Blog · Alternatives and comparisons
Choose an ecommerce analytics platform by testing your order, refund and cost files. Use a worked category and channel comparison to judge whether the results reconcile and support a decision.
An ecommerce analytics platform should answer your category and channel questions from the records you actually have. Choose by testing net sales, returns and contribution on the same files, then checking that every summary reconciles. A polished chart is useful only after the underlying totals hold.
Write down the next trading decision before reviewing products. A category manager may need to know which assortment leaves the most contribution after returns. A marketing manager may need to compare the contribution from paid search with email. Finance needs to see which costs are included and which remain outside the comparison.
These are related questions, but revenue alone cannot answer them. A channel can bring more sales while leaving less money to cover fixed expenses. A category with strong demand can lose contribution through refunds or fulfillment costs.
Shopify's ecommerce analytics overview describes using business data to inform marketing, customer experience and profitability decisions. Keep your evaluation narrower than that broad scope: name the decision, identify its owner and state the figure that would change the action. Wholesale buying cycles need a separate treatment; see B2B ecommerce analytics for that neighboring job.
You do not need a universal ranking. You need a workflow that fits the way your team reviews results.
| Approach | Reporting job to test | Evidence to request |
|---|---|---|
| Store reporting | Review sales and category performance within a selling platform | Definitions of sales, returns, dates and filters |
| Spreadsheet analysis | Check a manageable export with visible calculations | Reproducible formulas, summary totals and a named workbook owner |
| Shared business reports | Give several teams a consistent recurring view | Agreed measure definitions and a clear process for correcting exceptions |
| File-based analysis | Examine supplied order, refund and cost records for a specific decision | Column mapping, computed totals, reconciliation and row-level support |
Shopify's analytics page describes prebuilt commerce reports and the ability to modify reports or create new ones. That establishes a reporting option, but your own test still needs to prove the margin question you care about. A vendor description cannot establish that your particular cost export is complete.
For a spreadsheet comparison, Microsoft documents PivotTables as a way to calculate, summarize and analyze worksheet data. Use a checked workbook as the control for your evaluation. The broader business intelligence tools guide covers that larger selection question.
Covirage is not affiliated with Shopify or Microsoft.
Use a sample of your own completed reporting period. Bring order identifiers, product categories, channel labels and sales after discounts. Match refunds to the order or line they reverse. Bring product costs and the other variable costs your team wants included.
State whether costs are recorded amounts or allocations. Campaign spending allocated across orders is an assumption, even when the spending total itself comes from a reliable report. Keep the allocation rule visible and confirm that allocated amounts sum to the original campaign cost.
The illustrative US retailer below uses order-group rows for a closed period. Sales exclude tax and customer shipping charges. Product costs are net of any cost reversal on returned inventory. Other variable costs include fulfillment, payment fees and allocated campaign spending. These definitions apply to this test, rather than asserting a universal accounting policy.
| Group | Category | Channel | Sales after discounts (USD) | Refunds (USD) | Product cost (USD) | Other variable cost (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| E101 | Gear | Search | 2,400 | 200 | 1,000 | 580 |
| E102 | Gear | 1,800 | 100 | 800 | 240 | |
| E103 | Apparel | Search | 3,000 | 600 | 1,200 | 850 |
| E104 | Apparel | 1,600 | 200 | 650 | 200 | |
| Total | 8,800 | 1,100 | 3,650 | 1,870 |
Ask every candidate to apply the same definitions:
Net sales = Sales after discounts − Refunds
Contribution = Net sales − Product cost − Other variable cost
Contribution margin = Contribution / Net sales
This contribution is before fixed expenses. It is different from gross profit margin, which stops after cost of goods sold.
The expected calculation for each group is below. Percentages are rounded to one decimal place after calculation.
| Group | Net sales calculation (USD) | Contribution calculation (USD) | Contribution margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| E101 | 2,400 − 200 = 2,200 | 2,200 − 1,000 − 580 = 620 | 28.2% |
| E102 | 1,800 − 100 = 1,700 | 1,700 − 800 − 240 = 660 | 38.8% |
| E103 | 3,000 − 600 = 2,400 | 2,400 − 1,200 − 850 = 350 | 14.6% |
| E104 | 1,600 − 200 = 1,400 | 1,400 − 650 − 200 = 550 | 39.3% |
| Total | 8,800 − 1,100 = 7,700 | 7,700 − 3,650 − 1,870 = 2,180 | 28.3% |
Now ask for category and channel views from those same rows.
| View | Included groups | Net sales (USD) | Contribution (USD) | Contribution margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gear | E101 + E102 | 3,900 | 1,280 | 32.8% |
| Apparel | E103 + E104 | 3,800 | 900 | 23.7% |
| Search | E101 + E103 | 4,600 | 970 | 21.1% |
| E102 + E104 | 3,100 | 1,210 | 39.0% |
Search has more net sales, while email has more contribution in this supplied file. That supports investigating search costs and returns before increasing spending. It does not prove that shifting the budget would preserve email's observed margin.
The proof is straightforward: category contributions sum to $2,180, and channel contributions also sum to $2,180. Each view must reconcile independently; adding category and channel totals together would count the same business twice. The total margin is $2,180 divided by $7,700, rather than an average of group percentages.
Upload a sample of your own order, refund and cost files: Covirage maps the columns, and its tools compute and check category and channel comparisons. The external AI model explains the results with every figure traced to its rows. Create a free Covirage account, which takes about a minute, then set up your business and bring your export.
See self-service analytics for the supporting workflow.
Start with net sales, refunds, product costs and contribution by the categories and channels you manage. Add other measures only when they support a recurring decision. A useful platform should make the period, cost coverage and source rows clear enough for finance to check the result.
Order exports can establish sales, but profitability also requires matched refunds and costs. Product cost supports gross profit; payment fees, fulfillment and allocated campaign spending support a stated contribution measure. Missing costs should remain visible rather than silently becoming zero or being presented as complete profit.
Both views can serve a purpose. Refund-date reporting describes activity in the period; matching returns to original sales helps assess the economics of those sales. Choose a policy for each question, label it, and avoid comparing one view with the other as though their periods were identical.
Write the decisions and required checks before evaluating products. Give each candidate the same small export and compare the results against a manually checked control. Remove candidates that cannot explain differences, then assess who will maintain the reports and how the team will use them.