What Is the Best Selling Products Report?
The Best Selling Products report ranks the items in your Shopify store from highest to lowest total sales, so your strongest performers sit at the top of the list. It works from three columns: Product Title, Net Quantity, and Total Sales, for whatever date range you choose.
It is built to answer one question fast: which products are actually carrying the store right now. Because Net Quantity nets out returns, a product that sells heavily but comes back often will not look artificially strong here. That keeps the ranking honest.
This is the lean version of product-sales reporting. If you want a full financial breakdown per product (gross sales, discounts, returns, tax, vendor, type), that lives in the Sales by Product report. Reach for Best Selling Products when you want a clean, ranked shortlist of winners rather than a detailed ledger.
Which Fields Are Included in the Best Selling Products Report?
These three fields work together to rank products by real demand and real revenue.
You can customize the pre-made report by adding, removing, or rearranging columns, and by setting the date range to the period you want to rank.
Important Insights You Can Find in This Report
Is your top seller by units also your top seller by revenue?
Sort once by Net Quantity and once by Total Sales, then compare the two orderings. When a high-volume product drops down the revenue ranking, it is moving units at a low price point and contributing less than its shelf presence suggests. When a lower-volume product climbs the revenue ranking, it is a high-value item worth protecting in stock and featuring in promotions. This split tells you where to focus reorders versus where to push margin.
Which products are quietly propping up the top of the list?
Look at how much of your Total Sales concentrates in the first few rows. If a small handful of titles accounts for most of the revenue, the store is exposed to those products going out of stock or slipping in demand. That concentration is a signal to secure supply for those specific items and to test whether anything below them can be grown into a second tier of dependable earners.
Are strong-selling products being dragged down by returns?
Because Net Quantity already subtracts returns, a product with high Total Sales but a Net Quantity that looks lower than expected for its rank is being returned often. That gap points to sizing, quality, or description issues on an otherwise popular item, and fixing it protects revenue you are already earning rather than chasing new sales.
THE ANALYST'S READ: The Signal Most Merchants Miss
The most useful read here is the relationship between Net Quantity and Total Sales, not either column on its own. Divide Total Sales by Net Quantity in your head for the top rows and you get a rough per-unit value. When a product sits high on units but that per-unit figure is low, its rank is being carried by volume, and heavy discounting or a low base price may be doing the work. When a product ranks high on revenue with modest units, each sale is worth defending.
Watch for a product whose Net Quantity is strong but whose position on the revenue sort is weaker than its unit sales would imply. That is often a discount-dependent item: it looks like a bestseller by demand but is thinner on contribution than the ranking suggests. It is worth checking against the Sales by Discount Code report before you decide to reorder heavily.
How Can You Automate the Best Selling Products Report?
Open the pre-made Best Selling Products report in Report Pundit. The columns are already set, so you can save it and set your date range without rebuilding anything. To have it delivered on a schedule, set it to email automatically on a daily, weekly, or monthly cadence, and add recipients so it also reaches your team or accountant. You can export it to Excel, CSV, or PDF, or push it to Google Sheets or Google Drive so the ranking lands where you already work.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does this report decide which products rank highest?
It sorts products in descending order of Total Sales, so the highest-revenue items appear first. You can re-sort by Net Quantity if you want to rank by units instead.
What is the difference between Net Quantity and units sold?
Net Quantity is units sold minus units returned for the selected period. It reflects the products customers kept, so returns do not inflate a product's position in the ranking.
How is this different from the Sales by Product report?
Best Selling Products is a lean, ranked shortlist built on three columns. Sales by Product adds a full financial breakdown per item, including gross sales, discounts, returns, tax, vendor, and product type. Use this report to spot winners quickly and Sales by Product when you need the detail behind them.
Does the ranking change if I change the date range?
Yes. Net Quantity and Total Sales are both calculated for the period you select, so the ranking reflects that window. A short recent range shows current momentum, while a longer range shows established performers.
Can I focus the report on part of my catalog?
Yes. You can add a filter to narrow the report to a specific product, type, or status before saving, so the ranking covers only the part of the catalog you want to review.