Marketing and ecommerce leaders face relentless pressure not only to find new customers, but to keep them coming back to build sustainable growth.
Many focus too much on finding new customers. But smart organizations know that getting existing customers to buy again is more profitable and costs less. These repeat customers often make up almost half of a store’s sales.
With online tracking becoming more limited and customers expecting better experiences, creating good relationships after the first purchase matters more than ever.
If you’re having trouble getting customers to return and buy again, this guide can help. We’ll show you 14 proven ways to increase repeat purchases and grow your business.
Repeat customers help businesses grow in a more stable way. Shopify reports a 59% increase in returning shoppers over the past two years.
These repeat buyers keep returning, with the 10% of customers spending twice as much per order. Because of this, more ecommerce brands are now creating a better balance between finding new customers and retaining existing ones.
But here’s the challenge: to keep customers coming back, you need to understand them. And the way we collect customer data is changing in a big way.
Third-party cookies used to be important for tracking what people do online and showing them targeted ads. New regulations are making collecting and using this kind of data harder.
Private browsing and requiring customer permission before collecting data make third-party data less accessible and harder to use, so brands are finding new ways to understand their customers.
First-party data—information you collect directly from customers—is becoming more valuable. This includes data from website visits, purchase history, and email sign-ups. When you have a direct relationship with customers, you can personalize their experience without crossing privacy boundaries.
To get the most from your customer data, it helps to have a unified customer view. For example, Shopify offers a system that unites all customer browsing, purchasing, and order information from different sales channels. Combining all these interactions into one dataset, businesses can leverage predictive customer analytics to improve messaging, products, and the overall customer experience.
Encouraging repeat purchases, supported by good first-party data, builds customer loyalty and makes your marketing more effective.
Customers come back to the same brands for both practical and emotional reasons. Understanding these motivations helps businesses build lasting customer relationships.
Here’s what drives repeat purchases:
Points programs are by far the most popular type of program, with 90% of loyalty program owners reporting a positive ROI. Since you can incentivize and reward customers for virtually any micro-action (such as product reviews or social sharing), points programs make it easy to encourage repeat purchases.
This makes loyalty programs cost-effective, as acquiring repeat business through loyal customers costs significantly less than acquiring new customers.
For Inkbox, a Shopify merchant that inspired a worldwide obsession with temporary tattoos, this meant targeting the way a repeat customer thought about and related to the brand.
With a desire to move away from one-off conversions, Inkbox started to focus on retaining the steady customer traffic they had acquired through their points program, Inkfam.
By targeting the most immediate opportunity post-purchase—namely, connecting with the brand and sharing about them on social—Inkbox was able to increase their repeat purchase rate by 80% in one month. Their customer retention strategy not only maximized the value of each customer, but also built lasting emotional relationships in the process.
Baby Tula is another brand that put this strategy into action. They place an icon for the Collector’s Club, their points program, front and center through a chat-like CTA box across their online store.
“We added Smile,” says Baby Tula’s marketing manager, Jessica Carlson, “because it was an all-in-one solution, with VIP, loyalty, and referrals. We initially wanted a referral program to increase referrals; however, the VIP program is great for customers to share branding of our Collector’s Club.”
Collector’s Club is Baby Tula’s first rewards program. In one month, their 85,500 program members earned 4.21 million points and redeemed 1,084 rewards, at a 24% redemption rate.
Shopify’s robust app ecosystem makes implementing loyalty programs like these straightforward, with numerous integrations available to support various loyalty program structures.
By positioning your points as having significant value, you encourage customers to earn and spend them quickly so as not to miss out. The trick to keeping this perceived value high is making sure that customers always have points to spend.
In an industry driven by aggressive price competition and increasing noise from ads, prospective shoppers are looking for voices they can trust. Getting your best customers to recommend your store can have the same impact in their social circles as a celebrity endorsement.
This is the result of a phenomenon known as “social proof.” When we see others behaving in a certain way, we begin to act in a similar way, because we prefer to do things that have already been done or have already worked in the past.
A referral program works by incentivizing existing customers to share your brand with others, creating a social precedent that encourages new customers to share and engage. It’s a strategy with the potential to save thousands in advertising spend—you can focus on growing your business instead of paying for traffic.
Make your referral program even more successful by optimizing it for repeat purchases. That means the incentive for shopping with you should be at least as good as the incentive for your existing customer.
Shopify merchant Allbirds, for example, rewards loyal customers with $15 off any future purchase when they refer a friend. New customers also get $15 to spend.
No matter where you choose to promote referrals, don’t treat your program like an add-on. Building it into your existing rewards and marketing structure will help establish its value and get more of your customers excited to take advantage of it.
A VIP program differs from a traditional referral program because existing customers are motivated by the pursuit of higher status and increasing rewards through gamification. As they move up through the ranks of the program, repeat purchasers get experiential or emotional rewards that increase in value, such as:
The status associated with moving through a brand loyalty program also creates an extremely high switching cost. The strong sense of community and brand identity your customers unlock can’t be bought anywhere else. And as people begin to see themselves as part of a larger group they identify with, they’ll be more likely to fully commit to your brand.
Jane Iredale is a good example of a VIP program that encourages repeat purchases. The merchant worked with Yotpo to create their Beauty Rewards program—a tiered system that awards customers with points each time they interact with the brand.
The reward tiers are split into three categories—the latter of which, called Enthusiast, requires people to spend more than $650. These loyalty program members get early access to special offers, a consultation with a beauty advisor, and access to triple points events in return for their loyalty.
It’s a strategy that’s paid off for Jane Iredale. According to Yotpo, the merchant has increased customer loyalty by 60%. They also experienced a 40% increase in repeat purchases,since people enrolled in their VIP program were constantly incentivized to make repeat orders.
Email marketing isn’t just a tool to engage people who’ve joined your mailing list without buying. Create a segmented email campaign that targets previous shoppers, keeps your products top of mind, and reminds customers of the value you offer.
Content that engages this customer segment includes:
Personalize your email campaigns based on customer data you’ve already collected. If an existing customer has already bought your soap, cross-sell or upsell complementary products like refill packs or hand sanitizers.
LaCkore Couture is one brand using previous purchase data to broadcast relevant offers. Founder Erin LaCkore says, “Rather than sending generic post-purchase emails, we meticulously segment our customers based on their past purchasing behaviors and tailor our content to resonate with them.
“For instance, a customer who previously purchased a birthstone pendant may receive an email showcasing a matching ring or earrings, accompanied by the story behind the stone,” Erin says. “This not only showcases related products but also adds a touch of personalization, educating and enticing the customer simultaneously.”
“It’s not about suggesting another product, but about weaving a narrative our customers feel connected to,” says Erin. “People appreciate thoughtfulness, and when we show them that we remember and value their previous choices, they feel more inclined to shop with us again.”
For many online shoppers, the chatbot or “Contact Us” page on an online store is the first point of call when they’re stuck during the purchasing journey. Ecommerce customer service teams often prioritize new customers for the thrill of converting them.
But it’s not just new customers that rely on your customer service team for support. Some 89% of people are likely to make another purchase after a positive customer service experience, making it a huge opportunity to increase repeat sales and customer retention rates.
Good American shows how great customer service pays off. Their unified online and in-store experience helped them achieve an impressive 91.69 Net Promoter Score, showing high customer satisfaction and loyalty. This approach has also led to lower return rates in their stores compared to online sales.
Train your staff to be knowledgeable, friendly, and attentive to repeat customers’ needs. They should respond promptly to inquiries and resolve any issues quickly and satisfactorily. Prove to existing shoppers that you’re using their customer feedback to improve.
Keep customers coming back to your business with an ecommerce subscription model. It charges people a set amount per week, month, or year for a regular supply of products. Beyond providing convenience for customers, subscription services are powerful retention drivers that significantly increase customer lifetime value.
Subscription models have seen remarkable economic growth in recent years, with consumers increasingly preferring the convenience and predictability they offer. One report estimates that subscription sales will reach nearly $530 billion by the end of 2025.
Shopify apps like Recharge and Loop Subscriptions can trigger orders and bill a customer’s card on file according to the subscription frequency they opt for during the registration process.
“Increasing repeat purchases from shoppers is all about making their experience better,” says Emily Onkey, cofounder of Aplós. “Our subscription model does just that. It gives customers a regular supply of what they love and adds extra goodies, making them happy.”
Emily says that subscription models not only increase repeat purchases, but improve the relationship between brand and customer: “Because it’s a long-term deal, we get to know our customers better, provide excellent service, and keep them coming back for more.
“Our subscription model isn’t just about convenience; it’s about creating lasting relationships and keeping customers excited about what we offer.”
Almost half of shoppers say they like it when stores offer experiences made just for them. When businesses show customers products picked specially for them, people often come back to shop more.
Take Ruggable’s “Rug Quiz” as an example. Customers answer a few quick questions about what they like, and Ruggable suggests rugs that match their style and needs.
People who take this quiz are four times more likely to buy something. Ruggable even lets customers upload pictures to get matching suggestions. It’s like having a personal shopper online
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“Speed is a big part of the reason we went with Checkout Extensions in the first place. Faster checkouts make buyers more confident in their purchases, which helps us improve conversion and reduce checkout abandonment.”
Jake Fox, Senior Ecommerce Developer at Monos
By using Shopify’s checkout technology, Monos also saved lots of development time, letting them focus on running their business and giving customers great experiences.
When you offer a fast, high-performance checkout, your customers feel confident and satisfied, resulting in more sales, better customer loyalty, and a stronger brand image.
Selling directly to other businesses (B2B) alongside your regular customer sales can boost your revenue through increased repeat purchases.
Businesses naturally order more frequently and in larger volumes than individual customers. Many outdated wholesale buying processes are now being replaced with modern online solutions, making these repeat orders easier to capture.
Businesses that add B2B on Shopify typically see:
B2B on Shopify helps meet these higher expectations by using Shopify’s strong experience in online selling. With it, you can:
Brooklinen, which sells luxury bed linens, saw more and more B2B orders coming in as they grew, especially from hotels. Before using B2B on Shopify, they handled wholesale orders manually, which took a lot of time.
After switching to Shopify’s B2B system, they:
Because they use the same platform for all their stores, Brooklinen can easily track data about orders, buyers, and when items need to be reordered. This helps them send personalized messages and timely restock reminders—very important in the hotel business, where running out of supplies isn’t an option.
Working with other brands can help you offer more products, reach new customers, and enter different product areas. By partnering with brands that complement yours, you can use each other’s strengths and promote together without spending a lot on new inventory or storage space.
Shopify Collective makes brand partnerships easier and more scalable. Amanda Engelman from Shopify explains, “Whether you want to try new product types, release a joint product, or build a marketplace with chosen sellers, you can do it all through Shopify’s network using Shopify Collective. You can increase order values, customer lifetime value, and new sales without big upfront costs or needing lots of resources.”
With Shopify Collective, you can:
Using Shopify Collective can help you increase how much customers spend per order and how much they spend over their entire relationship with your brand, all while cutting the usual costs of expanding your product line.
Shoppers today want easy shopping no matter where they buy—online, in a store, or both. To give them this, you need a unified system for all your sales channels that keeps product info consistent, tracks inventory accurately, and remembers customer details.
Businesses using Shopify POS see sales grow by 8.9% on average, showing how powerful this approach can be.
A single platform makes shopping smoother. By connecting online and in-store sales, you can:
Tecovas, a modern Western-wear brand with over 30 stores, shows how this works. They’re known for “radical hospitality,” offering extras like free boot shines and drinks to make shopping special.
Customers want a reliable experience no matter how they shop with you. With a unified approach, you can provide top-tier shopping experiences that encourage repeat purchases.
Retargeting campaigns help you sell more to people who already know your store. These shoppers have visited your website, signed up for emails, or bought from you before.
They’re more likely to buy again than new visitors. But finding and reaching these shoppers can be tricky. That’s where Shopify Audiences helps.
Shopify Audiences is an ad-optimization tool that leverages insights from the entire Shopify network to help you find and convert buyers on top advertising platforms. It enhances your retargeting efforts in several key ways:
Shopify Audiences gives you different types of lists for each stage of the customer journey, from people just learning about your store to loyal customers. This helps you match your ads to specific goals (like bringing back customers who haven’t bought in a while).
After you pick your target lists, Shopify Audiences connects right to platforms like Facebook and Google. You don’t need to manually upload anything, your ads go straight to the people most likely to buy.
Another effective way to boost repeat purchases is through the Shop app, one of the world’s most popular shopping apps. Made by Shopify, it combines a large network of shoppers with a digital wallet. This helps store owners connect with interested shoppers, while controlling costs.
The Shop app:
The Shop app keeps customers updated about their order status in real time. While checking these updates, customers see gentle suggestions to keep browsing or look at other products from your store. This creates an ongoing cycle of interest that can increase your repeat sales.
Using the Shop app’s network of motivated shoppers, you can grow your business more naturally, encourage customers to buy again sooner, and keep your brand in customers’ minds
Repeat customers drive sustainable growth by providing steady revenue and stronger relationships. Today’s shoppers expect personalized experiences tailored to their preferences, seamless shopping across all channels (online, social media, and physical stores), and self-service options for managing their own shopping journey.
By connecting all your sales channels into one system, you create a smooth experience in which customers can shop however they prefer. Shopify can provide the tools to create these experiences, from personalized marketing automation, B2B features, and POS systems that work with your online store.
A repeat purchase is often called a “reorder” or “repurchase.” Customer retention metrics track these recurring transactions as part of measuring loyalty.
Repeat purchases happen when customers buy from you again after their first purchase. These show that customers like your products and want to keep shopping with you.
A repeat buyer is someone who buys shampoo from the same store every few months. Another example is a coffee lover who orders from the same coffee shop each week.
Create loyalty programs that reward customers for shopping with you. Send personalized emails, provide great customer service, and make checkout easy for customers to come back.
