Difference between sessions and visitors?

[Rich6]

wHEN I go to the analytics page on shopfy and click on view bylocation, there is visitor and sessions.  Obvisouly visitors is pretty obvious but what exactly is sessions?  Does this mean that they actually looked around or does it mean that they went to cart and checkout?

[Karlie]

Hey, Rich! 

Karlie here from the Shopify Guru Team and I would be happy to shed some light on Shopify Analytics for yah! Sessions would be based on the length of a customer's visit on your online shop, where as visitors would keep track of the devices that your customer uses to browse your online shop - so desktop, smartphone etc., 
The number of visitors is based on cookies. Cookies are small files that get stored on a customers desktop, smartphone or mobile device when they visit your online store. There are different cookies that get stored to customer's devices - so there is a cookie that identifies the device that the customer is using (visit) and then another cookie would keep track of the length (session) of the visit of your customer. 
So, a session would end after 30 minutes of the customer having no more activity or at midnight of the day the customer had visited. I know visits to sessions can be a little confusing, so I would also recommend checking out our helpful guide here which goes more in to depth about visits and sessions and the different types of reports that can be accessed with both stats. 

I do hope this helps, but if you have any further questions - be sure to ask and we would be happy to help!

Karlie
Shopify Guru
support@shopify.com

[Tristan9]

Hello I have a question, when I look at my shop and click visit online store does that count as a visit and when I look in my online store does that also count as a session? Please help me...

[Karlie]

Hey, @Tristan9 !

Karlie here! Good question! So, if you're logged into your Shopify Admin (using the same browser window/session) then when you visit your store, it will be excluded from your traffic report in your Shopify Analytics. If you're visiting your storefront and you're not logged in, then that should count as a visitor. 

I hope this has answered your question. If not, or if you have any further questions please let me know. I will be happy to help!

[Rb14]

Hi, I'm only using buttons on my website.  Are sessions from views of only buttons or is there a shopping page I don't know about that people are landing on?

[SheilaGazlay]

Why don't you just have a "visitor" statistic. I understand your explanation of sessions but why not just tell us how many people visited our sites like most places on the Web you can have a site?

[Andrew34]

Basically, if a visitor returns to your site after 30 mins of inactivity, this 1 visitor will be counted as 2 "sessions" (sometimes called "visits").
The page(s) visited can be any on your site, it's nothing to do with cart / checkout specifically.

[Jennie_Warren]

A "session" and a "visit" are two different ways to categorize groups of interactions a visitor has on your website. Specifically, a visit is counted when a visitor arrives on your website from a page outside your website. A session, however, is a more comprehensive way of grouping interactions.