Stores Like Yours

Stores Like Yours shows where your store sits among similar stores on 16 measures, such as average order value, margin and refund rate. For each one it puts your value beside the group’s median and middle range, then gives your percentile and a short reading.

Open Stores Like Yours under Benchmarks in the navigation. It’s new and in beta, and every store can open it. A store that doesn’t meet the conditions below sees the groups’ figures, but its own values and percentiles stay empty or out of date.

How It’s Calculated

Which Stores You’re Compared With

Your group is made of other stores that use By the Numbers. A store is in the pool when it:

• Is installed and has finished its first import.
• Has a store category.
• Averages at least 10 orders a month over the last 3 months.

A store outside the pool isn’t counted in any group, and no new figures are worked out for it. It still sees the groups’ figures. A new store’s figures appear after its first import finishes and its next nightly update runs.

Each measure starts with stores that match yours on 3 things:

• Category: the Store Category on the Business Profile page. By the Numbers picks one when it reads your storefront. Change it there if it’s wrong, and the comparison switches when you save.
• Size band: worked out from your average monthly orders over the last 3 months. Under 100 is micro, 100–999 is small, 1,000–9,999 is mid, and 10,000 or more is large.
• Country: the country of your Shopify store.

When the Group Widens

A comparison needs at least 25 stores. When fewer match all 3 things, the group widens one step at a time:

1. Your category and size band, in any country.
2. Your category, in any size band and country.
3. All stores.

Each measure widens on its own, so rows on one page can use different groups. The line above the table names the narrowest group any row reached, with its store count. It adds Some metrics use a wider group when fewer than 25 stores match yours. when any row used a wider one.

A row reads Too few stores when even all stores fall short of 25.

What Each Measure Counts

Most measures cover your orders from the last 90 days, leaving out canceled orders and orders whose payment was voided or expired. Revenue means each order’s total after discounts, with tax and shipping, before refunds. Money amounts are converted to US dollars so stores in different currencies compare fairly, then shown in your store currency.

Your store’s figures refresh in its nightly update. The groups are rebuilt once a day.

• Average Order Value: revenue divided by orders.
• Monthly Revenue and Orders per Month: an average month of the 90 days.
• Returning Customer Rate: of the customers who ordered, the share whose first-ever order came before the 90 days.
• Orders per Customer: orders divided by the customers who ordered.
• Repeat Purchase Rate: of the customers who ordered, the share who ordered 2 or more times in the 90 days.
• Refund Rate: money refunded so far on those orders, as a share of their revenue.
• Unit Return Rate: the share of units sold that came back, on orders placed 90–180 days ago so returns have settled. It needs at least 10 units sold in that window.
• Discount Intensity: the share of orders with a discount code.
• Average Discount Depth: discounts as a share of order subtotals.
• New Customers per Month: customers whose first-ever order fell in the 90 days, as an average month.
• Average Customer LTV: the average predicted lifetime value of your customers whose value is above zero.
• Top-Decile Customer LTV: the value that 10% of those customers exceed.
• Monthly Gross Profit, Gross Margin and COGS as % of Revenue: revenue less the cost of goods, from each variant’s unit cost.

The 3 profit measures need unit costs. A store with none on the products it sold in those 90 days shows Set unit costs and is left out of those groups. The margin rows count only the costs that exist, so missing costs make your margin look higher than it is.

These measures don’t match the P&L exactly. The P&L’s Gross Margin is worked out on Net Revenue, not on the order total.

Reading the Table

• Your Value: your figure for the measure.
• p25, Their Median and p75: a quarter of the group is at or below p25, half is at or below Their Median, and three quarters are at or below p75.
• Your Percentile: a bar from 0 to 100 with a number, such as p70. A p70 means you’re ahead of 70% of the group on that measure. The number runs from 5 to 95: a value at or below the group’s 10th percentile reads 5, and one at or above its 90th reads 95.
• Reading: a short chip. Hover over it for a sentence that explains it.

A higher percentile isn’t always better. For Refund Rate, Unit Return Rate, COGS as % of Revenue, Discount Intensity and Average Discount Depth, a low figure is the good outcome. The Reading takes that into account, so a low refund rate reads well.

The chip reads:

• Excellent: you’re in the best tenth.
• Strong: you’re in the best quarter.
• Typical: you’re in the middle.
• Lagging: most of the group is ahead of you.
• Needs Attention: you’re in the worst quarter.

Monthly Revenue, Orders per Month, New Customers per Month and Monthly Gross Profit are size measures. They read High at the 75th percentile or above, Low below the 25th, and Typical between, in grey with no verdict.

Mix Comparisons

Two cards compare your shape with the group’s median:

• Customer Loyalty Mix vs Stores Like Yours: the share of your customers in each Customer Loyalty group: Best, Loyal, Promising, Recent, Defecting, At Risk and Dormant. It uses your own cutoffs.
• Geographic Mix vs Stores Like Yours: the share of your orders from each shipping country over the last 90 days. It shows your 10 biggest countries.

The group’s bar is the median share among stores that have customers in that group or orders from that country. With too few stores, the card says Not enough stores like yours yet — showing your shape only.

12-Month Trend

Three charts show your monthly line over the group’s p25–p75 band, with the median dashed: Average Order Value, Gross Margin and Returning Customer Rate. They cover the last 12 full months. Each chart names the stores its band covers when that isn’t your category, size band and country.

Copilot AI Insights

For stores that can use Copilot, What This Says About Your Store opens the page, with short Copilot AI Insight notes under a section’s heading when there’s something to say. They’re written from the same figures as the table. Copilot writes them when you first open the page, and reuses them for 24 hours or until the figures change.

Nothing shows when there are too few comparable stores.

Where Else It Appears

Some reports have a vs Stores Like Yours summary card. A metric card can also carry a chip, with wording such as “Higher than 76% of stores like yours”.

To remove them, choose Hide benchmarks on reports on the Benchmarks tab of Preferences. The same tab sets how the chip looks.

Pulse can also compare your last 90 days with stores like yours in its story.

What Good Looks Like

There’s no target to hit. The middle half of the group, between p25 and p75, is typical for stores like yours.

Read the Reading column first, then the median. Treat the group as other stores on By the Numbers, not the whole market. It’s only as close to yours as your category is right.

What to Do About It

• Check your Store Category first. A wrong category moves every row.
• Add unit costs. Unit Cost Coverage shows which products have none.
• Start with Needs Attention rows. For margin, the P&L shows what’s driving it.
• Look at the trend charts. A line that sits below the band for several months says more than one reading.
• Ask Copilot how a figure compares with stores like yours.

Where to Find It

• Stores Like Yours: under Benchmarks in the navigation, and under Benchmarking in Reports.
• Business Profile: where you set your Store Category.
• Ads Benchmark: the same comparison for advertising.