Repeat purchase rate

Repeat purchase rate is the share of a store's customers who make more than one purchase within a defined window, most often measured over a rolling twelve months. It is a direct measure of customer loyalty and habit, distinct from one-time acquisition, which only captures whether a first sale happened.

It is calculated as customers with 2+ orders in the period ÷ total customers who ordered in the period. The choice of window matters a great deal: a low-frequency category like furniture will show a naturally lower repeat rate than a high-frequency one like groceries, so the metric is more useful compared against a store's own history or close category peers than as an absolute benchmark. It is closely related to RFM analysis, which segments customers by recency, frequency, and monetary value rather than reducing loyalty to a single repeat/non-repeat split.

Repeat purchase rate matters because retaining an existing customer is typically cheaper than acquiring a new one, and it is a primary driver of customer lifetime value. The inverse view of the same behavior is churn rate — customers who don't come back. A common pitfall is measuring repeat rate across the whole customer base without segmenting by acquisition cohort or channel, which can hide that certain channels bring in customers who rarely return.