Your Repeat Purchase Rate should hold steady or improve as customers place repeat orders. This shows that they are engaging with your store and products.
A Repeat Purchase Rate drop-off is where there's a significant drop in your rate based on a clear behavior, usually from one order to the next (e.g. first to second orders, second to third orders, etc).
A significant drop-off in the repeat purchase rate can be a sign that your customers aren't re-ordering and are defecting to your competitors. It could also signal product dissatisfaction.
How to improve your drop-offs
To improve your repeat purchase rate drop offs, you need to increase trust with your customers earlier in the lifecycle. They need to look at you as a trusted store or vendor that they enjoy shopping with.
This can take a variety for forms but for Shopify stores, these are the more effective ones.
- Regular email marketing that provides them value (e.g tips, entertainment)
- Regular email marketing about sales and discounts
- Loyalty and rewards programs
- Making sure you reward loyal, repeat customers as well as or better than new customers
- Early communication to solicit feedback and reviews about your products to catch product or service issues.
You can also create win-back campaigns to try to get past and defected customers to come back to your store.
Note
It's common to have drop-offs at specific points, the step from Order #1 to Order #2 is a very common one as some customers will are only interested in buying once.
Eric Davis
