Conversion = orders / sessions per channel (sessions from analytics sibling if connected; else from BC stats endpoint cached on the channel doc).
At a glance
Conversion rate (orders divided by sessions) decomposed per channel_id over the trailing 30 days, with a week-over-week comparison for trend. Sessions come from the connected analytics sibling (GA4 ideally; BC’s native stats endpoint as fallback). The single most diagnostic card for “is the channel converting?” because aggregate conversion rate hides massive cross-channel variation: web typically 1-4%, B2B portal 8-25%, POS 95%+ (walk-up customers don’t browse).
| What it counts | (orders_count_30d / sessions_30d) per channel_id with WoW delta. Sessions are sourced in priority order: (1) GA4 ecommerce events filtered to the BC channel via custom-dimension or referrer, (2) BC analytics/sessions endpoint cached on the channel record, (3) BC’s native conversion-tile fallback (less granular). |
| API endpoint | BC GET /v3/channels for channel metadata; orders via /v2/orders; sessions via GA4 Data API or BC analytics endpoint. The OpenSearch index materialises both numerator and denominator per channel per day. |
| VAT / tax treatment | n/a, ratio metric. |
| Shipping | n/a. |
| Discounts | n/a, but discount-driven traffic spikes inflate sessions without conversions, depressing the ratio briefly during promo windows. |
| Refunds | n/a, refunded orders are still counted as conversions in the conversion-rate denominator (you converted them; they just refunded later). |
| Cancelled orders | Excluded from numerator. |
Incomplete orders | Excluded from numerator. Some merchants prefer to count Incompletes (started checkout = soft conversion); configure under Settings → Conversion definition. |
| Currency | n/a, ratio metric. |
| Channel coverage | Web (channel_id = 1), POS (95%+ conversion typical), Amazon, Facebook Shop, B2B portal. Marketplace channels (Amazon, Walmart) are difficult to compute accurately because we can’t see marketplace sessions; the card falls back to “orders / impressions” for marketplaces, which is a different ratio than web sessions-conversion. |
| B2B Edition behaviour | B2B portal conversion is typically 8-25% (registered customers with intent). The alert auto-detects B2B and compares against B2B baselines, not DTC. |
| Sessions attribution gotcha | If you don’t have GA4 connected, BC’s stats endpoint provides only web-channel sessions; per-channel sessions for marketplaces and B2B portal need GA4 or are estimated. Connect GA4 for accurate per-channel conversion; without it, marketplace conversion reads are estimates. |
| Time window | 30D vsP (rolling 30 days with prior-30 comparison). |
| Alert trigger | any channel drop >2pp WoW. A 2-percentage-point week-over-week drop on any channel fires the alert. Note “pp” not ”%”, this is a 2pp absolute drop (e.g. 4% to 2% fires) not a 2% relative drop (which would be 4% to 3.92%). |
| Roles | owner, marketing |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your BigCommerce data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A US apparel brand on BigCommerce Pro with GA4 connected, B2B Edition active, and POS at one flagship store. Snapshot for week 13 Apr to 19 Apr 26 vs prior week (6 Apr to 12 Apr 26).channel_id | Channel | Sessions | Orders | Conv rate | WoW | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Stencil DTC web | 84,200 | 2,520 | 3.0% | -0.2pp | Normal |
12000004 | B2B portal | 1,800 | 180 | 10.0% | -1.5pp | Elevated |
1019847 | Amazon Channel Manager | 22,100 (impressions) | 950 | 4.3% | flat | Normal |
1019850 | Facebook Shop | 4,200 | 35 | 0.83% | -2.4pp | ALERT FIRES |
1020114 | POS Terminal A | 312 (walk-ins) | 298 | 95.5% | flat | Normal |
- Facebook Shop alert is the actionable signal. A 2.4pp drop from 3.23% to 0.83% on Facebook Shop is a 75% relative collapse, almost certainly a Meta-side issue. Investigation sequence: (a) Meta Business Manager → policy notifications, (b) try to load the Facebook Shop product page in incognito, (c) check Meta Status. Most Facebook Shop conversion-rate collapses resolve with a policy-acknowledgement click in Business Manager.
- The B2B portal “elevated” reading is interesting but not actionable. A 1.5pp drop from 11.5% to 10.0% B2B conversion sounds bad but is within normal B2B variance (B2B order cycles are 2-6 weeks; a single big deal landing or not landing moves the rate). Watch for two consecutive weeks below 10%; one isolated week is noise.
- DTC web is healthy at 3.0% (-0.2pp). This is the heartbeat metric for this merchant; -0.2pp WoW is well within noise. The 3.0% figure aligns with the BC apparel benchmark of 2-4%.
- Amazon “conversion” reads as 4.3%. This is not session-to-order conversion; Amazon doesn’t expose sessions. The card uses Amazon impressions as the denominator, so the figure is impression-to-order, structurally higher than session conversion. The label clearly notes “(impressions)” so it isn’t confused. For true Amazon session conversion, connect Amazon SP-API which provides Brand Analytics session data.
- POS at 95.5% is correct. Walk-ins to POS terminals don’t browse; almost everyone who interacts with the till is buying. The 5% “non-conversion” represents return-only visits, employee adjustments, and aborted transactions. Don’t treat POS conversion-rate as a marketing metric; it’s an in-store-operations metric.
- Filter to channel cohorts. DTC vs B2B vs Marketplace vs POS, alert separately within each.
- For Facebook Shop fires specifically, check Meta Business Manager first; 60%+ of Facebook Shop conversion drops are policy / status issues outside merchant control.
- For DTC web fires, pair with BC Alert Abandoned Cart Spike, conversion drops with abandonment spikes signal funnel issues, conversion drops without abandonment signal traffic-quality issues.
- For Amazon fires, audit Amazon Channel Manager → SKU listings, OOS and buy-box loss are the most common Amazon-conversion-killers.
- For B2B drops, look at active quotes in B2B Edition; “low conversion” often means quotes are sitting unconverted because pricing is wrong, not because the funnel is broken.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why pair it with Conversion Rate by Channel |
|---|---|
| BC Channel AOV | The AOV side; combined with conversion rate gives revenue per session. |
| BC Orders by Channel | Volume context; high conversion on a low-volume channel is niche, not strategy. |
| BC Alert Abandoned Cart Spike | The funnel-side companion; conversion drops + abandonment spikes = funnel issue. |
| BC Channel Top Products | Surfaces which SKUs convert best on each channel. |
| BC Alert Channel Revenue Drop | Revenue drops with conversion-rate drops point to demand / acquisition issues. |
| BC Channel Refund Rate | High conversion + high refund = misleading product description / wrong fit. |
| BC Channel OOS per Channel | OOS-on-channel kills conversion; pair to verify cause. |
| Total Revenue | Revenue context for prioritisation. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in BigCommerce Control Panel: Analytics → In-store Conversion (Plus / Pro / Enterprise) shows store-wide conversion rate but not natively per-channel; per-channel breakdown requires GA4 Audiences or BC’s stats API. Channel Manager → individual channel → Analytics shows per-channel order count; sessions are not natively exposed for marketplaces. For B2B: Channel Manager → B2B Edition → Customers shows logged-in B2B portal session counts. Why our channel conversion rate may differ from BC / GA4:| Reason | Direction |
|---|---|
| Session definition. We use GA4’s session definition (30-min inactivity timeout); BC’s stats endpoint uses its own definition. The two can diverge by 5-15%. | Either direction |
| Bot filtering. GA4 filters known bots; BC’s analytics includes some bot traffic. | Vortex IQ HIGHER conv rate (cleaner denominator) |
| Cross-device session merging. GA4 attempts to merge sessions across devices for logged-in users; BC doesn’t. | Different denominators |
| Marketplace impression-vs-session. We use Amazon impressions as denominator for Amazon channel; BC has no equivalent metric. Direct comparison not possible. | Apples to oranges |
| POS walk-in counting. POS terminals count till interactions, not “sessions”. Conversion reads near-100%. BC’s POS analytics shows the same. | Match |
| Incomplete order treatment. We exclude Incompletes from numerator; BC’s conversion-rate tile in some plan tiers includes them. | Vortex IQ LOWER conv rate |
| Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence |
|---|---|---|
google_analytics.ga_conversion_rate_by_source | GA4 source-conversion correlates strongly with channel-conversion | GA4 “source” is traffic origin (organic, paid, direct); BC “channel” is sales channel. Different concepts but related. |
amazon_sp.amazon_unit_session_percentage | Amazon Brand Analytics unit-session-% is the closest Amazon-side metric | Brand Analytics is restricted-access; not all sellers have it. |
facebook.fb_shop_conversion_rate | Should match Facebook channel slice within 2-5% | Meta uses its own attribution window; we use BC’s order timestamps. |
referring_site or landing_page) and Adobe Commerce (per store_id plus session attribution); merchant-facing semantics are equivalent though session-attribution methods differ.