Shopify Sales by Product Category Template

The Sales by Product Category template creates one row per standardized Shopify product category. Products without a category appear in a clear Uncategorized row, making the report useful for both performance analysis and catalog cleanup.

What category reporting tells you

Product category uses Shopify’s standardized taxonomy, so this report is the closest thing to an industry-comparable view of your catalog. It is also the one that doubles as a data-quality check.

Use it to see:

• Which standardized categories drive your sales
• How much activity sits in Uncategorized, which tells you how complete your catalog data is
• Which categories rely most on discounting
• Where refunds concentrate across the catalog

The Uncategorized row is worth acting on first. Products without a category can be harder to surface in Shopify features and marketplace feeds that depend on the taxonomy, so a large Uncategorized figure is usually a catalog task rather than a reporting curiosity.

Metrics included

The worksheet contains:

• Product Category
• Net Items Sold
• Gross Sales
• Discounts
• Returns Excluding Tax
• Net Sales
• Taxes

The metrics initially cover all time.

Create the Sales by Product Category spreadsheet

1. Install Mixtable Analytics Spreadsheet
2. Click Create Spreadsheet
3. Search for or select Sales by Product Category
4. Create the spreadsheet

What Shopify product categories represent

Shopify product category uses Shopify’s standardized taxonomy. It is different from the custom Product Type field and different from collections or tags.

Standardized categories are useful for consistent reporting because similar products can share the same taxonomy even when teams use different internal product types.

Use the Uncategorized row

The Uncategorized row groups products with no assigned standardized category.

Use it to answer:

• How much sales activity comes from uncategorized products?
• Are important products missing categories?
• Would category cleanup materially improve reporting?

To find the individual records, create or open a Products worksheet and filter Product Category to no value. Add titles, handles, vendor, status, and sales metrics for context before assigning categories.

Compare category quality

Use:

• Gross Sales for original demand
• Discounts for promotion dependence
• Returns Excluding Tax for refund impact
• Net Sales for retained merchandise revenue
• Net Items Sold for volume

Add Orders Count, Refunded Quantity, refund rate, or profitability metrics where supported.

Category reporting and overlapping groups

Each Shopify product has one standardized product category, so category rows are generally more suitable for additive analysis than tags or collections, which can overlap.

Still confirm that products are categorized consistently before reconciling totals or making large assortment decisions.

For an added Reporting worksheet, choose Category sales breakdown. See Shopify sales by product attributes.