What is this page?
The Purchase Journey page (also known as Customer Journey or Cohort Journey) visualizes how customers move between products across multiple purchases. Using a Sankey diagram, it shows the flow of customers from their first purchase to their second, third, and beyond -- revealing which products attract first-time buyers, which products drive repeat purchases, and where customers tend to drop off. This helps you understand product relationships and optimize your catalog strategy.
When you open a new cohort or date selection for the first time, Dashboardly may briefly show Preparing customer journey while it builds the complete historical view. You can leave the page and return later. If a completed view is already available, it remains visible with an Updating state until the newest synced orders are included. Dashboardly does not combine an incomplete calculation with the completed result.
If Dashboardly is briefly updating the service behind this page, Purchase Journey automatically retries the complete read before showing an error. If the service remains unavailable, no partial journey is substituted; use Try Again after the update finishes.
Key Metrics on This Page
The page surfaces metrics in two layers: summary cards at the top of the page, and a Key Insights panel below the Sankey diagram.
Summary Cards (top of page)
A row of four cards summarizes the selected date range:
- Acquired Customers: The number of unique customers included in the journey analysis for the selected date range.
- Average Journey Retention: The percentage of customers who make a second purchase, averaged across the analyzed cohorts. A low retention rate means most customers only buy once -- use the Sankey to spot which products break this pattern.
- Journey Net Sales: Net Sales generated by the customers included in the journey analysis during their analysis window.
- Best Retained Cohort: The cohort with the strongest retained-customer performance in the selected period.
Key Insights Panel (below the Sankey)
Four insight cards are generated automatically from your customer data:
- Retention & Drop-off: Retention rate, the purchase step at which most customers stop buying, and the drop-off rate at that stage.
- Top Entry Products: Which products attract the most first-time buyers, with average price information -- your best entry products for customer acquisition.
- Net Sales Insights: Journey Net Sales, average Journey order Net Sales, average acquisition order Net Sales, and the total acquired customers in the selected view.
- Journey Analysis: A narrative summary of the flow, including common paths, strong repeat pairings, and stages where journeys branch or collapse.
Purchase Flow
- What it shows: The sequence of products customers buy over time, displayed as a flow diagram.
- Important: Each "step" in the flow represents a purchase event. The width of each flow line represents the number of customers taking that path.
First Purchase Distribution
- What it shows: Which products customers buy as their very first order in your shop.
- Important: Products that attract the most first-time buyers are your best "entry point" products for customer acquisition.
Repeat Purchase Paths
- What it shows: After their first purchase, which products do customers buy next?
- Important: Strong repeat purchase paths (e.g., Product A leads to Product B) suggest natural product pairings or upgrade paths you can leverage.
Drop-off Rate
- What it shows: The percentage of customers who do not make another purchase after each step.
- Important: A high drop-off after the first purchase means most customers only buy once. Strategies like follow-up emails, loyalty programs, or product bundles can help reduce this.
Features
Sankey Diagram
The main visualization is a Sankey (flow) diagram showing:
- Left side: First purchases grouped by product
- Flowing right: Subsequent purchases for customers who bought again
- Line width: Proportional to the number of customers in that path
- Colors: Different colors for different products to make paths easy to follow
Hover over any flow line to see the exact number of customers and the products involved.
Insight Metrics
At the top of the page, key insights are calculated automatically from your customer data:
- Retention Rate -- what percentage of customers make a second purchase
- Drop-off Stage -- at which purchase step most customers stop buying
- Top Entry Products -- which products attract the most first-time buyers, with average price information
- Average Steps per Customer -- how many purchases the typical repeat customer makes
- Revenue Growth -- how revenue changes across purchase steps
Filters
- Date range -- choose the period to analyze
- Number of steps -- control how many purchase steps to display (e.g., first 3 purchases, first 5 purchases)
- Minimum threshold -- hide paths with very few customers to focus on significant patterns
Product Focus
Click on a specific product to highlight all paths that include it, making it easy to trace how one product connects to others in the customer journey.
Actionable Takeaways
Use the journey data to inform your business strategy:
- Identify gateway products -- products that attract first-time buyers and lead to repeat purchases
- Create product bundles -- pair products that commonly appear together in the journey
- Target drop-off points -- use follow-up marketing at the stage where most customers stop buying
- Optimize catalog -- invest in products that drive the longest customer journeys
Common Questions
What does a wide flow line mean?
A wider line means more customers followed that path. For example, a wide line from Product A (first purchase) to Product B (second purchase) means many customers buy Product B after Product A.
Why do most customers drop off after the first purchase?
This is common in e-commerce. Many TikTok Shop buyers are impulse purchasers who may not return. You can use this data to identify which products have the best repeat rates and focus your marketing efforts accordingly.
How is this different from the Customers page?
The Customers page shows individual customer data (who they are, how much they spent). The Purchase Journey page shows aggregate patterns across all customers -- it is about the flow of behavior, not individual profiles. For cohort-level retention detail, see the Cohort Retention and Customer LTV sub-pages.
Can I see which products customers buy together in the same order?
The Customer Journey tracks purchases across separate orders over time. For products bought together in a single order, check the order details on the Orders page.
How far back does the journey data go?
The journey includes all orders in your selected date range. For the most meaningful patterns, select a longer time period (3-6 months or more) to capture repeat purchase behavior.