Acquiring new customers is too old! Repeating the purchase is the trend now!

Yes, I mean it right! Instead of acquiring new customers, the eCommerce trend has been moving towards repeating the purchase from the customers. 

It is not that they do not need new customers. The eCommerce industry has been spending wisely and thereby increasing its revenue.

I am sure you are here to increase your repeat purchase rate through your existing customer base. If I am not wrong, let us continue into the article to know more about repeat purchases and the strategies to increase the repeat purchase rates.

Why is Repeat Purchase Important for an eCommerce store?

According to a recent CMSWire study, repeat customers can generate 40 percent revenue, and increasing the customer retention rate can bring up to a 5 percent increase in profit to the business. 

Repeat purchase is nothing but retaining the old customers instead of spending on acquiring new customers. When you focus on building a strong base of loyal customers, there are many opportunities that help you grow your business. 

But, how? To know the strategies behind increasing your repeat purchase rate, eye down into the blog further.

Before that, let us have a short look at the image that represents the formula to calculate the repeat purchase.

Formula for calculating repeat purchase rate

It is important to evaluate the values from the same time graph when the user has indulged in the purchase to get the actual repeat purchase value.

The average repeat purchase rate for an eCommerce store always falls between 20 to 40 percent in many research studies. But, according to the VP of Growth at Facebook, getting 20 to 30 percent of your customers back to your store every month can make a pretty well difference in your store. 

Even Shopify confirms it. According to it, once a customer returns to your store a second time, then their likelihood for purchasing must jump to 45 percent. And, it goes to 56 percent when the customer returns to the store for the fourth time. 

Now, it’s time to unlock the strategies to increase the repeat purchase rate of your customers and be a pro in the eCommerce industry. 

5 Powerful Strategies To Increase Your Repeat Purchase Rate

After seeing the studies related to repeat purchase rate, you might be eager in making your customers visit the third time, the fourth time, … to the nth time.

The wait is over. Let us indulge straight away.

Plan your Customer’s Lifecycle to Maximize Your Sales

The customer’s lifecycle in any eCommerce store describes the stages the customers went through. It also defines the profit or the revenue possibilities for the eCommerce store. It also involves the touchpoints that include from where they learn about your store.

Customer's lifecycle

The customer lifecycle stages include awareness, consideration, purchase retention, and advocacy. And, your focus must be on the purchase moment of the customer. In this stage, maximizing the repeat purchase involves the enlisted activities.

  • Utilize the customer relationship management tool to send automated emails after the customers’ purchase.
  • Use sales tracking software to track related products that customers might be interested in. If yes, then recommend those items with a discount offer to their emails 
  • Provide regular updates on brand events, product launches, and latest offers
  • Personalize your email to increase its click-through rate
  • Offer continuous customer support. Do not forget to answer the queries of the customers on the product page or on the review page
  • Encourage additional sales by creating discounts and coupon codes
  • Design an effortless checkout experience that makes customers happy about the purchase

When implemented right, these points will eventually increase your repeat purchase rate. A consistent approach towards the customers might result positively. 

Make Loyalty Programs your Key strategy

Introducing loyalty programs in an eCommerce store is a wonderful way to make customers purchase repeatedly. As a win-win strategy, the loyalty program brings in new customers and in return, the existing customers will get loyalty points based on the referrals’ purchase.

Globally, around 35.5 percent of customers buy from retailers during the loyalty program. Of these, 91.9 percent of purchases earn loyalty rewards. 

Graph of loyal customers

Source: Google

Here are a few tips to increase your repeat purchase through loyalty programs. 

  • Understand the motivation behind the current customers’ visit to your store. It helps you to design the loyalty rewards accordingly
  • Update your customer database regularly to make sure that your loyalty reward offers reach every customer
  • Track customer behavior to know an easy way to anticipate their needs and make them fall for your loyalty program
  • Understand customer preferences and segment the audience that becomes easier when you indulge in sending automated emails with attractive offers
  • Encourage their engagement in social media and collect feedback for their purchase

When you are busy entertaining your existing customers, remember to provide welcome offers and second-time discount emails to the new customers. 

Run Retargeting Ads with Extra Focus

Retargeting ads are an effective way to create advertising campaigns. It helps you to target customers based on their actions. You can also set up things to track pixels and run dedicated paid campaigns. 

Steps in retargeting

So, how do you effectively use retargeting ads to increase your repeat purchase value? Here is the answer.

  • Segment your audience based on their purchase history, location, and other geographics. 
  • Run targeting ads across different social media channels 
  • Keep an eye on informative ad content and make sure the content is reader-friendly 
  • Include customer testimonials and success stories after purchasing products from your store
  • Send abandoned cart emails to the customers who have left products in their cart. Try to offer discounts for the respective products
  • If you are offering subscription-based products or services, increase your purchase rate by stating that the subscription is going to end soon. It may create a sense of urgency.

Retargeting ads are a powerful strategy when you focus equally on customer segmentation, content development, and content marketing. 

Send Abandoned Cart Emails

Every eCommerce store faces an increased cart abandonment rate. Irrespective of the store’s age, the average cart abandonment rate of the eCommerce store is 69.80 percent. To increase the repeat purchase rate, it is important to decrease the number of cart abandonment in your store.

To send abandoned cart emails, you can also rely on the abandoned cart recovery tool. The image shows you how an abandoned cart plugin works.

Steps in sending cart abandonment emails

Here are the ways or strategies you can use to increase the repeat purchase rate out of your cart abandonment.

  • Send abandoned cart emails within one or two days when the customer left the products in their cart
  • Encourage conversions through incentives including free shipping, no-cost EMI, offers, and other coupon codes
  • Include customer testimonials and reviews in your cart abandonment emails for social proof
  • Motivate customers to purchase your product by creating a sense of urgency and scarcity
  • Use personalized subject lines and attractive templates to make sure the customer clicks the link to your store
  • Add a clear CTA button that must trigger the customer to complete their purchase without any lag
  • Do not forget to A/B test your abandoned cart emails. From that, you can ensure which email copy turns out good and the tweaks to be done further.

Sending abandoned cart emails to the customers can boost repeat purchase rates to the eCommerce store. To recover the abandoned carts, you need to have personalized communication through emails. Rely on the best-abandoned cart recovery plugin to take care of that customization and send automated emails to the customers. 

Analysis and Optimization is important

Understanding the repeat purchase itself seems to be an achievement. But, increasing your repeat purchase rate states with your brand’s current position. 

Analyzing the store’s current position, customer base, and other essential data is important before you input any strategy. It helps you to know whether you are nearing the peak or vice versa.

Google analytics eCommerce dashboard

Now, it is necessary to track metrics to get a complete view of your store’s health. The insights help you to know the pitfalls in your store. Once the optimization is done correctly, then you can boost the repeat purchase rate easily through amazing strategies. 

Here is the list of metrics that you need to take into account to increase the repeat purchase rate.

  • Conversion rate – check thoroughly about the customer’s purchase. If your conversion rate is low, focus on increasing the conversion rate now.
  • Total Sessions – Check out how many visitors are visiting your store within the given period. 
  • Email Opt-ins – Track your email database growth and ensure whether the database has expanded a little. If not, use email marketing tactics or attractive website popups to increase your subscribers
  • Purchase Frequency – Purchase frequency is nothing but the time gap between the orders of current customers. If the gap is very long, send them invites for your referral program or send them customized coupon codes
  • Customer Lifetime value – Analyze how long the customers spend in your store on average. If the bounce rate is higher than expected, work on your site’s performance to reduce it.

Final Takeaway

Now, you might have understood that a repeat purchase rate is equally important for an eCommerce store.

A high repeat purchase rate indicates that your product has found its way in solving the customers’ problems. At the same time, it also indicates that the strategies have also been effectively progressive in increasing your store’s revenue. I hope the strategies discussed here shake hands with your store’s revenue. Cheers!

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