Repurchase rate (aka repeat purchase rate, rebuy rate, or RPR) is the percentage of customers who have purchased more than once in a time period. It is often analyzed on a segment basis.
Repurchase rate is a vital eCommerce metric that every brand needs to track in order to measure the success of its marketing and retention.
How to calculate repurchase rate
To calculate repurchase rate, divide the number of customers who have purchased more than once by the total number of customers over the same time period.
How to increase repurchase rate
Increasing repurchase rate is a fundamental goal of retention marketing. A great retention marketing program considers a variety of factors including:
1. Customer experience (CX): the customer’s browsing, buying, post-purchase, and fulfillment experience must be, at base, strong. The eCommerce brands with the highest repurchase rates have customers who become loyal quickly, because the brands make every touchpoint special, memorable, and creative.
For example, toilet paper brand Who Gives A Crap always does an outstanding job of creating marketing materials that are enjoyable to read, even if you’re not quite ready to make a purchase. In one of their holiday emails, they suggest some funny uses for their TP:
2. Customer segmentation: Although there are a ton of ways to segment your customer base, let’s focus on an example of a value-based segment:
High-Value Customers (HVCs): Your HVCs are your most valuable customers. They buy from you the most frequently (i.e., they have the highest repurchase rates), and they are responsible for the majority of your profits.
Focusing on them should be your highest priority as an eCommerce brand, and you should be sending them your best offers and opportunities, giving them the most love, showering the most loyalty points on them, and more. If you keep them close, they’ll continue to be your customers for years.
3. Personalization: Using first-party data and zero-party data, you can provide experiences that will, if executed correctly, bring the right offer to the right customer at the right time. For example, if via a survey, you find that a customer prefers one of your products over another, and you understand their buying cadence (using a metric like time between orders), you can recommend that they buy that product at a particular time of month or year.
Visualizing repurchase rate for eCommerce brands
Tracking repurchase rate (and other eCommerce metrics, like customer lifetime value and cost per acquisition) can be challenging, particularly without an eCommerce analytics and/or BI tool. Daasity centralizes all a brand’s data in customizable, easy-to-read and analyze dashboards. Here is a look at two visualizations from the Daasity platform:
Sean Corson is an experienced eCommerce and analytics professional with over 20 years of experience building data-driven organizations. He has played integral leadership roles at Provide Commerce, Renovate America, and Perminova. As a native San Diegan, he can frequently be found at the best surf spots and taco stands in the county.
