How to Create a Retail Dashboard in Google Analytics
Tired of bouncing between a dozen different reports in Google Analytics just to get a clear picture of your retail performance? Building a custom dashboard puts all your essential e-commerce metrics in one place, giving you a real-time command center for your business. This guide will walk you through exactly how to create a powerful retail dashboard in Google Analytics 4, step by step.
Before We Build: Why a Custom Retail Dashboard is a Game-Changer
The standard reports in Google Analytics are useful, but they're built for everyone. For an e-commerce or retail business, that means your most important data - like conversion rates, top-selling products, and revenue by channel - is scattered across different sections. You have to actively hunt for insights instead of having them presented to you.
A custom overview dashboard solves this problem. It acts as a single source of truth for your store's health, helping you:
Save Time: Stop wasting your morning clicking through multiple reports. Get a complete TL,DR (too long, didn't read) version of your store's performance in seconds.
Spot Trends Instantly: Visualizing your key metrics together makes it easy to see what’s working and what isn’t. Did a traffic spike from your new ad campaign actually lead to more sales? Your dashboard will tell you immediately.
Make Better Decisions: When your most important data is front and center, you can make smarter, faster decisions about inventory, marketing spend, and product promotions.
Getting Started in Google Analytics 4
Google Analytics 4 handles custom dashboards a bit differently than its predecessor, Universal Analytics. In GA4, dashboards are called "Overview Reports," and you build them within the "Reports" section of your account. It’s a straightforward process once you know where to look.
Finding the Report Builder
First, log in to your Google Analytics 4 property. From the left-hand navigation menu, follow these steps:
Click on Reports.
Near the bottom of the navigation menu on the left, click on Library. This is where all your reports, standard and custom, are stored.
At the top of the Library page, click the + Create new report button, and from the dropdown, select Create new overview report.
You'll now be looking at a blank canvas with a prompt to "Add cards." These cards are the individual metric snapshots, or "widgets," that will make up your retail dashboard.
Building Your Retail Dashboard: 8 Essential Widgets to Add
A great dashboard tells a story. We’ll build ours starting with high-level financial metrics and then drill down into product, channel, and user behavior that drives those numbers. Here are eight essential cards to create your definitive retail command center.
To add a card, click the “+ Add cards” button on your blank dashboard canvas. A panel will slide out from the right with a gallery of pre-built "Summary Cards" and options to create your own.
1. Your 'Big Four' Scorecards
Why it's important: These are the vital signs of your business. They give you the fastest possible read on overall financial health. We’ll group Total Revenue, Total Transactions, Ecommerce Conversion Rate, and Average Purchase Revenue into four separate-but-related scorecards at the top.
How to build them:
In the "Add Cards" panel, use the search bar to find and add each of these pre-built summary cards individually:
Total revenue: The total amount of money generated from sales.
Total purchasers: The unique number of users who made a purchase.
Ecommerce conversion rate: The percentage of sessions that resulted in a purchase.
Average purchase revenue: The average value of each transaction.
After adding them, drag and drop them to arrange them in a single row at the very top of your dashboard.
2. Sales Over Time
Why it's important: This line chart shows you the rhythm of your business. It immediately highlights sales spikes from marketing campaigns, holiday weekends, or product launches, as well as dips that might need investigation.
How to build it:
Search for the card named Total Revenue. GA4 often presents this as both a scorecard and a line chart by default. Add the one with the line chart visualization.
This card automatically plots revenue over the selected date range, giving you an immediate visual trendline.
3. Top Selling Products
Why it's important: You need to know what's flying off the virtual shelves. This simple table shows which products are generating the most revenue, which can inform your inventory decisions, marketing efforts, and "related products" suggestions.
How to build it:
Search for the summary card named Item revenue by Item name.
Add this card to your dashboard. It will show a list of your products, ranked by the revenue they’ve generated. You can quickly see your best-sellers at a glance.
4. Top Promotions
Why it's important: Are your coupon codes and sales promotions actually working? This card tracks revenue and transactions attributed to each promotion you're running, so you can measure ROI and see which offers your customers respond to most.
How to build it:
To see this data, you must be properly tagging your promotions and discounts within GA4.
Assuming you have promotion tracking set up, search for the card Item revenue by Item promotion name.
Adding this provides a clear list of your promotions and the revenue attached to each one.
5. Purchase Journey Funnel
Why it's important: This is one of the most powerful visualizations in GA4 for retailers. It shows you the flow of your customers from viewing a product to adding it to their cart and finally making a purchase. Crucially, it highlights where users are dropping off, so you know if your checkout process needs simplification or if your product pages aren't converting efficiently.
How to build it:
From the “Add Cards” pane, search for the card titled Purchase journey.
Add it to your dashboard. This card visualizes the standard e-commerce funnel: Session start > View product > Add to cart > Begin checkout > Purchase.
6. New User Acquisition by Channel
Why it's important: Where are your new customers coming from? This card breaks down which channels (Organic Search, Paid Search, Social Media, Email, etc.) are most effective at driving new eyeballs to your store. It helps you decide where to focus your marketing budget.
How to build it:
Search for the card named New users by Session default channel group.
This card displays a bar chart showing the sources bringing in the most new users to your site. This tells you about top-of-funnel performance.
7. Revenue by Channel
Why it's important: While attracting new users is great, you ultimately need to know which channels drive actual sales. This card complements the previous one by showing which channels are bringing in the highest-value customers who actually press "buy."
How to build it:
Search for and add the card Total Revenue by Session default channel group.
Adding this will perfectly complement the 'New Users' card, giving you a full-funnel view of which channels deliver both traffic and revenue.
8. Revenue by Device
Why it's important: Is your site optimized for shoppers on their phones? Are desktop users spending more per transaction? This simple pie or bar chart shows you how much revenue is coming from users on desktop, mobile, and tablet devices. A high volume of mobile traffic with low mobile revenue often points to issues with your mobile user experience.
How to build it:
Find the card named Total revenue by Device category.
Once added, it will give you an immediate visual breakdown of your revenue sources by device type.
Saving and Using Your New Dashboard
Once you’ve arranged your cards to your liking, click the Save button in the top right corner. Give your report a descriptive name like "Main Retail Dashboard" and click Save again.
But you're not done yet! Saving the report only adds it to your account's Library. To make it a permanent part of your main report navigation, you need to add it to a collection.
While an Admin user, or a profile with Edit permissions, remain in the Library section.
Find the collection where you'd like your new dashboard to live (e.g., "Lifecycle"). Click the three dots next to it and select Edit collection.
In the drag-and-drop interface, find your newly created "Main Retail Dashboard" in the right-hand column and drag it into the left-hand column, placing it where you want it to appear in the navigation.
Click Save, and then Save changes to current collection.
Now, your custom retail dashboard will appear in the left-hand navigation every time you log in, giving you instant access to your store's most important metrics.
Final Thoughts
Building a custom retail dashboard in Google Analytics is one of the most effective ways to translate raw clickstream data into a clear, actionable overview of your business's health. By bringing your essential metrics together, you save time, spot trends faster, and empower yourself to make better-informed decisions that truly drive growth.
While a GA dashboard is a massive step up from manual report-pulling, the setup process can still feel rigid if you’re not a data expert. At Graphed, we’ve focused on removing that friction entirely. Rather than building widgets card-by-card, our platform lets you connect all your data sources - like Google Analytics, Shopify, and Facebook Ads - and use simple, plain English to ask for what you need. Describing what you want to see is as easy as "Create a dashboard showing revenue by channel from Google Analytics and ad spend from Facebook for last month," and we’ll build the real-time, interactive dashboard for you in seconds.