Repeat Purchase Rate
Repeat purchase rate is the percentage of customers who make more than one purchase within a defined observation rule.
What is Repeat Purchase Rate?
The measure asks how widely repeat buying occurs across a customer population. It counts customers rather than repeat orders: a shopper placing five orders is still one repeat purchaser. The time window and starting population are essential parts of the definition.
A cohort version follows customers acquired together and asks how many buy again within a set number of days. A period version may count customers with multiple purchases during that period. These approaches can produce different percentages and should not be mixed.
Cohort repeat purchase rate = Customers who reorder within the window ÷ Original cohort customers × 100
Count each customer once in the numerator. Give everyone in the cohort the same opportunity to complete the observation window.
How many first-time tea buyers come back?
A tea store acquires 500 customers in a launch cohort. Within 90 days of each first order, 140 place at least one additional order. The cohort repeat purchase rate is 28%. If those 140 shoppers place 210 repeat orders, the rate remains 28% because it counts people, not orders.
How to interpret it
The rate describes the breadth of repeat behavior. It does not say how often repeat buyers order, how much they spend or what their purchases contribute. Purchase frequency and customer value answer those additional questions.
The observation window should fit the product. A consumable expected to run out in a month and a durable appliance are unlikely to show comparable 90-day repeat patterns. A low rate can reflect a naturally long purchase cycle rather than a failed experience.
Recent cohorts need time to mature. Reporting a 90-day rate for customers acquired yesterday makes the result artificially low. Either wait for a complete window or label the measure as an early, incomplete observation.
A platform’s returning-customer share may count period buyers who had any earlier purchase, even if that earlier purchase was outside the period. That is related to, but not always the same as, customers making two purchases inside a fixed window.
Common mistakes
Dividing repeat orders by customers
That mixes events and people. Count unique repeat purchasers for the numerator of this rate.
Excluding one-time buyers from the denominator
Those customers are part of the original acquisition cohort. Removing them turns the calculation into a rate among already successful relationships.