Revenue Analytics
Part of Promotion analysis
Measuring a sale event after discounts and returns
Reconcile sale-event orders, discounts, returns and costs without double-counting orders or treating an early result as final.
Measure a sale event from its qualifying orders, then follow those orders through discounts, cancellations, refunds and returns. Label an early result provisional. The amount retained may change after checkout, and an event's recorded economics do not show how many orders the sale caused.
Fix the event population
Record the event dates in the store's reporting time zone, eligible products and offer rules. Report separately all orders placed during the event, orders containing an eligible item and orders that actually received an offer. A full-price order during a sale is not automatically a discount redemption.
Count distinct order IDs for orders and use line items for product value. Record stacked offers, shipping discounts and manual adjustments. An order with two eligible products counts as one order. Allocate a product discount to the affected item; document how any order-wide discount is allocated.
A product sale price is separate from a discount code or automatic discount. On Shopify, using a product sale price is different from setting up discounts: if both a sale price and a compare-at price are set, only the sale price is displayed at checkout.
Reconcile the amounts
For each qualifying order, retain its ID, order date, line items, actual selling prices, recorded discounts, payment or completion status, tax and shipping treatment, and later adjustments. Report three views:
- At checkout:distinct orders, units, item value at the actual selling price before recorded checkout discounts, and those discounts.
- After adjustments:retained product sales and units after relevant cancellations, refunds and returns.
- After costs:contribution using available product costs and the additional event costs included in the decision.
State each calculation. If the starting measure already includes a refund or reversal, do not subtract it again. Keep tax and shipping outside a product-sales calculation unless the definition expressly includes them. Do not treat a compare-at price as realised sales.
Shopify's sales reports define gross sales as product price x quantity before taxes, shipping, discounts and sales reversals, and include pending, cancelled and unpaid orders. Discounts equate to line item discount plus order-level discount share, and sales reversals are all order adjustments that result in negative monetary value. Apply an explicit status rule to underlying orders if the review concerns paid or completed orders.
Close the result on a stated date
Keep a trading-period view, showing when transactions posted, and an event-order view, following the original orders through a stated adjustment window. Give the extraction date. A later return belongs to the event-order review even though its reversal posts later in the trading-period report.
Check missing product costs and unmatched adjustments before reporting contribution. Shopify profit reports include only products with a cost recorded at the time of sale, so their coverage may differ from sales reports. Treat returned stock costs according to whether the goods can be resold, and identify event costs omitted from the calculation. If adjustments can still arrive, schedule a refreshed result rather than calling the first figure final.
Key Metrics for Sale Event Analysis
- Orders Tracked
- Distinct order IDs from event period
- Product Sales (Post-Returns)
- Units and value after refunds and returns
- Event Costs Included
- Explicitly identified costs such as marketing or shipping subsidies
Event Order Review Timeline
- Event Start Date
- As defined in store reporting time zone
- Adjustment Window Closure
- Stated date for finalising results
- Return Reversal Posting
- May occur after adjustment window; still belongs to event-order review
