How to check how your WooCommerce store is doing each morning

Plan
Free
For
Store owners who want to see problems before customers do
Free download

The short answer

Open your Shop Manager dashboard. Warning cards at the top show orders that are stuck, low stock, a jump in refunds, a drop in revenue and reviews waiting for you. Below them are your revenue, orders and top products for the period you choose, and the bell lists what happened while you were away. This is free.

Hana's story

Sells kitchenware. Hana is a made-up example.

Hana sells kitchenware. Each morning she has a coffee and checks on the store.

She looks at the orders. She opens the reports. She checks the stock on the two or three things that sell fastest. Then the first customer email comes in and she stops.

One Thursday a customer writes: "I ordered four days ago. Has it been sent?" Hana looks it up. The order has been sitting in Processing since Monday. Nobody noticed.

She did check the store that morning. She just did not look in that one place.

Sound familiar?

  • Your morning check takes more than one screen.
  • Customers tell you about stuck orders before you see them.
  • You learn something ran out of stock when someone complains.

Here is how to do it

  1. Read the warning cards first

    Log in, and the cards are at the top. They tell you about orders pending for more than 2 hours, orders in Processing for more than 24 hours, low stock, a jump in refunds, a drop in revenue and reviews waiting for approval. Click View on a card to go straight to those orders. If you do not need a card today, close it and it stays away for 24 hours.

    Hana would have seen those stuck orders on Tuesday morning.

    The dashboard with Pending Orders, Long Processing Orders and Pending Reviews warnings with their View links marked, above revenue, orders, average order value and new customers
    Click a marked link to see those orders or reviews. Our test store has far more stuck orders than a real one.

  2. Check your numbers

    Choose Today, This Week, This Month, This Year, Lifetime or your own dates. You see revenue, orders, average order value and new customers, each compared with the period before. Cancelled and refunded orders are not counted in the totals, and the card tells you how many were left out.

    The dashboard with the period buttons marked, above revenue, orders, average order value and new customers and a Revenue and Orders chart
    Pick a period from the marked buttons. Sample numbers from our test store.

  3. See where your orders are

    Orders by Status shows how many orders sit at each status. Top Products shows what is bringing in the money. Recent Orders is further down.

    A chart of orders by status beside a bar chart of the top products by revenue
    Sample numbers from our test store.

  4. Open the bell

    Click the bell at the top of the dashboard. It lists new orders, failed payments, cancelled and refunded orders, customer notes, low stock, out of stock and new reviews. It leaves out what your own team did, because that is on the Activity page. While the dashboard is open it checks for news every 60 seconds.

    The notifications panel open with the bell marked, showing store alerts, an out of stock notice and new orders
    The marked bell opens this list. From our test store.

Hana's Tuesday morning

This is a made-up morning, to show how it fits together.

What she sees What she does
Long Processing Orders: 3 orders Clicks View and gets them moving
Low Stock Alert Orders more of that item
Pending Reviews: 2 reviews Reads them and approves them
Revenue this week, up on last week Finishes her coffee

How Hana's story ends

The next Monday an order gets stuck again. On Tuesday morning the card is at the top of her screen before her coffee is cool. She sends it that day, and the customer never has to ask.

Start tomorrow morning this way

Shop Manager is free on WordPress.org. Install it today, and the cards will be waiting for you tomorrow.

Free download See all features

What you need

Plan
Free
AI key
Not needed, these are simple rules
Screens to check
One
Permission for staff
Dashboard

Features used on this page

Checked against the plugin in .

Questions people ask

Can I change when an order counts as stuck?

Not at the moment. Pending payment counts after 2 hours and Processing after 24 hours.

How up to date are the numbers?

They come from your store, with a short cache: about 2 minutes for most periods and 15 minutes for This Year and Lifetime. The warning cards can be up to 15 minutes old, and they refresh when orders change. The page reloads its numbers every 5 minutes while it is open.

How many warning cards can show at once?

Up to 6, with the most serious ones first.

Can I set the low stock number?

Yes. Low Stock Threshold is in the Products tab of the Shop Manager settings. It uses the same number as WooCommerce.

Does it make a sound for new orders?

Yes, while the dashboard is open, and only for new orders. You can mute it from the bell.

Can my accountant see this?

Yes. The ready-made Accountant role gets the dashboard and its analytics.

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