E-commerce Repeat Purchase Rate: Benchmark, "Good Enough" Spreadsheet Method and Growth Tests

What Is Repeat Purchase Rate (RPR)? An Essential E-commerce Loyalty Metric

Rising customer acquisition costs are a constant pressure. Every dollar spent on marketing needs to work harder, which turns the conversation to loyalty and retention. Yet for many e-commerce brands, the data needed to track this is spread across Shopify, Stripe, and a handful of spreadsheets. This creates a gap between knowing you need to increase repeat purchases in ecommerce and having a clear, data-driven way to do it.

The good news is that you do not need a dedicated finance team or expensive software to get started. A pragmatic approach using tools you already have can move you from guesswork to a structured growth engine, turning one-time buyers into a predictable source of revenue. For a broader view of related metrics, see the e-commerce acquisition and retention hub.

Repeat Purchase Rate (RPR) is a straightforward metric that measures the percentage of your customers who come back to buy again within a specific timeframe. It is one of the most fundamental e-commerce loyalty metrics because it directly reflects product satisfaction and brand loyalty. If customers are willing to spend with you more than once, it signals you have a product worth coming back for.

The Repeat Purchase Rate formula is: (Number of customers who made a repeat purchase in a period) / (Total unique customers in that same period).

For example, if 1,000 unique customers bought from you in the last quarter and 250 of them made a second or third purchase during that same quarter, your RPR would be 25%. This metric becomes meaningful once you have your first 50 to 100 customers. Before that, the numbers are too small to be statistically significant. Once you have a small customer base, RPR becomes a leading indicator of your business model’s health. A rising RPR suggests a strong connection between your product and the market, which directly impacts customer lifetime value and the sustainability of your acquisition spending.

How to Calculate Repeat Purchase Rate with the "Good Enough" Spreadsheet Method

One of the most common hurdles for an early-stage business is that sales, payment, and customer data live in different systems. This can make calculating an accurate RPR feel impossible without a dedicated analytics platform. The reality is more pragmatic: you can get a reliable RPR using a spreadsheet and the data you can already export.

This “Good Enough” Spreadsheet Method answers the question: how can I calculate my RPR when my data is scattered? Here is a simple process:

1. Define Your Time Period: Choose a period that makes sense for your business, such as the last quarter, the last six months, or the last year. For products with a short purchase cycle, like coffee or cosmetics, a shorter timeframe like a quarter is useful. For durable goods, a year might be more appropriate. Consistency is key.
2. Export Your Order Data: Go into your e-commerce platform (like Shopify) or payment processor (like Stripe) and export all orders from your chosen time period. The critical pieces of information you need are a unique customer identifier (like an email address or customer ID) and the order date.
3. Isolate Unique Customers: In your spreadsheet (Google Sheets or Excel), create a list of all customer identifiers from your export. Use the “Remove Duplicates” or UNIQUE function to create a clean list of every unique customer who purchased in the period. The count of this list is your denominator.
4. Count Repeat Purchasers: Now, go back to your full order list to identify which customers appear more than once. A simple way to do this is with a COUNTIF function. The COUNTIF function counts how many times each customer's email appears in your complete order list. If the count for a customer is greater than one, they are a repeat purchaser. Sum the total number of unique customers who made more than one purchase. This is your numerator.
5. Calculate Your RPR: Divide the number of repeat purchasers (from Step 4) by the total number of unique customers (from Step 3). The result is your RPR for the period.

This manual process is effective until it becomes too time-consuming. The trigger point for moving to automated tools typically arrives when you handle thousands of transactions per month and this purchase frequency analysis takes hours instead of minutes.

What Is a Good Repeat Purchase Rate? A Guide to Retention Benchmarks

A common source of anxiety is the lack of reliable retention benchmarks. Without them, you are left guessing whether your repeat purchase frequency is healthy, which can lead to misallocating your marketing budget. While industry figures provide some context, they should be used as a directional guide, not an absolute target.

For context, "E-commerce benchmarks for Repeat Purchase Rate often range from 20-30%." However, this number is highly dependent on your business model. A critical distinction must be made between high-frequency and low-frequency products. A subscription coffee company might aim for an RPR of 60% or higher on a monthly basis, as their product is a daily consumable. In contrast, an online furniture store selling couches might have a phenomenal business with a 5% RPR over three years, because the purchase cycle is much longer. To build more detailed retention curves, see our guide on cohort retention analysis.

In practice, we see that the most valuable benchmark is your own trend line. Is your RPR improving month over month or quarter over quarter? Tracking your own internal progress provides a far more actionable signal about the health of your customer retention strategies than comparing your business to a generic average. A 2% improvement in your own RPR is a concrete win that proves your efforts are working.

In the SaaS world, a similar concept exists with Net Revenue Retention (NRR). "Healthy early-stage SaaS aims for >100% Net Revenue Retention (NRR)." While the calculation is different, the principle is identical: deriving more value from your existing customer base is the hallmark of a healthy, scalable business.

How to Increase Repeat Purchases in E-commerce: A 4-Step Framework

Many brands attempt to improve retention with random tactics like occasional discounts or newsletters. This approach often fails because there is no structured process to test initiatives and attribute results. To move from guesswork to growth, you can implement a simple four-step loop: Measure, Hypothesize, Test, and Attribute.

1. Measure: This is the baseline RPR you calculated. You now have a starting point and a number to beat.
2. Hypothesize: Create a specific, testable hypothesis about what might encourage a repeat purchase. For example: “We believe a personalized post-purchase email sent 21 days after delivery, offering a 10% discount on a complementary product, will increase our 90-day RPR.”
3. Test: Implement the initiative for a set period. You could run this for all new customers for one month or implement an A/B test where half your customers receive the offer and half do not.
4. Attribute: After the test period, measure the RPR for the test group and compare it to your baseline or control group. Did the rate increase? If so, you can confidently attribute the lift to your new initiative.

Consider a bootstrapped Shopify store using this loop for improving customer loyalty. They measured their quarterly RPR at 22%. They hypothesized that a personalized follow-up email three weeks after purchase, suggesting a complementary product, would drive repeats. They tested this with an A/B test in their email software. If you use a tool like Klaviyo, its cohort tooling can help you run these A/B tests. After one quarter, the group that received the personalized email had an RPR of 27%, while the control group remained at 22%. They could attribute the five-point lift directly to this new customer retention strategy.

From Data to Loyalty: Building a Predictable Revenue Engine

Improving your Repeat Purchase Rate is one of the most effective ways to build a resilient e-commerce business. The path to achieving this doesn't require complex software or a large team. Start with a spreadsheet to establish your baseline RPR. This number, and its trend over time, is your most important benchmark. To understand the financial impact, see our guide on customer retention cost to calculate program ROI.

Focus on your own progress rather than generic industry averages that may not apply to your business model. To drive improvement, adopt the simple 'Measure, Hypothesize, Test, Attribute' cycle. This framework transforms your customer retention strategies from random acts of marketing into a disciplined system for growth. By focusing on these fundamentals, you can build a loyal customer base that fuels predictable revenue and long-term success. For more tools and metrics, see the e-commerce acquisition and retention hub.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How often should I calculate my Repeat Purchase Rate?
A: The ideal frequency depends on your sales volume and purchase cycle. A good starting point for most e-commerce businesses is quarterly. This provides enough data to be meaningful without being overly burdensome. High-volume businesses with short purchase cycles, like consumables, may benefit from monthly tracking.

Q: What is the difference between Repeat Purchase Rate and Customer Retention Rate?
A: RPR measures the percentage of customers who made more than one purchase in a period out of all customers in that period. Customer Retention Rate (CRR) typically measures the percentage of customers from a starting cohort who are still active in a later period. RPR is simpler and focuses on purchase behavior, while CRR is often used for subscription models.

Q: Can a business with a low RPR still be healthy?
A: Yes, absolutely. A business selling high-ticket, low-frequency items like mattresses or furniture will naturally have a low RPR. For these models, a 5% RPR over several years could indicate a very healthy business. The key is to benchmark against your own historical trends and understand the typical purchase cadence for your specific products.