There are a couple of reasons why Data Studio reporting will differ from Shopify Sales Reports:
1) In the API that is used for our connector, the values reported are the current total of all orders, whereas the Sales Reports only refer to goods exchanged between the merchant and the customer within a given time frame.
For example, if a merchant refunds a custom amount of $5 because the customer complained it took too long to ship, but no items were refunded and restocked, then the -$5 difference will not appear in the Sales reports, but will be deducted from API total.
2) Refunds are reported in the Shopify Sales Reports by the date they were refunded. The API will report refunds by the date the order was placed. So when comparing the two reports, Refunds will not align by date range.
If your store runs a free gift promotion, your Gross sales and Discounts may look lower in your Power My Analytics report than in Shopify's Total sales over time report. That report counts a free gift's value twice: once in Gross sales and again in Discounts. Because the two entries cancel each other out, Net sales and Total sales are unaffected.
Power My Analytics counts the gift once, matching your Shopify order pages and Shopify's Sales by product report. Shopify's own reports can disagree with each other on this point, so when you review a store with free gift promotions, compare your Power My Analytics report with the order page or the Sales by product report.
For example: a customer places a $175 order that qualifies for an automatic free gift valued at $25, and also uses a 10% discount code ($17.50).
Report view | Gross sales | Discounts | Net sales |
Shopify order page, Shopify "Sales by product" report, and Power My Analytics | $200.00 | -$42.50 | $157.50 |
Shopify "Total sales over time" report | $225.00 | -$67.50 | $157.50 |
Net sales, Total sales, taxes, returns, shipping, and order counts align across all of these views.