The 7 Metrics Your Online Store Should Track Every Week
If you're not measuring, you don't know whether your store is growing or slowly dying.
Why measure every week?
Looking at sales at the end of the month is like checking the scoreboard after the game. It tells you whether you won, but it doesn't help you play better.
The best ecommerce operators check their numbers every week. Not because they're obsessive, but because they catch problems (and opportunities) before it's too late.
You don't need a fancy dashboard. You need 7 numbers and 15 minutes every Monday.
The 7 metrics that matter
1. Total sales
The most basic metric. Compare it to the previous week and to the same week last year if you have the data. Look for trends, not isolated spikes.
2. Conversion rate
Visits that turn into sales. Formula: orders / sessions x 100.
| Range | What it means |
|---|---|
| Below 1% | Something's off (pricing, trust, UX) |
| 1-2% | Normal for most stores |
| 2-4% | Solid performance |
| Above 4% | Excellent or a very specific niche |
If your conversion drops from one week to the next, investigate: did anything change in the store? Did low-quality traffic come in?
3. Average order value
How much each customer spends on average. Formula: total sales / number of orders.
If you want to increase it without raising prices: bundles, upsells, free shipping above a certain threshold.
4. Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
How much it costs you to acquire a new customer. Formula: marketing spend / new customers in the period.
This number should be lower than your gross margin per order. If you spend $15 on ads for a customer who leaves you $10 in margin, you're losing money (unless you know they'll come back and buy again).
5. Repeat purchase rate
Percentage of customers who buy more than once. If it's below 20% within 90 days, you need to work on your retention. Review your post-purchase emails and your loyalty program.
6. Cart abandonment rate
How many people add to cart and don't buy. If it's above 80%, check:
- Surprise shipping costs (the #1 reason for abandonment)
- A long or confusing checkout process
- Missing payment methods (credit card, debit, bank transfer, digital wallets)
7. Traffic by source
Where your visits come from: organic Google, social media, email, direct, paid. It tells you where to invest more and which channel is underperforming.
If 80% of your traffic comes from Instagram ads and those ads get paused, your store stops. Diversify.
How to build your weekly report
You don't need expensive software. A simple Google Sheet works perfectly:
- Column A: Week (Monday to Sunday)
- Columns B-H: The 7 metrics
- Comparison row: previous week and % change
- Notes column: what happened that week (campaign, holiday, technical issue)
Spend 15 minutes every Monday filling it in. Within a month you'll have enough data to make real decisions.
The missing metric: customer satisfaction
The 7 above are quantitative. But there's a qualitative one you can't ignore: what your customers are saying. Check reviews, messages, and complaints. A number can look fine while the actual experience deteriorates.
Measure, decide, act
Data without action is decoration. Every week, look at your 7 numbers and ask yourself one question: what am I going to do differently this week based on what I see?
If you need help setting up your metrics dashboard or making sense of your numbers, reach out to us at Mi Primera Tienda.
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