Ecommerce KPIs: The 24 Metrics to Track, Their Formulas and Where to Find Them

An online store can report hundreds of numbers. Ecommerce KPIs are the few that tell you whether the store makes money and where it loses customers. This guide lists 24 indicators grouped by stage, with the formula used by the main platforms, the tool where each one lives, the benchmarks worth quoting and the SEO and AI visibility metrics that most dashboards still miss. Formulas follow the definitions published in the Shopify Help Center analytics fields and in Google Analytics 4.

What is the difference between ecommerce KPIs and ecommerce metrics?

An ecommerce metric is any number the store records: sessions, page views, items added to cart, refunds. An ecommerce KPI is a metric you have chosen to steer the business, with a target and an owner. Every KPI is a metric; few metrics deserve to be KPIs.

Two families coexist. Lagging indicators (revenue, margin, customer lifetime value) confirm results after the fact. Leading indicators (add-to-cart rate, checkout rate, email sign-ups, organic impressions) move first and warn you before revenue drops. A useful dashboard combines both, so a fall in add-to-cart rate is spotted on Monday instead of in the monthly revenue report. For the wider picture beyond the store, see our guide to marketing analytics.

What are the most important ecommerce KPIs?

The table groups 24 KPIs by stage of the purchase journey. The formulas are standard; the "where to find it" column gives the usual source of truth.

Acquisition KPIs: who comes to the store?

Track sessions by channel before total sessions. A rise in total traffic can hide a collapse in the channel that brings buyers. Compare CPA with first-order margin: if you pay more to acquire a customer than the first order earns, the business depends on repeat purchases. Ecommerce businesses that rely on paid traffic should also follow the PPC metrics that explain CPA and ROAS.

Conversion KPIs: where do visitors drop out?

Read the funnel as a chain: product views, add to cart, checkout, purchase. Each ratio tells you where the leak is. A low add-to-cart rate points to the product page (price, photos, reviews, stock); a high checkout abandonment points to fees, delivery times or a long form. Work through the fixes in our guide on how to increase your conversion rate.

Order value and retention KPIs: how much is each customer worth?

Revenue per visitor is the most honest single number of a store, because it combines conversion rate and average order value: a promotion that lifts conversion while crushing basket size shows up at once. On the retention side, customer lifetime value decides how much you can spend to acquire a customer. Estimate it with the customer lifetime value calculator and aim for a lifetime value well above acquisition cost.

Profitability and operations KPIs: does each order make money?

Revenue KPIs can rise while the store loses money. Contribution margin per order subtracts product cost, shipping, payment fees and acquisition cost from each order, and it is the KPI that should arbitrate discounts and free shipping thresholds. Return rate belongs here too: in fashion, returns can erase the margin of a whole category. For ad spend, your break-even ROAS equals 1 divided by your gross margin.

What are good ecommerce benchmarks?

Few public benchmarks are both recent and transparent about their method. Three are worth quoting, with their date:

• Cart abandonment: the Baymard Institute puts the average documented online shopping cart abandonment rate at 70.22%, calculated from 50 studies (page updated September 2025). Excluding shoppers who were only browsing, the top reasons it lists for abandoning during checkout are extra costs such as shipping, tax and fees (40%), slow delivery (20%), distrust of the site with card details (19%) and forced account creation (18%).
• Checkout potential: the same source estimates that an average large ecommerce site could gain a 35.26% increase in conversion rate through better checkout design.
• Conversion rate: in an article published in June 2026, Shopify cites Littledata data placing the average Shopify store conversion rate at about 1.4%, with the top 10% of stores at 4.7% or more.

Use these figures as orders of magnitude. Conversion rate depends on how sessions are counted: Shopify, for example, filters identified bot sessions and counts one conversion per session even when a visitor places two orders. A store selling $30 accessories and one selling $2,000 sofas will never have the same conversion rate or AOV. Your own month-on-month and year-on-year trend is the benchmark that matters. For broader market data, see our roundup of ecommerce statistics.

Where do you find each ecommerce KPI?

No single tool holds every KPI. Each source has its own definitions, so pick one source of truth per KPI and stick to it.

In GA4, the ecommerce metrics only exist if the store sends the events: Google's documentation on ecommerce metrics explains that "Ecommerce purchases" counts only the purchase event, while "Add to carts" and "Checkouts" count the add_to_cart and begin_checkout events. Check the setup with our guide to conversion tracking before trusting any revenue by channel. If you run your store on Shopify, our page on Shopify SEO and GEO optimisation covers the organic side.

Which ecommerce KPIs should you choose for your stage?

Five to eight KPIs are enough for a weekly review. The table suggests a main KPI by stage of the business.

Review leading indicators weekly, lagging ones monthly, and the KPI list itself each quarter. Our guide to ecommerce marketing shows which levers move each of these numbers.

Which SEO and AI visibility KPIs should an online store track?

Buyers now compare products on Google and in AI assistants before they reach the store. Four KPIs cover this part of the journey:

1. Organic revenue: revenue from sessions whose source is organic search in GA4, the KPI that justifies SEO spend. Our list of SEO KPIs details the others.
2. Non-brand organic clicks: Search Console clicks on queries that do not contain your brand, which measure how many new buyers find you. Google states in its documentation on AI features that AI Overviews and AI Mode appearances are reported in the Performance report, within the Web search type.
3. AI referral sessions: sessions from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com or copilot.microsoft.com, grouped in a custom channel in GA4. The volumes are still small for most stores, but these visitors often arrive with a precise intent.
4. AI share of voice: how often ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity cite your brand when a buyer asks for the best product in your category, compared with competitors. This is the KPI of AI shopping, and our retail AI citation study shows which sources these assistants rely on.

To estimate what organic traffic is worth for your store, use the ecommerce SEO ROI calculator. Sorank, our product, follows the AI side with AI mention tracking on ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, and publishes optimised articles that bring organic traffic with its blog article generator.

Key takeaways

The right ecommerce KPIs follow the money from the first visit to the margin of each order: sessions by channel, conversion rate and its funnel steps, AOV and revenue per visitor, repeat customer rate and CLV, then contribution margin. Pick one source of truth per KPI, compare yourself with your own history before public averages, and add organic and AI visibility to the dashboard. To grow the free share of that traffic, Sorank starts at $49 per month with a 3-day free trial.