How to Enable Enhanced eCommerce for the Plugin-created Reports?
Turning on Enable Enhanced eCommerce activates the collection of ecommerce-specific data for your store: product views, add to cart, remove from cart, checkout steps, purchases, refunds, and more. This data is sent to your connected GA4 property, where it powers GA4's built-in ecommerce (Monetization) reports.
In The Article
Benefits
Enabling Enhanced eCommerce can help:
- See your full funnel in GA4, from product views through purchase
- Understand where customers drop off between cart, checkout, and payment
- Automatically populate GA4's Monetization reports, revenue, transactions, and purchased products, with no extra event setup
How to Enable Enhanced eCommerce
Step 1: Open Core Tracking
Go to Ecommerce Tracking → Tracking Configuration and open the Core Tracking section under Tracking Configuration.
Step 2: Turn on Enable Enhanced eCommerce
Turn on Enable Enhanced eCommerce.
Step 3: Save your settings
Save your changes. GA4 starts receiving ecommerce events from your store from this point on.
Unlike the older Universal Analytics setup, GA4 doesn't require a separate "enable ecommerce" step inside your Google Analytics account. As soon as GA4 starts receiving these events, they automatically populate GA4's built-in Monetization reports, there's nothing extra to turn on in GA4 itself.
Events Sent with Enhanced eCommerce
| Event | When it fires |
|---|---|
view_item |
Customer views a single product page |
view_item_list |
Customer sees products in a list, on the homepage, category, product page related-products section, and elsewhere products are displayed |
select_item |
Customer clicks a product from one of those lists |
add_to_cart |
Customer adds a product to the cart |
remove_from_cart |
Customer removes a product from the cart |
view_cart |
Customer views the cart page |
begin_checkout |
Customer starts checkout |
checkout_progress |
Customer moves through a checkout step (for example, guest checkout's final step before payment) |
select_promotion |
A promotion or fee is applied during checkout |
add_payment_info |
Sent together with purchase when an order is completed |
add_shipping_info |
Sent together with purchase when an order is completed |
purchase |
Order is completed, on the thank-you page, or when a manually created admin order is first viewed |
refund |
An order is fully refunded in WooCommerce; sent on the customer's next page load after the refund |
Special Cases
Manual order tracking. If you create an order directly in wp-admin (for example, a phone order) rather than through the storefront, that order never triggers a frontend thank-you page. The plugin tracks these too: the first time you open that order in wp-admin (with Enhanced eCommerce on and status Processing or Completed), it fires a one-time purchase event so the sale isn't missing from GA4.
Refunds are tracked separately. A full refund on an order queues a refund event, which is then sent on the customer's next page load rather than the moment the refund is processed.
Viewing This Data in GA4
Once Enhanced eCommerce is on and events start firing, you can check the data in a few places in GA4:
- Reports → Monetization → Ecommerce purchases — shows revenue, transactions, and purchased products, built automatically from your
purchaseevents, no extra configuration needed - Reports → Engagement → Events — lists every individual event (
view_item,add_to_cart,begin_checkout,purchase,refund, and so on) with its count. Click an event name to see its parameters, likevalue,currency, oritems - Reports → Realtime — useful right after setup, browse your store in another tab and confirm events like
add_to_cartorview_itemappear within a few seconds
For funnel analysis (seeing where customers drop off between view_item , add_to_cart , begin_checkout , and purchase ), GA4's Explore → Funnel exploration template lets you build a custom funnel using these same events.
Example Use Cases
Diagnosing cart abandonment: If you want to see where customers drop off, compare add_to_cart , begin_checkout , and purchase counts in GA4 to spot the biggest gaps in your funnel.
Tracking phone or manual orders: If your store takes orders over the phone and enters them manually in wp-admin, Enhanced eCommerce still captures them as purchases once you view the order.
Reconciling refunds: If your revenue numbers in GA4 look off after refunds, check the refund event to confirm it's being received and subtracted correctly.
Conclusion
Enhanced eCommerce is what turns on GA4's full purchase funnel tracking, from product views to purchases and refunds, with no separate setup required on the GA4 side. Turn on the toggle, save, and GA4's Monetization reports start filling in automatically.
FAQs
1. Do I need to enable anything in my GA4 account as well?
No. Unlike the older Universal Analytics setup, GA4 doesn't require a manual "enable ecommerce" step. Once GA4 receives these events, its Monetization reports populate automatically.
2. Are manually created orders in wp-admin tracked?
Yes. If Enhanced eCommerce is on, opening a manually created order in wp-admin (in Processing or Completed status) fires a one-time purchase event, so it isn't missing from your GA4 data.
3. How quickly do refunds show up in GA4?
A full refund is queued and sent as a refund event on the customer's next page load, not instantly at the moment the refund is processed.