OK, STRIKE EVERYTHING ABOVE IN THIS STRING.
Here is the solution and answers to my challenges, in case it might help somebody else also struggling unnecessarily:
Premise: You want to track sales conversions.
1. Setting up a Goal in Google Analytics (GA) to track sales conversions on your Weebly website will NOT work, simply because of the way Weebly is set up
2. The way to track sales conversions with GA on a Weebly website is by using the Ecommerce function/section in GA, which will give you the sales conversion data plus much more details than what you would have seen had the Goal setup worked with Weebly
This is fantastic stuff. Normally setting up ecommerce tracking on a website requires a bit more work and advanced skills, but with Weebly it's extremely simple:
a) Activate Ecommerce tracking in your GAs setup
b) Simply enter your GA Tracking ID in Store - Setup - Tracking (in the top field already showing the two first characters of a Tracking ID, which is UA-..)
This guide from Weebly shows you what to do:
https://hc.weebly.com/hc/en-us/articles/201879947
Note that it might take up to 48 hours for data to start showing in the GA Ecommerce section, so be patient..
The above is pretty much all you need to know, but if you have been confused for the same reasons as I, the below might help clarify things.
CONFUSION
The above linked guide from Weebly unfortunately confused me.
One thing is that I simply did not register the distinction between setting up a Goal in GA to track sales conversions and using Ecommerce, as I thought Ecommerce would require coding skills, which it certainly does not with Weebly.
The guide seemed to confirm the need for coding, as below the last illustration, it says "Once the code is in place..", and I thought this referred to entering custom code in the three bottom fields in Store - Setup - Tracking (with the headers CUSTOM TRACKING..").
You can in fact IGNORE these three fields. As setting up ecommerce tracking is usually more complex, I thought that these fields had to be completed, but this is not the case. The "Once the code is in place.." sentence in the guide should have read "Once your GA tracking ID is in place.."
In other words, all you have to do is enter your GA Tracking ID in the top field and forget about the three other fields. This will give you access to advanced ecommerce data from your website in the section Ecommerce in GA (provided that you have followed the above guide and activated Ecommerce in GA, which is really just to slide a button to on).
The three CUSTOM TRACKING fields I'm asking you to ignore, is from what I understand for rare cases and for very advanced users who would like to set up custom code to track ecommerce data with their own system instead of using GA, for instance.
What of course really thru me off was trying desperately to get the Goal for tracking sales conversions that I had set up in GA to work. This will simply never work, no matter what tweaks you try in the Goal setup.
The answer is as stated to use the dead simple to set up Ecommerce to get this information plus detailed information about your sales.
Another thing that really added to the confusion was that I was trying to use Google Tag Manager to check whether our GA Tracking ID and code was working properly on our site.
Lesson learned: Forget abut checking your Weebly website with Google Tag Manager. The Google Tag Manager will always report multiple Google IDs on your site, because Weebly has its own ID on your page as well, without this actually causing any problems with GA, but the Tag Manager will nonetheless suggest that you remove what it registers as superfluous or potentially conflicting tags.
Here’s the thank you email that I sent this morning to the genius that cleared everything up for me –it further illuminates why you should never use Google Tag Manager with your Weebly website:
“
… Today my test purchase of yesterday appeared under the Ecommerce section in Google Analytics with all the purchase details. Just beautiful stuff and such a huge relief. I was completely focused on Goals in GA, and nobody from Weebly was able to say what you said yesterday: Using a Goal to track sales conversions on Weebly will not work, but you have an extremely simple setup for Ecommerce, which will allow you to track sales conversions with much more detail. You probably entered our Google tracking code under Store - Setup - Tracking yesterday, which is why my purchase showed up in GA today. I might not have checked the Ecommerce section in GA when I was testing, since I was so set on using the Goal for tracking sales conversions, but even if I had, the data would not have been there. The reason: I was using Google Tag Manager to check whether things were working properly on the website, and when checking the store check-out page, the Tag Manager would complain about detecting multiple tags, which could cause issues, and I would subsequently remove our tracking code entered in Store - Setup - Tracking, thinking that the tracking ID/code entered in Settings - SEO - Header Code would be sufficient (this then produced a green smiling face in the Tag Manager). Wisdom learned: forget about using Google Tag Manager with Weebly..
“
When I now see how insanely simple this all is with Weebly, I’m unsure whether to laugh or cry having spent tons of time over the last three weeks to get this to work.
Life’s too short, so the laugh’s on me! 
PS I
Using the Google Tag Manager (foolishly), I got confused in terms of our website having multiple GA tracking codes/ids. This then lead me to wonder whether it’s OK to have your GA tracking code/ID both in the Settings – SEO – Header Code field and the Store – Setup – Tracking field. Answer is YES. The former is for general GA to work and the latter for Ecommerce reporting to work. Simple as that
PS II
If you are not really comfortable with Google Analytics, I highly recommend their free online course Google Analytics for Beginners, found on the Google Analytics Academy homepage:
https://analytics.google.com/analytics/academy/
Time extremely well invested!
OK, STRIKE EVERYTHING ABOVE IN THIS STRING.
Here is the solution and answers to my challenges, in case it might help somebody else also struggling unnecessarily:
Premise: You want to track sales conversions.
1. Setting up a Goal in Google Analytics (GA) to track sales conversions on your Weebly website will NOT work, simply because of the way Weebly is set up
2. The way to track sales conversions with GA on a Weebly website is by using the Ecommerce function/section in GA, which will give you the sales conversion data plus much more details than what you would have seen had the Goal setup worked with Weebly
This is fantastic stuff. Normally setting up ecommerce tracking on a website requires a bit more work and advanced skills, but with Weebly it's extremely simple:
a) Activate Ecommerce tracking in your GAs setup
b) Simply enter your GA Tracking ID in Store - Setup - Tracking (in the top field already showing the two first characters of a Tracking ID, which is UA-..)
This guide from Weebly shows you what to do:
https://hc.weebly.com/hc/en-us/articles/201879947
Note that it might take up to 48 hours for data to start showing in the GA Ecommerce section, so be patient..
The above is pretty much all you need to know, but if you have been confused for the same reasons as I, the below might help clarify things.
CONFUSION
The above linked guide from Weebly unfortunately confused me.
One thing is that I simply did not register the distinction between setting up a Goal in GA to track sales conversions and using Ecommerce, as I thought Ecommerce would require coding skills, which it certainly does not with Weebly.
The guide seemed to confirm the need for coding, as below the last illustration, it says "Once the code is in place..", and I thought this referred to entering custom code in the three bottom fields in Store - Setup - Tracking (with the headers CUSTOM TRACKING..").
You can in fact IGNORE these three fields. As setting up ecommerce tracking is usually more complex, I thought that these fields had to be completed, but this is not the case. The "Once the code is in place.." sentence in the guide should have read "Once your GA tracking ID is in place.."
In other words, all you have to do is enter your GA Tracking ID in the top field and forget about the three other fields. This will give you access to advanced ecommerce data from your website in the section Ecommerce in GA (provided that you have followed the above guide and activated Ecommerce in GA, which is really just to slide a button to on).
The three CUSTOM TRACKING fields I'm asking you to ignore, is from what I understand for rare cases and for very advanced users who would like to set up custom code to track ecommerce data with their own system instead of using GA, for instance.
What of course really thru me off was trying desperately to get the Goal for tracking sales conversions that I had set up in GA to work. This will simply never work, no matter what tweaks you try in the Goal setup.
The answer is as stated to use the dead simple to set up Ecommerce to get this information plus detailed information about your sales.
Another thing that really added to the confusion was that I was trying to use Google Tag Manager to check whether our GA Tracking ID and code was working properly on our site.
Lesson learned: Forget abut checking your Weebly website with Google Tag Manager. The Google Tag Manager will always report multiple Google IDs on your site, because Weebly has its own ID on your page as well, without this actually causing any problems with GA, but the Tag Manager will nonetheless suggest that you remove what it registers as superfluous or potentially conflicting tags.
Here’s the thank you email that I sent this morning to the genius that cleared everything up for me –it further illuminates why you should never use Google Tag Manager with your Weebly website:
“
… Today my test purchase of yesterday appeared under the Ecommerce section in Google Analytics with all the purchase details. Just beautiful stuff and such a huge relief. I was completely focused on Goals in GA, and nobody from Weebly was able to say what you said yesterday: Using a Goal to track sales conversions on Weebly will not work, but you have an extremely simple setup for Ecommerce, which will allow you to track sales conversions with much more detail. You probably entered our Google tracking code under Store - Setup - Tracking yesterday, which is why my purchase showed up in GA today. I might not have checked the Ecommerce section in GA when I was testing, since I was so set on using the Goal for tracking sales conversions, but even if I had, the data would not have been there. The reason: I was using Google Tag Manager to check whether things were working properly on the website, and when checking the store check-out page, the Tag Manager would complain about detecting multiple tags, which could cause issues, and I would subsequently remove our tracking code entered in Store - Setup - Tracking, thinking that the tracking ID/code entered in Settings - SEO - Header Code would be sufficient (this then produced a green smiling face in the Tag Manager). Wisdom learned: forget about using Google Tag Manager with Weebly..
“
When I now see how insanely simple this all is with Weebly, I’m unsure whether to laugh or cry having spent tons of time over the last three weeks to get this to work.
Life’s too short, so the laugh’s on me!
PS I
Using the Google Tag Manager (foolishly), I got confused in terms of our website having multiple GA tracking codes/ids. This then lead me to wonder whether it’s OK to have your GA tracking code/ID both in the Settings – SEO – Header Code field and the Store – Setup – Tracking field. Answer is YES. The former is for general GA to work and the latter for Ecommerce reporting to work. Simple as that
PS II
If you are not really comfortable with Google Analytics, I highly recommend their free online course Google Analytics for Beginners, found on the Google Analytics Academy homepage:
https://analytics.google.com/analytics/academy/
Time extremely well invested!
Solved this for me. The simple configuration does work. However, the instructions stink.
The trick is that on the Online Store -> Settings -> General page where it asks for Google Analytics Tracking ID, don't prepend the UA-. Only enter the portion that starts with a 9 digit code and dash number. See below. Very annoying that this is there is and no one at weebly knows.
