Been thinking a lot about repeat purchases lately. It’s wild how much energy goes into getting that first sale, and then a huge chunk of those customers just… never come back. Feels like the second order is where the real money quietly hides.
A few things I’ve been leaning on to bring people back:
A genuinely good post-purchase experience — clear shipping updates, a nice unboxing, a thank-you that doesn’t feel automated. First impression after the sale matters more than I used to think.
A well-timed follow-up email — not a discount blast, more like “here’s how to get the most out of what you bought,” then a gentle nudge to reorder when it makes sense.
A reason to come back — early access, a loyalty perk, or a heads-up on a restock/new drop.
Making the reorder stupidly easy — saved details, a quick reorder link, subscriptions for consumables.
But honestly I’m still figuring out what moves the needle most vs. what just feels nice.
Curious how everyone else thinks about this:
What’s the single thing that’s actually driven repeat purchases for your store?
Do you lean on email/SMS, a loyalty program, subscriptions, or just a great product that sells itself?
And how soon after the first order do you reach out — days? weeks? depends on the product?
Would love to hear what’s genuinely working for people, not just the textbook stuff
Hi @Rasel Welcome To Shopify Community So Making reorder genuinely easy tends to move the needle more than people expect, especially saved payment/shipping details plus a one-click reorder link in the post-purchase email, since a lot of repeat purchases don’t happen because the customer forgot to come back, they happen because coming back required too many steps. For timing, the sweet spot really does depend on the product’s natural usage cycle rather than a fixed number of days, reaching out too early feels like a discount blast and too late means they’ve already found an alternative. The post-purchase experience point is underrated too, a bad unboxing or confusing shipping update can quietly kill a second order before any marketing even gets a chance to work. Hope this helps solve your problem, and if it does, don’t forget to like and mark it as the solution. Thank you!
One angle everyone’s skipped: these tactics only work if customers remember they need to reorder. VikashJ’s timing insight assumes someone’s tracking usage, but most people lose that context after purchase. Setting expectations upfront makes a difference. In the thank-you or shipping email, tell them when the product typically runs out and offer a reminder then, something like “this lasts about 30 days, we’ll send a reminder around day 25.” That plants the mental trigger for reordering. Then the one-click link VikashJ mentioned converts someone actually thinking about your brand, instead of just reminding someone who forgot you existed.
I noticed this with a store I was helping with where we were spending a lot of time trying to get new customers, while barely looking at what happened after the first order. Once we actually looked at the numbers, there were quite a few customers who had bought once and then disappeared. The interesting part was that some of them were still visiting the site, they just weren’t coming back to the same pages or products we expected.
The post-purchase emails ended up being more useful than throwing discounts at everyone. We changed a few of them to be more product-specific and started looking at when people actually tended to buy again instead of sending everything on the same schedule.
I’ve also started looking at revenue at the page level when making these decisions. SiteGuru is handy there because it pulls the Analytics data into the SEO side, so you can spot which products or collections are actually generating revenue rather than assuming the pages with the most traffic are the most valuable.
I think the biggest mistake is treating repeat purchases as purely an email problem. If the product page people return to is confusing, the next product they need is hard to find, or the store has a bunch of weak pages competing for attention, another email isn’t going to fix all of that.
One thing I’ve noticed is that repeat purchases often start before the first order is even placed.
If customers can build exactly what they want the first time, they’re much more likely to come back.
We’ve seen this especially with personalized products, gift products, and products with multiple options. When customers have a smooth customization experience and receive exactly what they expected, trust increases significantly.
Email and SMS definitely help, but in my experience they work best after you’ve already delivered a great first purchase experience.
That’s one reason I’m a big believer in reducing friction on the product page. Clear product options, visual swatches, personalization previews, and accurate order details can prevent a lot of disappointment later.
For stores that offer customized products, tools like Easify Custom Product Options can help make that first purchase experience much smoother by collecting the right information upfront instead of relying on follow-up emails or order notes.
As for timing, I usually think it depends on the product lifecycle. A consumable product might justify a reorder reminder after a few weeks, while apparel or gifts may benefit more from occasional product recommendations and new-release updates.
Personally, I’d rank them:
Great product experience
Great post-purchase experience
Email/SMS retention
Loyalty programs
Most retention strategies work better when the first order experience is strong enough that customers actually want to come back.
I think we jump too quickly to “how do we get them to buy again?” but i would first want to know why the people who didn’t come back, didn’t come back.
Not every customer needs another email, SMS or discount. Some products naturally have a second purchase, and some don’t. And a person who bought once isn’t automatically someone who is going to buy again.
I tend to always look at is that, the customers who actually did come back. What did they buy the first time? How long did they take to come back? What did they buy next? Were they still visiting the store but just not buying?
You can find some pretty useful stuff there. Maybe one product brings in a lot of first-time buyers but almost none of them return. Another product might bring fewer customers but lead to a lot more second orders.
Then you know where your emails, WhatsApp, loyalty offers, etc. actually make sense instead of sending the same “come back and shop” message to everyone.
So I wouldn’t look at repeat orders alone either. If you’re giving 20% off every time just to get that second order, is that really a win? Sometimes the best way to improve repeat purchases is to stop asking how to get people back and figure out why they left in the first place.
For our apparel brand this came down almost entirely to whether the first order fit. Someone who got the right size came back, someone who didn’t never did, and no email sequence really moved the needle either way.
So we realized that retention work really lived on the product page, months before the second order ever happened. Better size guidance, photos on more than one body type, saying plainly when something ran small.
On the follow-up side, the one I’d add is asking about a week after delivery whether it fit. You find out where your sizing copy is wrong, get ahead of bad reviews/complaints, and you’ve got a reason to be in their inbox that isn’t a discount.
You’re right that timing and relevance beat discounts. The biggest lift usually comes from segmenting by product type: consumables get a reorder nudge at 60-80% of the typical repurchase cycle, while one time purchases do better with a value add (how to content, complementary product rec) around day 7-10, then a softer reorder prompt around day 21. The thank you email matters, but the touchpoint that actually correlates with second orders is usually the third or fourth in the sequence, not the first. Worth tracking which email in your flow lines up with repeat purchases that tells you where to double down
I agree with a lot of the points here, especially around getting the first experience right before trying to optimize the second purchase.
One thing I’d add is to make sure customers actually see the value they earned from their first order. For example, if someone earned loyalty points with their purchase, don’t wait for them to remember that weeks later. Tell them what they earned, what those points are worth, and how close they are to their next reward. That gives the customer a reason to think about the next purchase without immediately offering another discount.
In our 2026 loyalty report, loyalty members had a 42.11% median repeat purchase rate compared with 13.96% for non-members. Of course, loyalty isn’t going to fix a poor product or first experience, but once those fundamentals are there, giving customers something tangible to come back for can make a meaningful difference.
The communication around the program matters just as much. A “you have a reward waiting” email built off actual points and tier status feels very different from another generic “come back and get 10% off” email, and it tends to perform that way too.
I’d also look closely at redemption, not just enrollment. In several of our case studies, customers actively using their rewards showed much stronger repeat-purchase behavior. That’s a good reminder that simply having a loyalty program isn’t the goal: getting customers to understand and actually use it is.
I ran a second-hand fashion webshop for a few years, so my experience if skewed to apparel: but the biggest single mover for a second order wasn’t because of something we sent after the sale, it was wether the 1st order fit and matched their expectations. When the item fit they often came back even though our email game wasn’t the strongest. If it didn’t fit and they had to return usually that meant they were gone for good
So our best solution was proper measurements on every product page and honest / detailed fit notes. Seems boring but the effort was worth it.
It is 100% depends on your product quality, your services, your price, your support system and your behavior.
Do not trust on Ads, All Ads are scams. You will spends $30,000 on Ads and then from that Ads company backend they will buy your $10,000 product and you will think, Wow, my products are getting started sell. But in real it is scam.
One thing that’s worked well for me is timing the follow-up around when the customer is actually likely to need the product again, rather than just sending random discount emails.
For consumables especially, a simple “running low?” reminder + easy reorder link can work surprisingly well.
I think the product and timing matter more than the channel itself. Email/SMS just makes it easier to act on it.
Hi there @Rasel
As far as I’m concerned, more messages are not the solution, it’s the timing of those messages. Shopify Email is best for post-purchase education first, then a reorder reminder when the product needs to be replenished based on its typical usage cycle. I’d also use segments to distinguish first time buyers from repeat customers so I can keep the messaging relevant. Loyalty perks can contribute, but my focus would be on making the second purchase easy and giving customers a real reason to come back. Monitoring repeat purchase rate by product and customer segment also greatly simplifies identifying what is actually effective.
Thanks Mustafa Really good point — “they don’t come back because they forgot, they come back because it was too easy not to” is a great way to put it. One-click reorder in the post-purchase email with saved details removes exactly the friction that quietly kills a second order.
And totally agree on timing following the product’s usage cycle rather than a fixed day count — too early feels salesy, too late and they’ve already replaced you. The unboxing/shipping point resonating with you too tells me it’s more important than most people give it credit for Appreciate the thoughtful reply
This is a brilliant addition You’ve spotted the gap the rest of us skipped right past — all the timing and one-click stuff assumes the customer is still thinking about you, but most people lose that context the moment the package arrives.
Setting the expectation upfront is the missing piece. “This lasts about 30 days, we’ll remind you around day 25” plants the mental trigger before they forget, so the reorder link lands on someone already primed instead of trying to resurrect a customer who forgot you existed. That reframes the whole sequence — expectation first, reminder second, one-click third. Definitely stealing this
This is a really valuable perspective That detail about one-time buyers still visiting the site but not landing on the pages you expected is fascinating — the intent’s there, but the path back to a purchase isn’t obvious. That’s easy to miss if you’re only looking at email metrics.
And your last point is the one that hit hardest: treating repeat purchases as purely an email problem. If the product page they return to is confusing or the next thing they need is hard to find, no amount of emails fixes that. Product-specific follow-ups timed to actual repurchase behavior over a blanket schedule makes total sense too. Looking at revenue at the page level rather than assuming high-traffic = high-value is a smart lens — appreciate the SiteGuru tip for that Thanks for sharing what actually worked
The timing question is the one worth getting right, and I think “days or weeks” is the wrong axis — it’s the product’s consumption cycle.
If someone buys a 30-day supplement, the useful moment is around day 22 to 25, while they still have some left and reordering feels like topping up rather than starting over. Coffee is the same logic on a shorter clock. For something durable — a jacket, a lamp — there’s no consumption cycle at all, and the second order comes from a different trigger entirely: a season, a gift occasion, a size change.
So the first split I’d make is: does your product run out, or doesn’t it? Those are two different retention problems and one calendar won’t serve both.
The second is that “the customer” isn’t one person. Someone on their first order is still deciding whether you were a good choice. Someone on their fourth already decided. Sending both the same follow-up is what trains people to tune out.
Disclosure: I build a post-purchase email app, so I’m not neutral — but the two points above hold whatever tool you use.
