Skip to main content
Metrics type: Supporting Metrics • Category: Ecommerce Platform

​
At a glance

Order count split by customer’s billing-country code (or shipping-country, configurable). The international-expansion view, where in the world your customers are coming from, where you have ad-targeting opportunity, and where shipping logistics need investment.

​
Calculation

​
Worked example

A UK-based homewares brand on BigCommerce Pro selling internationally, 30-day window 14 Apr 26 to 14 May 26. What’s interesting:
  1. 64% UK / 36% international is healthy global mix. Pure-domestic UK stores would be 95%+ GB; this merchant has clearly invested in international expansion. The next 5 markets (US, DE, FR, IE, NL) account for 31% of orders combined.
  2. **US at 15.7% with 112AOVisthestandoutexport.∗∗HigherAOVthanUK(112 AOV is the standout export.** Higher AOV than UK (112 vs £88 ~ $108) suggests US customers are buying higher-tier items. Investigate which SKUs drive US orders, are they specific premium items? Does Amazon US cannibalise the direct US channel (cross-reference BC Revenue by Channel)?
  3. EU markets (DE + FR + IE + NL + ES) = 17% combined. Post-Brexit shipping complexity has hurt many UK→EU exporters; if these markets are growing, your EU logistics setup is working. If declining, customs / VAT / shipping-cost friction is killing demand.
  4. **Australia at 120 orders / 138AUDAOV∗∗ismeaningfulforaUKshipperdespitethedistance.Long−distancemarketspayhighershippingcosts;thehighAOV(138 AUD AOV** is meaningful for a UK shipper despite the distance. Long-distance markets pay higher shipping costs; the high AOV (138 vs $108 for closer markets) reflects either premium-product mix or shipping-included pricing.
  5. The 10-country tail at 90 orders combined rarely justifies dedicated investment. Maintain access (don’t block these countries) but don’t allocate marketing spend until any single tail country crosses 1% of orders.
Action priority order:
  1. Double down on US allocate ad spend, consider US-warehouse fulfilment to reduce shipping time / cost.
  2. EU customs / VAT review ensure your post-Brexit IOSS / OSS registrations are current; broken registration = customs holds = customer experience disaster.
  3. Australia logistics review is the high AUD AOV genuine premium demand or shipping-cost-baked-in? Worth optimising.
  4. Tail-country audit quarterly any tail country crossing 1% of orders deserves localised pricing / shipping consideration.
  5. Cross-reference with BC Revenue by Currency country and currency are correlated but not identical; both views together inform expansion strategy.

​
Sibling cards merchants should reference together

​
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look in BigCommerce Control Panel: Analytics → Customer Reports on Plus / Pro / Enterprise plans includes a per-country breakdown. Orders → All orders can be filtered by billing country for spot checks. Customers → View shows registered customer countries (different from order country, since registered customers may not have ordered in this period). Why our number may legitimately differ from BC: Cross-connector reconciliation (when GA4 connected): The country-split view is BC-aligned with Shopify and Adobe Commerce; semantics equivalent.

​
Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Why is my home country share so high (95%)? Pure-domestic store. Either you’ve never tried international expansion, or your storefront is configured to discourage international (no international shipping, no localised pricing). Whether 95% is a problem depends on your strategy; many UK or US merchants are perfectly happy domestic-only. International expansion adds complexity (VAT registration, customs, currency, shipping, customer support); only pursue if the market opportunity justifies. Should I use billing country or shipping country? Depends on the question. Billing for customer-mix understanding (where the buyer lives), shipping for logistics planning (where goods physically go). Most strategic decisions use billing; logistics decisions use shipping. A country I don’t ship to is showing orders, how? Likely a customer used a forwarding service (Shipito, MyUS) where billing country is theirs but shipping is to a US/UK forwarder address. Common for hard-to-export markets. Check shipping country for the actual destination. My EU markets dropped sharply post-Brexit, expected? Yes for UK→EU exporters. Brexit added customs paperwork, VAT complexity, shipping cost, and customer-side import duties. Many UK→EU sellers saw 30-50% volume drops. Recovery requires investment in IOSS/OSS registration, Delivered Duty Paid (DDP) shipping, and clear messaging about all-in pricing on storefront. Can I exclude marketplace orders from country analysis? Yes via channel filter. Marketplace orders may distort country views (Amazon US locks all orders to US billing regardless of true buyer location). Filter to web channel for accurate buyer-country mix. Why is the country granularity so different per channel? Some marketplaces (Amazon) strip detailed address info, others (eBay) provide full data. Channel Manager normalises what it can; the per-country resolution depends on what the marketplace shares. Web orders always have full address detail. Should I run separate ad campaigns per top country? Yes for top 3-5 countries. Per-country ad campaigns get country-specific creative, language, currency, shipping promises. Generic global campaigns underperform vs localised ones, often by 30-50%. Below top-5, the operational overhead of per-country campaigns rarely pays off. My customer countries map differs from my session countries (GA4), why? GA4 uses IP geolocation; this card uses billing address. They diverge for: (1) VPN users; (2) customers traveling (US customer ordering from Tokyo); (3) shared addresses (corporate billing). The two views answer different questions; both are valid. Multi-currency, do I see countries in their native currency? The card shows order count by country regardless of currency; the AOV column shows order-currency native amount. For full currency granularity, cross-reference BC Revenue by Currency. A new country appearing this period, real or noise? Single orders in new countries are usually expat / forwarding-service / corporate one-offs. Wait for 5+ orders before considering it a real market. Don’t rush to localise for a single-order country. Should I block countries I don’t want to ship to? Configure shipping zones to exclude problematic countries. Don’t rely on customer self-selection; customers will order to a forwarding service if you allow it. Explicit zone exclusion at checkout prevents the order from being placed. Why is “Other” appearing as a country? Two causes: (1) malformed billing addresses without a clear country code; (2) marketplace orders with stripped country info. The “Other” bucket should be <1% of orders; if higher, audit address-data quality. My B2B store has corporate HQs in one country shipping to branches globally, how do I see this? Switch to shipping country view. Billing country shows where the corporate HQ is (concentrated in one country); shipping country shows the global reach. The two views combined inform B2B account-management strategy: HQ relationship in one country, branch fulfilment in many.

​
Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Orders by Country is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across BigCommerce and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. Start for free or book a demo to see this metric running on your own data.