Most online store owners check two numbers: today's orders and the bank balance. Both are lagging indicators. By the time they move, the decision that caused it was made weeks ago.
Here are the reports worth building a habit around, and what each one is for.
Weekly: the operating dashboard
- Orders and revenue against the same week last month
- Average order value — the fastest lever most stores ignore
- Pending and unshipped orders — work sitting in the pipeline
- Low stock on best-sellers — the only stock alert that is urgent
- Cancellation and return rate — a rising number is a product or delivery problem, not bad luck
Monthly: the business review
- Revenue by category — where growth is actually coming from
- Top products by revenue and by margin — rarely the same list
- New versus returning customers — the health of the base
- Discount given as a share of revenue — the number that explains a busy month with thin profit
- Inventory value and ageing — cash sitting still
- Delivery performance — average days from order to delivered, by courier
Two comparisons that change decisions
Revenue versus margin by product. Almost every store has a best-seller that earns very little and a quiet product that earns well. Knowing which is which changes what you promote.
Traffic source versus order value. The channel that brings the most visitors is often not the channel that brings the most valuable orders. Spend follows this comparison, not the visitor count.
Make reports usable
Three features decide whether reports get used: date-range filters that match how you think, export to Excel or PDF, and role-based access so each team sees what belongs to them. A report nobody can filter is a screenshot.
One number to watch all year
If you track a single figure, make it repeat purchase rate — the share of customers who ordered more than once. It combines product quality, delivery reliability and customer experience into one line, and it predicts next year better than this month's revenue does.
Avoid the common traps
- Counting revenue on orders placed rather than orders delivered, in a cash-on-delivery market
- Ignoring returns when calculating product performance
- Measuring profit without allocating delivery and packaging cost
- Reading daily numbers as trends — weekly is the shortest honest window
See the analytics module
EbBzar reports on sales, revenue, orders, customers, top products, top categories, inventory and purchases, with date filters and export.
Demo: https://ebbazar.ronginbangla.blog/
WhatsApp: 01736699819
Tell us which reports you build by hand today and we will show you where they already exist.
