[GA4] About ecommerce metrics

Google Analytics offers two types of ecommerce metrics that provide quantitative data about ecommerce events:

• An event-scoped metric counts the number of times an ecommerce event was triggered.
• An item-scoped metric counts the number of times users interacted with items in an ecommerce event.

For example, a customer adds 3 quantities of the Stan and Friends Tee and 2 quantities of the Google Grey Women's Tee to their shopping cart. You would see the following ecommerce metric values:

• The event-scoped metric "Add to carts" would be 1
• The item-scoped metric "Items added to cart" for the Stan and Friends Tee would be 3
• The item-scoped metric "Items added to cart" for the Google Grey Women's Tee would be 2

How are the metrics different

The following table describes the difference between the event-scoped and item-scoped version of each ecommerce metric:

Event-scoped metric	What it is	Item-scoped metric	What it is	Example
Add to carts	The number of times users triggered the add_to_cart event.	Items added to cart	The number of items in the add_to_cart event.	If a user added 3 quantities of the Stan and Friends Tee and then added 2 quantities of the Google Grey Women's Tee to their shopping cart, then: Add to carts = 2 Items added to cart for Stan and Friends Tee = 3 Items added to cart for Google Grey Women's Tee = 2
Checkouts	The number of times users triggered the begin_checkout event.	Items checked out	The number of items in the begin_checkout event.	If a user began checkout with 3 quantities of the Stan and Friends Tee and 2 quantities of the Google Grey Women's Tee, then: Checkouts = 1 Items checked out for Stan and Friends Tee = 3 Items checked out for Google Grey Women's Tee = 2
Item-list click events	The number of times users triggered the select_item event.	Items clicked in list	The number of items in the select_item event.	If a user clicked a Stan and Friends Tee in a list, then: Item-list click events = 1 Items clicked in list = 1
Item-list view events	The number of times users triggered the view_item_list event.	Items viewed in list	The number of items in the view_item_list event.	If a user views a list comprising of 3 quantities of the Stan and Friends Tee and 2 quantities of the Google Grey Women's Tee, then: Item-list view events = 1 Items viewed in list for Stan and Friends Tee = 3 Items viewed in list for Google Grey Women's Tee = 2
Item view events	The number of times users triggered the view_item event.	Items viewed	The number of items in the view_item event.	If a user views the Stan and Friends Tee, then: Item view events = 1 Items viewed = 1
Promotion clicks	The number of times users triggered the select_promotion event.	Items clicked in promotion	The number of items in the select_promotion event.	If a user clicked a promotion for the Stan and Friends Tee, then: Promotion clicks = 1 Items clicked in promotion = 1
Promotion views	The number of times users triggered the view_promotion event.	Items viewed in promotion	The number of items in the view_promotion event.	If a user viewed a promotion for the Stan and Friends Tee, then: Promotion views = 1 Items viewed in promotion = 1
Purchases	The number of times users triggered the purchase event.	Items purchased	The number of items in the purchase event.	If a user purchased 3 quantities of the Stan and Friends Tee and 2 quantities of the Google Grey Women's Tee, then: Purchases = 1 Items purchased for Stan and Friends Tee = 3 Items purchased for Google Grey Women's Tee = 2
Quantity	The number of the quantity parameter at the event level.	Item quantity	The number of units for a single item included in an ecommerce event	If a user purchased 3 quantities of the Stan and Friends Tee and 2 quantities of the Google Grey Women's Tee, then: Quantity = 5 Items purchased for Stan and Friends Tee = 3 Items purchased for Google Grey Women's Tee = 2
Refunds	The number of times users triggered the refund event.	Item refund	The number of items in the refund event.	If a user was refunded 3 quantities of the Stan and Friends Tee and 2 quantities of the Google Grey Women's Tee, then: Refunds = 1 Item refund for Stan and Friends Tee = 3 Item refund for Google Grey Women's Tee = 2

Using reports to see ecommerce metrics

The Ecommerce purchases report includes item-scoped dimensions and metrics that let you see how well each item is performing.

By default, the Ecommerce purchases report includes the "Item name" dimension and metrics like "Items viewed" and "Items added to cart", which allow you to see how many times each item is viewed and added to cart.

Using explorations to see ecommerce metrics

When you want to investigate ecommerce activity further, you can create an exploration. Explorations can include item-scoped dimensions and metrics or event-scoped dimensions and metrics.

For example, the following exploration uses item-scoped dimensions and metrics and shows that 5,697 items were sold, including 291 Google Ombre Lime Pen's. You could add the "Total purchasers" metric to see that only 616 purchasers drove those sales and only 27 purchasers drove the Google Ombre Lime Pen sales.

To see how many times the purchase event was triggered in the same period, you can use the event-scoped "Purchases'' metric. By applying the "Purchases" metric, you can see how many times users completed purchases on your website or app.

The "Purchases" metric (and other event-scoped metrics) is not fully compatible with the item-scoped dimensions like "Item name", so you can't break down the data like you did using "Items purchased" or "Total purchasers".

However, you can apply a filter to find out that the Google Ombre Lime Pen was purchased 27 times. When applying a filter for an item-scoped dimension to an exploration with an event-scoped metric, the filter must use the "exactly matches" match type.

Note: Event-scoped and item-scoped dimensions and metrics are incompatible with one another in reports and explorations. Any time you use an item-scoped dimension, you must select an item-scoped metric rather than the equivalent event-scoped metric. The same applies to event-scoped dimensions and metrics. For example, you can't look at the "Item brand" dimension with the "Add to carts" metric, but you can look at "Item brand" with "Items added to cart".