and i'll give you an,example why i found this interesting,so obviously when you first start out,and you're giving a bunch of discounts,away,to like get new traffic to your store,breaking even's not really a bad thing,right because you want,to get people used to buying from your,store but as you grow and as you become,more well-known i guess you don't want,to be giving away,so many discounts i mean it's up to you,but,for me i some of my stores have,surpassed that point of like,i need to really like give you 40 50 off,just to get my name out there,but i caught myself with one of my,stores doing that quite a lot,and these discounts were killing my,profit right,so even though it looks like oh the,money's coming in yeah but after i,factored in marketing and merchant fees,and,product costs like even paying some of,my people like,it was not profitable i was actually,losing money and i was,surpassed that point in the business,that i should be,not profitable right because i already,have a huge customer base,just be wary of how much discounts,you're giving out and how much it's,actually affecting your profit,again if you're first starting out,breaking even or making little to no,profit is honestly not a bad thing,just to get your name out there and to,get people used to buying from your,store,but as you grow and become more,successful with it you don't always want,to just be like breaking even right,you're doing this to make money so,i would say breaking even up to even as,far as like your first like 500 orders a,thousand orders,is still winning if you think about it,from like a bigger,grand perspective of like business most,businesses are not profitable for the,first like three years right,because they took out loans to open the,business they had to do a build out with,a physical store they have to pay for,their employees they have to pay all,these external costs that,luckily with online business we don't,have to do so we,generally can make money a lot faster,than an offline store unless someone,just like gave you money for free,so it's not bad breaking even is not bad,when you're first starting out,remember we're trying to figure out what,we actually made,so i'm gonna do like a little equation,with you guys just to give you like a,really easy example of how i would go,through this to calculate what my actual,profit was um so the first thing,obviously,you have your gross sales you have your,discounts your returns which gives you,your net sales,and then you have your shipping and,taxes that gives you your total sales,okay so the first thing to remember that,on every transaction,you automatically are going to have,what's called a merchant fee a merchant,fee is when,you're allowing a payment processor to,process your transactions the,average the shopify payments is 2.9,plus 30 cents per transaction and pretty,much you can base it off that because,most all paypal stripe all of them are,pretty much the same if not,exactly the same but very close pretty,much like a little bit over three,percent,well three percent depending on what how,much they spent but the thing to know,with first calculating this part of the,equation is that this is going to be,the number that you're going to take,that 2.9 plus 30 cent,deduction from is going to be your gross,sales minus,your discounts so just because you,return somebody's money,that doesn't mean that you're making,back that merchant fee because,you still had to pay for that service to,process that transaction,so you don't get that back once you do,returns unfortunately so what that,number is actually going to be,it's going to be your gross sales to,find that number it's going to be your,gross sales,minus your discounts plus your shipping,and taxes,so that number is going to give you what,you're supposed to take that 2.9,off of or yeah 2.9 off of,so i just made like a really easy,equation right here,so if your gross sales for the day was a,thousand dollars you discounted a,thousand or a hundred you gave a hundred,dollars away in discount right so,someone didn't pay for that 100,that would technically give you net of,900,for the day and say that you also,collected 50 bucks for shipping,and 10 for taxes that would give you 960,dollars that,money that you collected that you,process through a payment processor,okay so you have to multiply the 960,times,.029 which is the two point,nine percent on the total amount of,money that you collected,right which is 27 and 84 cents,but then you have to account for that,30 cents per transaction so say out of,this 960,there was 10 transactions that took,place obviously you can find how many,transactions,or how many orders you got for the day,in that first analytics section that i,showed you,so if it was 10 transactions you would,times that by,30 cents and that gives you three,dollars,three dollars plus 27.84 is obviously 30,and 84 cents so that's just the first,part of the equation of figuring out,that fee,right off the bat it's gone from your,profit,now coming back over here what you're,going to look at next is,the net sales over here so,um remember the net sales was the gross,sales minus the discounts and the,returns,which is the net the shipping and the,taxes is not money that you,keep technically so we don't look at,that right remember,we're trying to figure out how much,money you're actually gonna make so,we're gonna look at this net sales here,and now an important,little part to look at is,the net sales were without cost recorded,and the net sales with cost recorded,and what this is saying is how many,sales did you get,with product costs that you input and,what i'm talking about,is that when you're creating products,within your store and you're editing,your products and you're putting in your,descriptions,um as you can see over here when you,upload all these different skews of,products right you can put in the cost,per item,so to accurately get this data i would,try to make put your costs in,everywhere that you can like if you,don't exactly know the cost because some,of it sometimes it changes,put the worst case scenario in here so,then it can show,you what your margins are and what your,profit is but more so when you go back,to your analytics and you look at your,reports,you can see how much your product cost,was,and how much you're making and then you,can get a really accurate depiction of,what your product cost,percentage is and then that will also,give you a more accurate depiction of,what your,profit margin is after all expenses,what you're shooting for is you want,your net sales row and your net sales,with cost for recorded row to be the,exact same number,basically it's saying your net sales,with cost reported so,people are buying products that you,input what that cost was,if there's money in this row right here,that means that,whatever product and you'll actually be,able to see what product was bought that,you didn't put the cost,on the product obviously the buyer can't,see the cost that's your own private,information so yeah so,after that you want to see what your,cost of goods sold is,and then that's gonna auto generate your,gross profit so,how much you sold and how much you sold,what that cost was is gonna give you,that gross profit here,that gross profit say out of,the thousand dollars of product that you,sold,maybe the cost of goods sold was,cost of goods sold was four hundred,dollars,what you're gonna do now is you're gonna,take your,net sales over here you're gonna take,your net sales,minus your merchant fees minus your cost,of goods sold,minus your marketing so however much,money you're spending in marketing for,the day,depending on everyone depending on how,much you're spending how much you spent,in facebook ads how much you spend on,instagram ads,and then also if you separately want to,build in,to that cost of your product the,packaging costs,so if your packaging maybe for the,mailer was 20 cents maybe you put in,some marketing materials that was,another 20 cents,you're gonna want to build that into,your cost of goods sold,so when you're actually inputting the,cost of the product on a product listing,it includes that individual packaging,cost,you want to just shoot for worst case,scenarios so that you can always,try to beat it or try to change your,prices or,do something differently to always make,those numbers better to just get the,most accurate depiction of like where,your actual margin is,but overall that's basically what i do,and this is what i look at,on the regular on a regular basis again,there may be better ways to do it but,this is honestly just how i'm i'm doing,it not an expert,so but yeah if you guys enjoyed this,video make sure that you,do like and subscribe and,yeah i'll see you guys in the next video,thanks guys,you

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