Average Order Value
Average Order Value shows what a typical order is worth in each period: your sales before returns, divided by the number of orders.
How It’s Calculated
The cards at the top show Total Sales (excl. returns), Orders and Average Order Value for the date range. With a comparison on, each card also shows the change from the comparison period. The chart draws Average Order Value for each period, and the table has one row per period.
The columns are:
- Orders: the number of orders placed.
- Total Sales: Gross Sales minus Discounts, plus Shipping and Tax, minus money refunded in the period.
- Total Sales (excl. Returns): the same figure before refunds are taken off.
- Average Order Value: Total Sales (excl. Returns) divided by Orders.
The Average Order Value card divides the range’s total sales before returns by its total orders. It isn’t an average of the period rows, so a busy period counts for more than a quiet one. A period with no orders shows 0.
The length of the date range sets how long a period is:
- 3 days or less: one row per hour
- Up to 93 days: one row per day
- Longer: one row per month
What Counts
- Refunds don’t change Average Order Value. A refund lowers Total Sales in the period it was made, but the average uses the figure before returns. Refunds on orders placed more than 2 years before the start of the date range aren’t counted.
- If your prices include tax, the tax is already in Gross Sales and isn’t added again.
- An order counts on the day it was placed, in your store’s time zone.
- Orders that were canceled, or whose payment was voided or expired, don’t count. Pending, authorized and partly paid orders do.
- Orders from every channel count, including point of sale. Use Sales Channel, Segment and Filters to narrow the report down.
- Amounts are in your store’s currency.
Total Sales shows the parts that make up each order’s value.
What Good Looks Like
A healthy Average Order Value is steady or rising while your order count holds. What’s normal depends on what you sell, so compare your store with itself, not with another store.
A rise that comes with falling orders can mean you’re losing small orders, not growing the big ones. A fall can be the mix changing, for example more first orders or a cheaper product selling well, and not a problem with any one product.
Set Compare to 1 year ago to see change without the effect of the season.
What to Do About It
- A falling average: check Sales by Number of Orders to see which order number moved. Check Total Items Sold to see whether orders hold fewer items.
- Discounts changing the average: the average is after discounts, so check Sales by Discount Code for codes that cut it.
- An average you want to raise: try bundles, add-on products, or a free shipping threshold just above your current average.
- One channel pulling the average down: check Sales by Channel.
Get AI Insight at the top of the report asks Copilot for a short read of it, with recommendations, for the date range and filters you chose.
Where to Find It
- Average Order Value: open Reports and look under Sales.
- Total Sales: the sales behind each order, broken into gross sales, discounts, shipping, tax and returns.
- How to Choose a Date Range: date ranges and comparisons.