# Reading your store analytics without lying to yourself

Gross sales, net sales, and the four numbers on the dashboard that actually tell you something.

> Source: https://storesuite.dev/blog/reading-your-analytics
> Published: 2026-06-02 · By Md Aminur Islam

The dashboard home opens with six KPIs and a top-products leaderboard. They are easy to read and easy to misread - here is what each one is measuring.

## The six are net sales, orders, average order value, returns, net discount, and products sold

Note what isn't there: **gross sales**. That is deliberate. Gross is the sum of line-item totals before anything is taken back out, and it flatters a month in which you shipped a lot and refunded a lot - exactly the months you most want an honest read on.

**Net sales** is what the dashboard leads with instead: revenue after refunds and discounts, excluding shipping and tax. It is the number to steer by. If you want the two side by side, the **Revenue** report carries gross sales, net sales, refunds, taxes, and shipping together.

## Orders is a count, not a value

The orders KPI counts orders in the selected range regardless of size. Paired with net sales it gives you average order value, which moves for reasons - a promotion, a new bundle, a change to free-shipping thresholds - that total revenue alone will hide.

## The leaderboard ranks by items sold

Top products is ordered by quantity, not revenue. A cheap add-on that attaches to most orders will outrank the thing that actually pays your rent. Cross-check against the **Revenue** report before you conclude anything about what to stock.

## Every delta is against a baseline you chose

Each KPI carries a percentage badge, and that badge is only as meaningful as the comparison behind it. The dashboard opens on **today vs. the previous day**, which is a fine pulse check and a terrible basis for a decision - one slow Tuesday is not a trend.

Change the range at the top right to any WooCommerce range (week to date, last month, last quarter, year to date, or a custom one), then pick what it compares against: the **previous period** or the **previous year**. For anything seasonal, previous year is the honest baseline. December against November tells you nothing you didn't already know about December.

## When the dashboard and WooCommerce disagree

They shouldn't; both read the same WooCommerce Analytics tables. If they do, it is nearly always one of:

- **A different date range.** The dashboard opens on today vs. the previous day; the Analytics reports open on whatever you set as the default range.
- **Order status filtering.** Analytics leaves some statuses out of report totals - pending, cancelled and failed by default. Check **Analytics → Settings → Excluded statuses** before assuming a number is wrong.
- **A stale lookup table.** WooCommerce builds analytics from its own summary tables rather than reading orders directly. If a bulk status change or an import bypassed the normal order flow, those tables can lag; the **Data status** bar on the reports tells you whether the import is caught up.