Ecommerce retention
The store metrics behind retention, and the ways ecommerce brands get customers to buy again.
Store metrics
Retention rate, churn, lifetime value and the other numbers a store runs on, with the formulas side by side.
6 pagesWhat is average order value?
Twelve of fifteen publishers divide revenue by orders. They do not mean the same thing by revenue — three strip taxes and shipping, one keeps them, and a store platform's own column is a third thing again. What AOV counts, and why yours may not compare.
What is purchase frequency?
Nine publishers give the same ratio: total orders divided by unique customers. Two of them then print a repeat-buyer benchmark further down the same page without saying it is a different quantity. What the number counts, and why yours may not compare.
What is repeat purchase rate?
Repeat purchase rate is the share of customers who bought more than once. The published formulas disagree about which customers go in the denominator, about whether the window is a month or a lifetime, and about whether one of the metric's own names points at a completely different number. What each version measures, and what to write down beside it.
What is customer churn rate?
Churn rate is the share of customers a store loses over a period. The published formulas disagree about who is in the denominator, about what counts as leaving, and about whether the number is monthly or annual. What each version measures, and what to write down beside it.
What is customer lifetime value?
Your platform shows what a customer has already spent, plus a forecast of the next year. The published formulas run on a lifespan of several years, and some multiply by profit margin. What each version answers, and where they disagree.
How is customer retention rate calculated?
Klaviyo's own example gives 64%, dividing repeat buyers by one-time buyers. Divide the same repeat buyers by all 92,000 customers and it is 39%. Seven formulas answer the question.
Retention strategy
Getting customers to buy again, and why they leave.
5 pagesWhich customer retention strategies work for an online store?
Choose ecommerce retention strategies from the customer problem: product support, replenishment, win-back or rewards. Check repeat purchases and contribution.
How do you turn Black Friday buyers into repeat customers?
Build a first-time BFCM buyer cohort, check the first order before follow-up, and judge second purchases after discounts and returns rather than assuming a sale buyer needs another coupon.
Why do shoppers abandon checkout?
Use the funnel, payment events and a checkout test to separate browsing from payment failures and purchase barriers before changing recovery email.
What is RFM segmentation?
RFM segmentation scores every customer on recency, frequency and monetary value. The three labels are settled. The scale is not: published models run 1-3, 1-4, 1-5 and 1-10, the direction flips between vendors, and the same code 111 names the best customer in one system and the worst in another.
What is retention marketing?
Retention marketing is the work of keeping the customers you already have. The two numbers most often used to justify it trace to 2000 and — by one guide's account — 1990, and one of them is routinely credited to a document that does not contain it.