The Five Numbers Worth Looking at Every Week
Dashboards are full of numbers that feel important and change nothing. These five tell you whether the store is actually getting healthier — and each one points at a specific next action.
8 September 2026 · 2 min read
A sales dashboard can show thirty metrics and still leave you unsure what to do on Monday. The useful ones are few, and each has an obvious next step when it moves.
The short version
- Orders, not visits, pay the bills
- Average order value shows if products work together
- Discount share is your real margin check
- One number, one action
The five, and what each one asks you
| Number | The question it asks |
|---|---|
| Orders this week | Is the store moving at all? |
| Average order value | Are buyers taking more than one item? |
| Sell-through on the top three products | Will they run out before the next restock? |
| Share of orders that used a discount | What did this week's promotion cost? |
| Repeat customers | Are buyers coming back without being chased? |
Notice what is missing: page views, follower count, impressions. They are not useless, but they move for reasons you cannot control, and they rarely tell you what to do next. Ten thousand visitors who buy nothing is a traffic story, not a business one.
Write one sentence per number
“Orders 42, up from 31 — the bundle worked.” That sentence is the whole point of tracking. If you cannot write one, the number is not helping you yet.
What to do when a number drops
Check first
Orders fall
Look at enquiries and add-to-carts before blaming the market. If interest is fine and orders are not, the problem is price, shipping or checkout.
Check first
Average order value falls
Either the bundles are not visible, or the products no longer complement each other. Put the pairing on the product page, not only on the home page.
Check first
Top-three stock falls
Reorder now if lead time is longer than the runway. Running out of a bestseller costs more than holding a little extra.
The 15-minute Monday review
- Write the five numbers down in one place
- Compare to last week, not to a perfect month
- Pick one thing to change this week
- Check stock on the top three products
- Note anything a buyer complained about twice
- Ignore the rest until next Monday
The discipline is in the ignoring. Checking five numbers and changing one thing beats checking thirty and changing nothing, because the store only improves when a decision actually gets made.
Run the store from the back office, not from memory
Orders, stock and customers live in one place in a Tokoo store — so the weekly check takes minutes, not an evening.
See plansFrequently asked questions
Which number matters most for a new store?+
Orders, then average order value. Early on you need to know whether anyone buys at all, and whether they buy more than one thing. Traffic numbers only become useful once those two make sense.
How often should I check my store's numbers?+
Weekly is enough for most small stores — long enough to see a pattern, short enough to act. Daily checks tend to produce anxiety rather than decisions.
What is a good repeat-customer rate?+
It depends on what you sell: consumables should be high, furniture will be low. The useful comparison is your own number over time, not someone else's benchmark.
Sources
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