Repeat purchase rate = customers with 2 or more orders ÷ all customers in the period
378 ÷ 1,400 = 27 percent
What period should the rate cover?
Long enough for a satisfied customer to need you again. A jar of moisturiser lasts about two months, so a skincare brand should look at 12 months, not 30 days. A pet food shop might look at a quarter. A mattress shop will have a repeat rate near zero whatever it does, and that is fine: the sum just tells it that every customer has to pay their way on the first sale.
Pick the window once and keep it. A rate that compares March with a 12-month figure from last year is comparing two different things.
What is a returning customer worth to an Adelaide skincare brand? (example figures)
A small skincare brand in Adelaide sells online at an average order of $64 and a 60 percent gross margin. Customers who come back buy about 3 times in their first year. The owner works out what 100 new customers are worth in that first year at three repeat rates.
| Repeat rate | Orders from 100 new customers | Revenue | Gross profit | Gross profit per new customer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 percent | 80 + (20 × 3) = 140 | $8,960 | $5,376 | $54 |
| 27 percent (today) | 73 + (27 × 3) = 154 | $9,856 | $5,914 | $59 |
| 40 percent | 60 + (40 × 3) = 180 | $11,520 | $6,912 | $69 |
The last column is the most the brand can pay in ads to win a customer and break even within a year. Lifting the repeat rate from 27 to 40 percent raises it by $10, which means the brand can outbid a competitor on the same Meta audience without spending a dollar more of its own margin. It also means ads that were only breaking even at $59 a customer start making money without anyone touching them.
What brings a first-time buyer back?
The second order is the hard one, because until then the customer has tried you exactly once. So most of the work goes into the weeks after the first parcel arrives. An email timed for when the product is running low, rather than a generic newsletter, is the usual starting point, and Mailchimp and Klaviyo both have automations that can send one a set time after an order. A sample of a second product in the first parcel is another.
How does repeat buying feed into CoraVision?
In CoraVision, repeat buying shows up first in your lifetime value, which Cora calculates from your answers in the onboarding call, and how often customers come back is one of its biggest inputs. Once Google Analytics 4 is connected, CoraVision reads purchases and revenue every night. When the plan turns to bringing customers back by email, Mabel (Mailchimp) and Kai (Klaviyo) are the CoraVision specialists who teach that work, and you build and send the emails yourself.
Questions
Is repeat purchase rate the same as retention rate?
Close cousins. Retention usually describes customers on a contract or subscription, who stay until they cancel. Repeat purchase rate suits a shop or a clinic where every new order is a fresh choice the customer makes. A business with both kinds of customer can track both.
Where does Shopify show it?
Shopify's analytics include a returning customer rate: the share of customers in the chosen dates who have ordered more than once. Set the dates to a full year, or the rate will look low for products people only reorder every few months.
Do service businesses have a repeat purchase rate?
Yes. A hairdresser, a massage therapist or a mechanic can count the clients who booked again within a set time, such as six months for a car service. The booking system usually holds the dates, even if no report shows the rate.