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Metrics type: Supporting Metrics • Category: Ecommerce Platform

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At a glance

Daily (or weekly) SUM(totalPrice) plotted as a time series across the 90-day window. The headline trend chart for revenue health, the first thing most owners check on a Monday morning.

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Calculation

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Worked example

A US wellness DTC brand on Shopify Plus, mostly DTC online, light Amazon presence. Window 12 Feb 26 to 12 May 26 (90 days, 91 daily points). Smoothed weekly view of the daily series: Five things to notice:
  1. The chart’s job is to show the shape, not the total. The 90D total goes on the Total Revenue tile; this chart’s job is trend. Look at the slope first, the variance second, the absolute level third.
  2. The Spring Drop spike (week of 09 Mar) is the campaign signature. A clean two-week bump that returns to baseline. If it didn’t return to baseline, you’d suspect a step-change in baseline demand. Pair with New Customers to see whether the bump kept buyers or just front-loaded existing ones.
  3. Easter softness (06 Apr) is structural. US Easter Sunday in this window. Most categories see -5 to -15% week-over-week; not a problem, just mark the calendar.
  4. The “11 May 26 partial” gotcha. The trailing point is incomplete because the window is rolling. New users misread this as a sudden drop on the most recent day. The Vortex IQ chart greys out the trailing day’s bar; merchants who export to CSV often miss this.
  5. Weekly view kills the noise. Daily points show 30 to 50% intra-week swing; weekly smooths to ~10%. For trend decisions, work weekly. For incident decisions, work daily.

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Sibling cards merchants should reference together

Revenue Over Time is the headline trend. The supporting cast:

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Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look in Shopify Admin:
Shopify Admin → Analytics → Reports → “Total sales over time” (under the Sales category)
The most direct equivalent. Set the same window and granularity (daily / weekly / monthly). The chart shape and totals should match this card to within sync-lag and time-zone tolerance. Other Shopify Admin views that overlap:
  • Analytics → Dashboards → Overview: a default-30D revenue chart on the home dashboard. Useful for a quick glance, less granular.
  • Analytics → Live View: real-time today-only chart with map. Use to verify “today” is reflected.
  • Reports → Sales by sales channel over time: same chart shape, broken by channel.
Why our number may legitimately differ from Shopify’s: Cross-connector reconciliation:

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Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Why does my chart show a sudden dip on the most recent day? Almost always because the window is rolling and the trailing day is incomplete. Vortex IQ greys out the partial day on the chart, but if you’re exporting raw data, the most recent day may include only a few hours of orders. Don’t react to it. Wait until the next day. My weekend revenue looks flat compared to weekdays. Is that normal? Depends on category. UK DTC fashion typically peaks Thursday/Friday with a weekend dip; US homewares often peak Sunday/Monday. Pair with Revenue by Day of Week for the pattern view, then compare against your category benchmark. Why is my chart noisy day-to-day? Three usual causes:
  1. Low daily order volume. Stores doing <50 orders/day naturally show jagged charts; one £500 wholesale order moves the daily figure 10%+. Switch to weekly granularity for a usable trend.
  2. Heavy promo cadence. A weekly “flash sale” creates a regular spike-and-trough rhythm.
  3. Channel mix shifting. A POS event day or a marketplace dump-day creates one-day spikes.
How do I tell if a dip is a real problem? Three-step test:
  1. Is it more than 1 standard deviation below the 30D rolling average? If not, it’s normal noise.
  2. Does it persist for 3+ consecutive days? Single-day dips are often calendar-driven (holiday, weather event); persistent dips are real.
  3. Does the order count drop too, or just revenue? Revenue-only drops point to AOV (mix shift, discounting); count drops point to demand or top-of-funnel issues.
Why is my Q4 chart so much higher than Q1? Seasonal categories: gifting, fashion, electronics, beauty all peak in November-December. Compare like-for-like (Q1-25 vs Q1-26 etc) for trend; calendar Q1 vs Q4 comparisons are misleading. Does this card include Shopify Subscriptions billings? Yes. Each subscription billing creates a new order on the original purchase date, so the chart smoothly absorbs subscription revenue across the window. Subscription-heavy brands have noticeably less day-to-day variance because the recurring billing forms a steady floor. My multi-currency store, why are the numbers nonsensical? We don’t FX-convert. Each order’s totalPrice is summed at the raw amount in its presentment currency. A USD $100 order and a GBP £100 order both contribute “100” to the daily total. This is wrong. Filter the card to a single currency for a usable view; multi-currency aggregation is on the roadmap. How does this card handle negative revenue (heavy refund days)? The card shows gross revenue, so refunds don’t pull it negative. To see net, overlay Refunds Over Time. On a single day with refunds > new orders, gross is positive but net is negative. Action playbook when the trend turns down:
  1. Confirm it’s a real dip (3+ consecutive days, beyond 1σ).
  2. Decompose: orders down or AOV down? Pair with Orders Over Time and Average Order Value.
  3. Check upstream traffic and ad spend. A drop in Google Analytics traffic or Google Ads spend usually leads revenue dips by 1 to 7 days.
  4. Check channel mix. Revenue by Channel reveals whether one channel is responsible.
  5. Check refund rate. A spike in Refund Rate points to a quality / fit / shipping issue suppressing repeat demand.
  6. Check inventory. Products with Zero/Negative Stock on top-revenue SKUs causes orders to evaporate; rate falls a few days later.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Revenue Over Time is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Shopify 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.