Shopify Competitor Secrets:Proven Hacks to Estimate Revenue Accurately
In the highly saturated world of online shopping knowing how effectively your competitors are functioning can be a real advantage. It is useful whether you’re starting your own business from scratch or you’re an owner of an already running business to know the competitor’s source of income as it can help in many ways such as; in planning you marketing strategies or in just trying to edge out the competition. But how do you obtain such a precise piece of information, primarily about stores with Shopify hosting, if analytics are not open?
In this guide we will reveal two incredibly powerful techniques for how to estimate the revenue of any shopify store. These methods are not just informative: they are the instruments of competitor analysis, telling you what to do and where.
The Concept of Competitive Analysis
When it comes to operating an e-commerce business, one needs to be very dynamic. To always be innovative and remain competitive, you have to forecast the trends, spot the opportunities and shift your plan based on what is happening in the world. Competitive analysis gives you the instrumentalities through which you could do all of that. It is not enough to benchmark with another brand and marvel at how they’ve performed – you have to know how they got there.
If you can guess a competitor’s revenue, you can effectively work backwards with a competitor strategy, understand sources of a competitor’s success, or estimate the size of a competitor’s customer base. With this information, you will be in a position to realize areas of the market in which you’re lacking and how one can position your brand properly.
Below, let us consider some of the approaches that enable you to get the all-important data and achieve greater rates of business development.
Why Traditional Tools Aren’t Enough
Before we introduce these revenue-hacking methods, it’s important to acknowledge why conventional tools like Alexa, SimilarWeb, SEMrush, and Moz might fall short, especially for smaller stores. While these tools provide useful data for high-traffic websites, they aren’t as reliable for Shopify stores making under $2 million in annual revenue. They rely heavily on traffic estimates, which can be inaccurate, and converting traffic into sales isn’t something these tools can track accurately.
The methods we’ll discuss go beyond traffic estimates, providing you with a deeper, more accurate understanding of how much money your competitors are really making.
Method 1: The Order Number Hack – Your Inside Track to Sales Numbers
The Order Number Hack is one of the most accurate ways to estimate a Shopify store’s sales figures. Here’s how to implement it:
Identify the Store: First, confirm that the store runs on Shopify. This is easy to do. Simply visit the service BuiltWith, enter the store's URL, and you'll receive detailed information about the website, including which Content Management System (CMS) it’s using. If the store is built on Shopify, it will be clearly indicated in the results.
Discover Best-Selling Products: Use Shopify’s built-in ranking system to identify the store’s best sellers. To do this, append /collections/all?sort_by=best-selling to the store’s URL. This will bring up the store’s top-selling products, listed in order of sales volume. Understanding which products drive the most revenue is key to estimating the store’s average order value (AOV).
Make Two Small Purchases: To estimate the store's order volume, purchase the cheapest products on two separate occasions. You’ll receive an order confirmation email with a unique order number. Shopify automatically increments order numbers, so by comparing the order numbers from your two purchases, you can calculate how many orders the store fulfilled between those dates.
Calculate Revenue: Multiply the number of orders by the estimated AOV (including any shipping fees). This gives you a rough estimate of the store’s revenue over the period between your purchases.
Example: If you made a purchase on May 17th and received order number 34015, then made another purchase on May 20th and received order number 34265, the store made 250 orders in those three days. If the AOV is $25, the estimated revenue would be $6250 over those three days.
This method requires minimal investment (just the cost of two small purchases) but offers highly accurate results, especially for stores processing regular orders. It’s an inside look into their sales activity that most competitors would never expect you to have access to.
Method 2: The Inventory Hack – Monitoring Stock to Estimate Sales
While the Order Number Hack is effective, there’s another method that allows you to estimate a store’s sales without making any purchases. This is the Inventory Hack, which leverages Shopify's inventory tracking system.
Access Best-Selling Products: Like the previous method, start by identifying the store’s best sellers using the /collections/all?sort_by=best-selling URL extension.
Max Out the Add to Cart Quantity: Once you’ve identified a top-selling product, add an unrealistically large number of units to your cart (e.g., 1,000 units). Shopify will automatically adjust the quantity to match the actual stock levels. This is your baseline inventory figure.
Example:
On the product page:
On the checkout page (automatically adjusted quantity):
Monitor Inventory Changes: After a day or week, return to the product page and max out the cart again. The difference in available stock tells you how many units were sold during that period.
Calculate Revenue: Multiply the number of units sold by the product’s price to estimate the daily or weekly revenue. For example, if the inventory decreases by 42 units in a day and each unit sells for $25, the store makes $1050 from that product in one day.
Combining Both Methods for Maximum Accuracy
While each method is effective on its own, combining them provides a fuller, more accurate picture of your competitor’s performance. The Order Number Hack gives you a broad view of the store's total orders, while the Inventory Hack lets you zero in on specific products to track sales patterns.
For example, if you use the Order Number Hack to estimate overall sales volume and then the Inventory Hack to verify sales of specific products, you’ll have a detailed breakdown of both the store's revenue and its top-performing products.
How to Protect Your Own Store from Revenue Spying
Just as you can use these hacks to gather competitive intelligence, others might be doing the same to your Shopify store. Fortunately, Shopify provides ways to obscure your store’s sales data:
Hide Order Numbers: Shopify allows you to add prefixes and suffixes to your order numbers, making it harder for others to estimate your sales using the Order Number Hack.
Enable “Continue Selling When Out of Stock”: By enabling this setting, Shopify won’t show customers the actual inventory levels, rendering the Inventory Hack ineffective.
These simple adjustments can help protect your store’s sensitive sales data from prying eyes.
Why Revenue Hacking Matters for Your Success
Understanding your competitors' revenue is about more than just curiosity—it’s a strategic move that can shape the future of your business. Revenue hacking provides insights that help you:
Identify Market Leaders: By estimating how much revenue top stores are generating, you can identify key players in your industry and learn from their success.
Uncover Top-Selling Products: Knowing which products drive the most revenue allows you to tailor your offerings to what customers really want.
Gauge Market Saturation: Revenue estimates can help you determine whether a niche is too saturated or if there’s room for your brand to grow.
Spot Trends: Monitoring inventory changes over time can reveal product trends, helping you predict future demand.
These insights can make all the difference between launching a successful product and entering a market that’s too competitive or poorly targeted.
Final Thoughts: Turning Knowledge into Action
In e-commerce, knowledge is power. The more you understand about your competitors, the better positioned you are to make informed decisions about your own business. The Order Number Hack and Inventory Hack offer invaluable insights into your competitors' performance, providing the data you need to refine your strategies and outshine your rivals.
Now it’s time to put these strategies into action. Whether you're planning your next big product launch or refining your marketing approach, knowing how much revenue your competitors are generating gives you the confidence to move forward.