Create reports with the Data Studio connector for Shopify

[Michael_Whitak1]

I created a connector for Shopify that allows you to create sales reports in Data Studio. If you're not familiar with Data Studio, here is an overview. The connector comes with a good-looking template to get you started.

This connector is not yet published as I am hoping for some feedback. If you could check it out, I'd appreciate it. It should only take a couple of minutes to go from creating a private app to being able to pull and share live marketing reports.

Details on how to get started are here

Kind regards,

Michael

[Soldat]

Hey,

Thanks for the connector, I was wondering if it was possible for you to add some additional fields, mainly for revenue attribution and various other reports that are available in shopify, that we could then transfer to data studio?

Thanks!

[KevinW]

Hey @Michael_Whitak1, thanks for sharing this connector and template. I'm going to give it a try this week. I'm a big fan of Data Studio so I'll provide feedback once I've worked with it a bit. Can you help me understand how your connector solution compares to the Stitch integration for Shopify? 

[Michael_Whitak1]

Hi Kevin,

As far as I can tell, Stitch is a hosted app/solution that imports your Shopify data (and any other data source) to Stitch first. Once it's in Stitch you can connect to Data Studio. My community connector connects to Shopify directly, so no intermediaries involved or data stored with third parties. On the flip side, since the connector queries the Shopify API directly, it's not very performant if you have lots of orders and data. 

[Michael_Whitak1]

Hi there,

Many thanks for your suggestion. At this time the connector only fetches data from the Order API. You can see the response object returned, so if there is a specific data point you're interested in, just let me know and I'll see if I can add it.

Kind regards,

Michael

[KevinW]

Thanks @Michael_Whitak1. I successfully created the connector and can now visualize my data in DS. The instructions were easy to follow so nice work. And I appreciate the clarification on how your connector works. I totally understand. The only thing I couldn't figure out is where you put the link to dashboard template. Maybe I'm just overlooking it, but I don't see it anywhere on your site. I don't really need it per se, but I thought I'd point it out for the users' sake. Thanks again Michael. I'll report back if I find any bugs, otherwise I'd say great work! 

[Michael_Whitak1]

Thanks Kevin,

When you create a connector you have the option to ship it with a template to make it easy for folks to get started, but the link to template gets a bit hidden.

Here is the direct link https://datastudio.google.com/open/1xv-Ph9kNEPNt9a_59A0iDcksk5FJrr1v

[KevinW]

Thanks @Michael_Whitak1! I was able to access the report and populate it with my store's data. For some reason, the tables and charts were showing some weird data and duplicate rows, but they all refreshed and corrected themselves once I clicked into them. 

> but the link to template gets a bit hidden.

Can you share a screenshot showing where it is? I'm just curious. I swear I looked everywhere 🙂

Also, just FYI, I'd recommend updating the font size for the date picker from 18 > auto. For some dates the text runs off the element. 

Finally, I'd recommend updating the decimal precision for Revenue (column 1) in the bottom table from auto > 0. That way all the digits line up evenly. 

Thanks again for sharing this. How can we stay up to speed on what's going on at Analytics Buddy? Are you planning on building off of this? 

[SergeRouvinet]

Hi, thanks alot for the connector!

Is it possible to add discounts and returns to match the Net Total Sales from Shopify, as right now we can only get Gross Sales.

Thanks!

[Michael_Whitak1]

Hi there,

Great suggestions! I should be able to add discounts, but refunds are a little different. Refunds can happen at any time, potentially many days after an order is placed. So the refunds amount can change based on when you run a report. There is also no Shopify API that can return refunds in aggregate: you have to query each order to get the refunds, which is not scalable. I'll think about this so more.

[SergeRouvinet]

Hi Michael, glad to hear you can add discounts. It would be ideal to have refunds somehow as well, otherwise our data will never match the Shopify interface.

Apparently its not possible either to take the Sessions data either through APIs, do you know if it possible somehow?

Thanks for your work!

[SergeRouvinet]

Hi Michael, any idea when you can get discounts and refunds integrated?

thanks!

[Michael_Whitak1]

Hi there,

I added Net Sales, Tax, Shipping, Discounts, Open/Closed, Active/Cancelled Orders. Just refresh the fields in the connection.

I also added refunds to the connector. Note that refunds are attached to orders. For example, if you process a refund today for an order that was placed a few days ago, and you run a Data Studio report for today, the refund will not be listed in the report.

Let me know what you think!

Michael

[Enrique1]

Hi, sorry I didn't know where to contact you for a request.

I would like to create Vendor sales reports with your Data Studio connector, but I don't see any VENDOR field. Is that something you can add?

Thanks,

Enrique

[Michael_Whitak1]

Thanks Enrique,

I added Vendor to the connector.

Michael

[Enrique1]

Awesome, thanks! I'll probably will need a couple more variables, but I'm
not sure yet. I'm new to DataStudio.

One quick question. In layman's terms, should I worry about Shopify Api
calls limits?

Thanks,

Enrique

[Michael_Whitak1]

You can just leave the defaults and see if that works for you. The data goes straight and live from the Shopify API to Data Studio, so if you have 1000s of orders that have to be paginated through, it's possible that something will fail if the data gets too large or it takes too long. 

I can add fields if they are in the Order API response.

Good luck trying it out!

[SergeRouvinet]

Hi Michael, thanks alot for the updates! Where can I contact you directly as I am using your connector and seeing different numbers from my Shopify account.

Thanks!

[Michael_Whitak1]

You can reach me at info@analyticsbuddy.com - if you do see discrepancies please double-check that your timezone settings in the connector are the same as the timezone in your Shopify admin.

[J_221]

Hi Michael, thanks for the connector, do you think it is possible to modify the names of the products for a better visualization?

 Thanks!