Google Analytics 4: What small stores actually need vs what it offers

You read a blog post titled “10 Must-Have E-commerce Analytics Tools.” Google Analytics 4 is #1. The article says: “Track everything. Understand your customers. Make data-driven decisions.”

You install GA4. Open the interface. See 50+ reports organized into Life Cycle, User, Events, Monetization, Retention, Demographics, Tech, Acquisition, Engagement...

You think: “Which of these will help me sell more products?”

You click through 10 reports. Each shows different numbers. Some contradict each other. You don’t know what half the metrics mean (“engaged sessions”? “engaged sessions per user”? “engagement rate”?). You close GA4 feeling more confused than before you opened it.

The promise: “Understand everything about your business.”

The reality: “Drown in data you don’t understand and can’t use.”

GA4 is built for enterprise companies with data analysts, complex customer journeys across multiple platforms, million-dollar ad budgets across 15 channels, and sophisticated attribution needs.

You run a small e-commerce store. You need to know: What sold yesterday? Where did customers come from? Is conversion rate normal? What should I do tomorrow?

There’s a massive gap between what GA4 offers and what small stores actually need. Understanding this gap helps you decide: Use GA4 as-is (and ignore 90% of it)? Simplify GA4 with custom setup? Or use purpose-built tools designed for small store needs?

Why the Gap Exists

GA4 is designed by Google for Google’s primary customers: Large enterprises with complex analytics needs and dedicated data teams.

Google’s design priorities:

• Multi-platform tracking (website + app + offline stores)

• Privacy-compliant data collection (cookieless future)

• Advanced ML/AI predictions (purchase probability, churn risk, revenue forecasting)

• Flexible event-based model (track anything, any way)

• Deep integration with Google Ads (attribution, audience building, bidding optimization)

Small store actual needs:

• Daily monitoring: Are sales up or down?

• Simple tracking: Where do customers come from?

• Basic insights: What’s selling well?

• Quick decisions: Should I adjust ad spend / reorder inventory / fix something?

• Minimal time investment: 2-5 minutes daily, not 45-minute deep dives

GA4 can technically do what small stores need, but it’s like using Excel to add 2+2. Yes, Excel can do it. But a calculator is faster and simpler for that specific job.

What Doesn’t Work

“I’ll just learn all of GA4 and use what I need”: Learning all of GA4 takes 40-80 hours. Learning which 10% is relevant to your small store takes another 10-20 hours. That’s 50-100 hours to achieve what a pre-configured tool does in 30 minutes.

“I’ll hire someone to set up GA4 for me”: A consultant can configure GA4 for e-commerce (5,000-15,000 kr), but you still need to learn how to use what they built. And GA4 updates constantly—their setup might break or become outdated in 6 months.

“I’ll follow a ’GA4 for small stores’ tutorial”: Helps, but tutorials still assume you want to use GA4 daily. They reduce complexity from “overwhelming” to “manageable,” not “simple.” You still spend 10+ minutes per daily check instead of 2 minutes with purpose-built tools.

Ignoring GA4 entirely: You miss out on deep analysis capabilities when you occasionally need them. Better approach: Install GA4 (for data collection), but use simpler tools for daily monitoring. GA4 becomes your “deep dive tool” instead of daily driver.

Real Solutions

Here’s the precise gap between GA4’s offerings and small store needs, with practical ways to bridge it.

Solution 1: What Small Stores Actually Need (The Essential 8)

Metric 1: Sales (Revenue)

• Need: Total revenue for yesterday, this week, this month

• Comparisons needed: vs previous day, vs last week, vs same day last year

• Why it matters: Core business metric—everything else supports this

• GA4 offers: Purchase revenue in Monetization > E-commerce purchases (requires navigation, manual date range selection, manual comparison calculation)

• Easier alternative: Daily email report with automatic comparisons pre-calculated

Metric 2: Orders (Transaction Count)

• Need: Number of orders yesterday/week/month

• Why it matters: Separates “more sales” (more orders) from “higher value sales” (higher AOV). Different optimization strategies for each.

• GA4 offers: Transaction count in E-commerce purchases report

• Easier alternative: Included in daily report alongside revenue

Metric 3: Conversion Rate

• Need: Percentage of visitors who purchased

• Why it matters: If traffic is constant but conversion rate drops, you have site/checkout issue. If conversion rate is constant but sales drop, you have traffic issue. Different problems, different solutions.

• GA4 offers: Available in E-commerce purchases report, but definition varies (session conversion rate vs user conversion rate—confusing)

• Easier alternative: Pre-calculated in daily report, defined consistently

Metric 4: Average Order Value (AOV)

• Need: Average revenue per order

• Why it matters: Identifies opportunities for upselling, bundling, or pricing optimization

• GA4 offers: Displayed in E-commerce purchases, but requires calculating significance (is 5% AOV increase meaningful or noise?)

• Easier alternative: Daily report shows AOV with trend indicators

Metric 5: Sessions (Traffic)

• Need: How many people visited the site

• Why it matters: Sales drop could be traffic drop (marketing issue) or conversion drop (site issue). You need to know which.

• GA4 offers: Multiple session definitions (sessions, engaged sessions, users, active users—confusing)

• Easier alternative: One clear “sessions” metric in daily report

Metric 6: Top Products (Top 3-5)

• Need: Which products are selling best this week

• Why it matters: Reorder inventory, feature in marketing, identify trends early

• GA4 offers: Item list in E-commerce purchases > Item-related metrics (requires customizing columns, sorting, filtering)

• Easier alternative: Top 5 products listed automatically in daily report

Metric 7: Top Traffic Sources (Top 3-5)

• Need: Where customers are coming from (Google, Facebook, Instagram, Direct, etc.)

• Why it matters: If Google organic drops 40%, you have SEO issue. If Facebook drops, check ads. Source-specific problems require source-specific solutions.

• GA4 offers: Multiple source reports (Session source, First user source, Session source/medium—confusing attribution)

• Easier alternative: Top 5 channels in daily report with clear attribution

Metric 8: Top Pages (Top 3-5)

• Need: Which pages get most traffic

• Why it matters: Identify high-traffic pages for optimization, understand what content drives visits

• GA4 offers: Pages and screens report (requires navigation, sorting)

• Easier alternative: Top 5 pages listed in daily report

Total: 8 metrics that answer 90% of daily e-commerce questions.

Peasy connects to Shopify, WooCommerce, and Google Analytics 4—delivering daily email reports with sales, orders, conversion rate, average order value, sessions, top products, top pages, and top channels—with comparisons showing today vs yesterday, this week vs last week, this month vs last month, and same periods last year. Exactly what small stores need, nothing more. Try free for 14 days.

Solution 2: What GA4 Offers (The Enterprise 200+)

GA4 provides 200+ metrics and dimensions. Here’s what small stores rarely need:

Advanced predictive metrics:

• Purchase probability (which users are likely to buy)

• Churn probability (which customers might leave)

• Revenue prediction (forecasted future revenue)

• Small store reality: Requires thousands of monthly transactions for accuracy. Most small stores don’t have enough data volume for meaningful predictions.

Cross-device tracking:

• User journey across mobile, desktop, tablet

• Small store reality: Interesting but not actionable. You can’t force users to behave differently across devices. Knowing the pattern doesn’t change your decisions.

Multi-touch attribution:

• Which 5 touchpoints led to a purchase (email + organic + social + direct + ad)

• Data-driven attribution models (ML-based credit distribution)

• Small store reality: You have 3-5 marketing channels, not 15. Last-click attribution (“which channel drove the sale?”) is sufficient for optimizing small budgets.

Advanced audience building:

• Complex audience segments (users who viewed Product A, added Product B to cart, but didn’t purchase within 7 days, and came from Facebook)

• Predictive audiences (likely 7-day purchasers)

• Small store reality: Useful for large retargeting budgets (10,000+ kr/month). Most small stores have simpler retargeting (“abandoned cart” audience is enough).

Event tracking customization:

• Track any custom event (button clicks, video plays, scroll depth, form interactions)

• Small store reality: Purchase events and page views are 95% of what you need. Custom events are for optimizing specific user flows—only valuable when you have enough traffic for statistically significant testing (1,000+ sessions/day minimum).

Cohort analysis:

• How do users who first visited in January behave differently from February visitors over 6 months?

• Small store reality: Interesting for understanding long-term customer behavior, but requires 6-12 months of data and doesn’t change daily decisions.

Explorations (advanced analysis):

• Funnel analysis, path analysis, segment overlap, user lifetime analysis

• Small store reality: Valuable for optimization projects (“reduce checkout abandonment”), but not daily monitoring. Use monthly or quarterly, not daily.

Pattern: GA4 offers enterprise-level analysis. Small stores need daily monitoring.

Solution 3: The Gap Visualization

What small stores need daily (8 metrics):

1. Sales

2. Orders

3. Conversion Rate

4. AOV

5. Sessions

6. Top Products

7. Top Channels

8. Top Pages

What GA4 offers (200+ metrics, including):

• The 8 above (buried in complex interface)

• Plus 192+ additional metrics you rarely need: Engaged sessions, Engagement rate, Engaged sessions per user, Views per session, Average engagement time, Event count, Conversions, Total revenue, Total users, New users, Returning users, User engagement, Session key event rate, User key event rate... (and 170+ more)

The problem: Finding the 8 needed metrics among 200 options requires:

• Knowing which metrics matter (expertise)

• Navigating to correct reports (training)

• Ignoring irrelevant data (discipline)

• Manually calculating comparisons (time)

• Interpreting what’s normal vs abnormal (experience)

The alternative: Purpose-built tools show only the 8 needed metrics.

• No navigation required (email delivery)

• No filtering required (pre-configured for e-commerce)

• Comparisons automatic (vs yesterday, last week, last year)

• Context provided (trend indicators, thresholds)

Solution 4: When You Need More Than the Essential 8

Small stores occasionally need deeper analysis. Here’s when GA4’s extra features become valuable:

Scenario 1: Conversion rate dropped 25% and you don’t know why

• Daily monitoring tool: Identifies the problem (“Conversion rate down 25% for 3 days”)

• GA4 deep dive: Answers WHY (break down by device—mobile conversion crashed; desktop normal → mobile site issue)

• Frequency: Monthly or when issues arise

• Time: 30-60 minutes investigation

Scenario 2: You’re launching new marketing channel and want to understand its quality

• Daily monitoring: Shows traffic from new channel

• GA4 deep dive: Compare conversion rate, AOV, bounce rate, time on site for new channel vs existing channels → Determine if channel is worth scaling

• Frequency: When launching new channels (quarterly?)

• Time: 1-2 hours analysis

Scenario 3: Optimizing checkout flow

• Daily monitoring: Shows overall conversion rate

• GA4 deep dive: Funnel analysis—where do users drop off? (Product page → Cart 40%, Cart → Checkout 70%, Checkout → Purchase 60%) → Focus optimization on Cart → Checkout step

• Frequency: 1-2× per year optimization projects

• Time: 2-4 hours analysis + implementation

Scenario 4: Understanding seasonal patterns

• Daily monitoring: Shows year-over-year comparisons

• GA4 deep dive: Analyze 12-month trends, identify recurring patterns, understand which products are seasonal vs evergreen

• Frequency: Annually for planning

• Time: 2-3 hours analysis

Pattern: GA4’s advanced features are valuable 5-10% of the time (deep investigations, optimization projects, strategic planning). Daily monitoring tools handle the other 90-95% (routine checks, trend awareness).

Solution 5: Bridging the Gap—Practical Approaches

Approach A: Use GA4 as-is, ignore 90% of features

• Pro: Free

• Con: Still requires navigating complex interface daily, 10-15 min per check, easy to get distracted by irrelevant metrics

• Best for: Analytical people who enjoy exploring data, or stores with very tight budgets (under 50k kr/month revenue)

Approach B: Customize GA4 (dashboards, bookmarks, filters)

• Pro: Free, reduces friction somewhat

• Con: 4-8 hours setup time, still requires daily logins, breaks when GA4 updates

• Best for: People with time to set up but not budget for paid tools

Approach C: Use dedicated e-commerce tool for daily monitoring

• Pro: Zero setup (pre-configured), email delivery (zero friction), 2-3 min daily checks

• Con: 300-500 kr/month cost

• Best for: Store owners who value their time, want consistent daily monitoring without effort

Approach D: Hybrid (dedicated tool + GA4)

• Pro: Daily monitoring via email (simple tool) + deep analysis via GA4 (when needed)

• Con: 300-500 kr/month cost for simple tool

• Best for: Most small stores (50k-500k kr monthly revenue)—balances simplicity and analytical power

Recommendation for most small stores: Approach D (hybrid). You get immediate daily value (simple tool) while keeping GA4 available for occasional deep dives.

Solution 6: The ROI Question

“Is paying for analytics worth it when GA4 is free?”

Calculate your time value:

• GA4 daily monitoring: 10-15 min/day

• Email report: 2-3 min/day

• Time saved: 8-12 min/day = 4-6 hours/month

• At 300 kr/hour: 1,200-1,800 kr/month value

• Cost of tool: 300-500 kr/month

• Net value: 700-1,500 kr/month saved

Plus consistency value:

• GA4 (manual): 60% of small store owners check 4-5×/week (not daily)

• Email reports: 90%+ check daily (automatic delivery)

• Value of catching issues 2-3 days earlier: Hard to quantify, but one avoided conversion rate problem pays for tool for a year

Break-even: If your time is worth more than 150 kr/hour, paid tools pay for themselves in time savings alone.

FAQ

Q: Can’t I just use Shopify Analytics or WooCommerce Reports and skip both GA4 and paid tools?

Yes, for basic daily monitoring. Shopify Analytics shows sales, orders, traffic, conversion rate—covers 80% of daily needs. Limitations: No email reports (must log in daily), limited year-over-year comparisons, WooCommerce Reports are more basic. Good free option if you’re disciplined about daily logins and don’t need cross-platform view. But email-based tools still win on habit formation (automatic delivery beats manual login).

Q: What if I only use 3-4 metrics—do I still need all 8?

Depends which 3-4. Sales + Traffic + Conversion Rate (3 metrics) covers 70% of daily needs. But you’ll eventually want to know “What’s selling well?” (top products) and “Where is traffic coming from?” (channels). Most stores naturally expand from 3-4 core metrics to 6-8 as they grow. Tools that show 8 metrics don’t require more time to review (still 2-3 min)—you just scan what’s relevant.

Q: At what point do small stores actually need GA4’s advanced features?

When you have enough data volume for advanced features to be statistically meaningful. Rules of thumb: Predictive metrics need 1,000+ monthly transactions. Funnel optimization needs 500+ daily sessions. Multi-touch attribution needs 5,000+ monthly transactions. Most stores hit these thresholds around 5-10M kr annual revenue. Below that, advanced features are interesting but not actionable (too much noise, not enough signal).

Q: Can I set up GA4 to show only the 8 metrics I need?

Somewhat. You can create custom reports in GA4 Explorations that show only specific metrics. But: Takes 2-4 hours to set up correctly, still requires daily login (friction), no automatic email delivery, and setup breaks when GA4 updates (requires maintenance). Possible but not as simple as tools designed for this purpose. If you enjoy building custom reports, go for it. If you want “set it and forget it,” use dedicated tool.

Q: What happens if a paid analytics tool shuts down—do I lose my data?

No. Your data lives in Shopify/WooCommerce/GA4—the paid tool just reports on it. If a tool shuts down, your transaction data and GA4 historical data remain intact. You just switch to a different reporting tool. This is why hybrid approach (dedicated tool + GA4) is safer: You always have GA4 as backup data source.

Q: How do I know if I’m in the “small store” category that doesn’t need GA4’s full power?

If you answer “no” to most of these, you’re a small store for analytics purposes: Do you have a dedicated data analyst? (not “owner who checks analytics,” but someone whose job is analytics). Do you run 10+ marketing channels simultaneously? Do you have 1,000+ daily sessions? Do you have multiple product lines with completely different customer behaviors? Do you sell across multiple platforms (web + app + retail)? Small stores: 1-3 people checking analytics, 3-5 marketing channels, under 500 daily sessions, 1-2 product categories, web-only. This describes 80%+ of e-commerce stores.

Peasy connects to Shopify, WooCommerce, and Google Analytics 4—delivering daily email reports with sales, orders, conversion rate, average order value, sessions, top products, top pages, and top channels—with comparisons showing today vs yesterday, this week vs last week, this month vs last month, and same periods last year. Built for what small stores actually need. Try free for 14 days.