First-time vs Returning Sales

First-time vs Returning Sales splits your sales in each period between customers ordering for the first time and customers who have ordered before. It shows how much of your revenue depends on winning new customers, and how much on keeping them.

The First-time vs Returning Sales report, with a stacked bar chart splitting each day's sales between first-time and returning customers.

How It’s Calculated

The cards at the top show First-time sales and Returning sales for the date range. The chart stacks the two for each period, and the table gives the detail:

First-time Orders and Returning Orders: the number of orders of each type.
First-time Total Sales and Returning Total Sales: their Total Sales. That’s gross sales minus discounts and returns, plus shipping and tax.
First-time AOV and Returning AOV: Total Sales before returns, divided by the number of orders.

What Makes an Order First-Time

An order is first-time when it falls in the same period as the customer’s first order. Every later period counts as returning. The length of a period depends on your date range:

3 days or less: hours
Up to 93 days: days
Longer: months

So the period changes the answer. Take a customer whose first order is on March 3, and who orders again on March 20:

With a range of up to 93 days, the first order is first-time and the second is returning.
With a longer range, both are first-time, because both are in March.

A customer’s first order is their earliest order in your store’s history, whatever segment or filters you’ve set. Only the Sales Channel changes it. With a channel chosen, it’s their first order in that channel.

What Counts

Orders that were canceled, or whose payment was voided or expired, don’t count.
Orders with no customer attached aren’t in either column. First-time and returning sales together can therefore be less than on the Total Sales report.
A refund counts in the period it was made. A first-time order refunded a month later lowers that later month’s Returning Total Sales.
Only orders and refunds from your start date onward count. If a monthly range starts partway through a month, such as March 15, the first row is labeled March but covers only March 15 to 31. Orders before the start date still decide who is first-time.
Days and months follow your store’s time zone, and amounts are in your store’s currency.

What Good Looks Like

There’s no single right split. A young store or one spending heavily on ads leans on first-time sales, while an established store earns more from returning customers.

What matters is the direction.

A growing returning share means customers you’ve already won are coming back. If first-time sales grow while returning sales stay flat, new customers aren’t sticking.

Set Compare to 1 year ago and the 2 cards show how each has changed since the same time last year. The chart and table don’t show the comparison.

What to Do About It

Returning sales flat or falling: find where customers drop off in Cohort Retention, then reach them with the right group from Customer Loyalty.
First-time sales falling: check your ad spend and traffic on Advertising, and whether a channel has dropped on Sales by Channel.
First-time AOV well below returning AOV: new customers may be buying a cheap entry product or a discounted first order. That’s fine if they come back. Check with Cohort Repurchase Rate.

Where to Find It

First-time vs Returning Sales: open Reports and look under Customers.
Total Sales: all sales, broken into gross sales, discounts, shipping, tax and returns.
Cohort Retention: how many customers from each month came back in each month after.