You may have heard the importance of retaining customers and how they can be a game-changer in increasing sales and profit. 80% of your future profits will come from just 20% of your existing customers. Therefore, it’s critical to focus on customer retention to increase sales and profits.

In this article, I’ll describe how you can increase the frequency of transactions per customer in your e-commerce, in other words, increase sales.

Why is the Frequency of Transactions Per Customer so important?

Overall, there are only 4 ways to increase revenue:

1. Grow the number of customers
2. Increase the average transaction size
3. Increase the frequency of transactions per customer
4. Raise your prices

It’s much cheaper to get your current customers to make additional purchases down the road than it is to acquire new customers. Additionally, it’s much more probable that those who have purchased from your company in the past will do so again (compared to those who are yet to make an initial purchase). Therefore, it makes sense for many businesses to focus their marketing strategy on the 3rd method in the above list.

How Do You Increase Your E-commerce Customers’ Purchase Frequency?

Let’s imagine your average customer comes in once a month. Convincing your customers to buy from your business once a week will increase your revenue. The more frequently they visit your e-commerce website, the more opportunities for your business to increase revenue.

To increase your e-commerce customers’ purchase frequency, you must consider the following elements and steps before taking any other action:

1. Understand What “Repeat Business” Means in Your Industry

A good purchase frequency highly depends on the industry you’re active in. For example, a store that sells FMCGs (fast-moving consumer goods) like toothbrushes and shampoos will have the opportunity to get repeat sales rather than a store that sells cars. Therefore, it’s very important to understand what’s the standard purchase frequency in your industry. Then you can plan to set accurate and realistic goals to increase it.

You can calculate your repurchase rates either using a cohort table or a Formaloo no-code platform that automates this step for you.

2. Consider the Products You Sell

If the products you sell don’t require that your customers come back to your e-commerce store at some point, you probably don’t have that great a shot at increasing their purchase frequency. Make your products or some parts of them fall into one of the following categories:

• Products that are updated/upgraded on a regular basis
• Consumables
• Products that incapacitate or degrade through the use

This way, you can increase the opportunities of selling more frequently to a single customer.

3. Sell Products that Complement One Another

You can also add smaller accessory-type products that complement your main offerings. A very good example is Apple selling accessories that complement its iPhones and iPads besides frequently updating its products to encourage customers to buy more frequently.

Offering such supplementary items provides you with the opportunity to make cross-sell offers. By offering products that complement your main products, you’ll increase the chances that your customers will come back to you more often. There are many tools like Formaloo on Shopify that help you offer specific products when the customer has made a purchase, after a period of inactivity, or after they’ve got some initial value from their purchase.

4. Encourage Loyalty Programs

To build loyalty in your customers and retain them, you need gamification and loyalty programs. These programs will encourage your customers to shop more frequently in return for getting discounts and convincing offers. They also help you encourage your customers to refer new customers or buy more in each transaction they make. There are many tools that help you automate your gamification and loyalty program. The one tool that we suggest is the Formaloo no-code platform because it provides much more tools and functionalities to help your business grow faster, build customer loyalty, and increase profits.

If you have any questions, check out Formaloo’s support page to find ways you can contact us.

Visit our YouTube channel for more helpful tutorials and resources.

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