Find and Sidekick: Shopify store analytics in plain words

Find takes you straight to your Shopify store’s analytics in Store Decode. You type a question in plain words, and it opens the view that shows the answer, with the page, device and window already set. Shopify Sidekick can use the same questions. When you ask Sidekick about your homepage sections, collections or traffic sources, Store Decode gives it the same replies Find gives, with a link that opens Store Decode on that view.

Type it in Find

• Homepage sections with dead clicks
• Which collections get the most clicks?
• Where do sessions come from?

Type it in Find on Home or Explore and Store Decode opens the view with your numbers.

Store Decode Desktop · 7 days

97 dead clicks

On an image in Why Tidewell that isn’t a link.

Sample store · 1,900 sessions

Sample store · Desktop · 7 days · 1,900 sessions

What Find shows you, and what it does not

Find works on your store’s own measurements: how visitors view and click your homepage sections, collections, product pages, cart and traffic sources. Each question you type lands on one of three things:

• The right view: Explore opens on the tab, device, window and row that holds it, with its filters set.
• A number or a short table, on Home: how many carts reached checkout, for example, with the device, the window and the sessions behind it.
• A picture: bars for a comparison, such as mobile against desktop, or the page map coloured by what you typed.

Find does not answer help questions such as “how do I install”. Those belong to these docs and to Support. It does not predict results, compare your store with other stores or change your theme. It also says plainly what Store Decode does not measure: order returns and refunds, email opens, ad spend and profit.

Where to find it

At the top of Home, Find is the card titled Find in Store Decode. Under the field, three starters follow the word Try. The link See all 42 things you can find opens the full list, grouped by the page each one opens. The card appears once Store Decode is collecting from your store. Until then, Home shows the setup steps of installing Store Decode.

On Explore, Find is a strip above the page tiles, with the field, the Find button and three starters for the tab you are on. What can I find here? lists everything that tab can show.

Typing a question

Click the field and the starters for that page appear. Start typing and the list fills with your own section and collection names, so a few letters of a name offer the whole name. Tab completes the highlighted row and Enter finds it. On a phone, touch a row.

You can name a device (“on mobile”), a window (“yesterday”, “last 7 days”, “last month”) and one of your sections, collections, traffic sources or countries. Store Decode shows at most 30 days at a time. A longer window is cut to 30 days, and the result says so.

Reading what Find returns

A view opens with a line starting Found that says what was found, then pills for the page, device and window. Clear removes the find and leaves the view where it is.

A number or table on Home always carries its device, its window and its sessions. A rate needs 300 sessions behind it. Below that, Find shows the count so far against 300 and names what appears once there are 300. Open in Explore takes you to the full view.

When two views fit your words equally well, Find offers up to three under Did you mean. Each names your own section or collection, the device and the window, so you pick the one you meant.

When nothing fits, Find says so in one sentence and offers the closest view it does have. A question it cannot place reads “Store Decode could not place that question.” Each of these carries Copy question for Sidekick, because Shopify’s own data may hold what you are looking for.

Find through Shopify Sidekick

Sidekick is the assistant built into your Shopify admin. Store Decode adds four tools to it, so you can ask Sidekick about your store in your own words and get Store Decode’s numbers in the reply.

• A question to a view. Sidekick passes your question to Store Decode, which matches it the way Find does and returns the view’s line and a link to it.
• Your homepage sections, with Views, clicks per 100 views, dead clicks, orders after a click and the signal of each.
• Your collections, with page views and clicks per 100 views.
• Your traffic sources, with sessions and adds to cart.

Each list holds up to 10 rows, with the device, the window and the sessions behind it. Orders after a click carry their rule, “last click, 7 days”. The window is the last 14 days unless you name another, from 1 to 30 days. Sidekick writes the reply around these numbers in its own words. The link in the reply opens Store Decode on that view, so you can check every number on the screen it came from.

The numbers are the ones Explore shows, behind the same minimums. When Store Decode does not measure something, its reply says so and carries no number. Shopify’s own data may still hold what you asked about.

Try this

• Type the question you would otherwise click through Explore for, such as “Which homepage sections do phones skip?”, and switch the view it opens to desktop.
• While you work on your theme, ask Sidekick “Which of my homepage sections get dead clicks?” to find the section to look at first.

Common questions

Can Shopify Sidekick see how my homepage sections perform?

Yes, once Store Decode is installed. Sidekick can list your homepage sections with their Views, clicks per 100 views, dead clicks and orders after a click. Views are the share of the sessions with a section on the page that saw at least half of it.

Can apps add their data to Sidekick?

Yes. Shopify lets apps give Sidekick extra data through Sidekick app extensions, and Store Decode is one of them. Its tools only read: they never change your store, your theme or your settings.

Is Find a chat?

No. Find is a finder: there is no thread and nothing is stored for each find. When your words match no view, a language model may pick the closest one from Store Decode’s own list. It never sees a number and never writes the text you read.

Why did Find open a view and not show a number?

Half of the 42 questions are best shown by a view, such as the page map coloured by dead clicks, so they always open one. On Explore every find opens a view. On Home, a find under a traffic source or country filter opens a view too, because Explore applies that filter’s own rules. A number on Home is always the number its linked view shows.

Related

The views Find opens are explained on their own pages: the page map, Explore and Observations. For how a number earns its place, see how Store Decode measures.

Try three questions on the sample store on the home page.