Repeat Purchase Rate by Industry

Repeat purchase rate is the share of customers who ordered at least twice within a set period. Across 1,326 Shopify stores, the median 12-month repeat purchase rate was 18.1% from September 2025 to August 2026. A good rate depends on your industry, store size, and measurement window.

What is repeat purchase rate?

Repeat purchase rate tells you whether customers who bought during a period bought again within that same period. It counts people, rather than orders. A customer who buys twice and someone who buys often each count as one repeat customer.

To calculate your rate, compare customers who ordered more than once with everyone who ordered during the same period. Express that share as a percentage. Keep the dates the same for both customer counts.

For a hypothetical example, imagine a store where one in five customers bought again during the year. Its repeat purchase rate is twenty percent. Counting repeat buyers over the store's whole history would answer a different question.

Repeat customer rate usually means the same thing. Retention rate generally asks whether customers from an earlier period remain active in a later one. Purchase frequency describes how often customers buy, rather than how many return. Reorder rate sometimes means buying the same product again, so check the definition before comparing figures.

Why does it matter?

A repeat purchase rate shows whether first purchases become ongoing relationships. When customers return, you have more opportunities to recover the cost of acquiring them. When they rarely return, the first order needs to carry more of that cost.

The rate alone cannot tell you whether those relationships are profitable. Check what repeat customers spend and whether discounts leave enough margin. Our guide to customer lifetime value explains how repeat orders contribute to the value of a customer.

What is a good repeat purchase rate?

A 12-month rate above 18.1% beats the median store in this benchmark. Above 28.2% puts a store in the top quarter. Those are starting points; your industry's row offers a closer comparison.

Searchers often ask for the average repeat purchase rate. This page gives the median, which describes the store in the middle. The bands help you see whether your store sits near that middle or toward either end.

Generic ranges need context. A benchmark that leaves out its period cannot tell you whether your quarterly or annual rate is good. Before using a published target, look for its measurement window and the kinds of stores it describes.

Repeat purchase rate by industry

What you sell changes the comparison more than store size does. Products that run out create more reasons to reorder than products bought for occasional needs. Compare with your industry's row before judging your store against the overall median.

Non-alcoholic beverages have a median of 32.2%, while bags and travel have 11.6%. Coffee and tea sit at 31.7%, and health food and supplements at 30.9%. These are different purchase cycles, rather than targets that every store should try to reach.

Even a familiar category label can hide differences. Wellness has a median of 15.9%, compared with 30.9% for health food and supplements. Choose the row closest to what customers buy from you.

There is room for variation inside an industry too. The middle half of clothing stores runs from 11.4% to 23.0%. Your catalog, customer needs, and purchase experience can differ from another clothing store's.

If your industry has too few stores to appear, use the overall bands and your revenue band as context. Allow for your products' purchase cycle. Also consider whether customers buy through subscriptions, which create different expectations from occasional purchases.

Repeat purchase rate by store size

Larger stores tend to have higher rates, but the revenue bands sit closer together than the industry medians. Use store size to refine your comparison after choosing an industry. A higher revenue band does not prove that growth causes customers to return.

The median is 16.3% below $1m, 19.8% from $1m to $10m, and 20.3% above $10m. The bands can include different products and business models. Revenue also does not tell you how long a company has been operating.

Use these comparisons to choose where to investigate, rather than to set a growth promise. If your rate trails your industry but matches your revenue band, look at both before deciding what needs fixing.

Why your repeat purchase rate may not match a benchmark

Check the period and metric before treating a gap as a performance problem. An annual repeat purchase rate, a quarterly rate, and a returning customer rate answer different questions. A lifetime figure adds another source of confusion.

The measurement window changes the number

A shorter window gives customers less time to place another order. A lifetime rate includes orders across the store's history, so it also reflects how long you have been selling. Compare rates over the same period.

Repeat purchase rate vs returning customer rate

Returning customer rate asks how many customers buying in a period have bought before. Shopify's analytics reference describes it as returning customers among customers who placed orders. A customer who bought last year and once this quarter can be returning without buying twice this quarter.

That returning customer comparison is a separate measure, rather than a target for your repeat purchase rate. Shopify's returning figure can also include someone whose first and second orders fall within the selected period. Our Shopify returning customer rate guide covers that metric in more detail.

How to check your rate in Shopify

Start by choosing a date range, then count customers who ordered and customers who ordered again within it. Shopify's customer segment reference supports filters for order dates and order counts. Compare customers with at least one order with those who have at least two in the same range.

Treat this as a starting estimate, rather than a promise that different reports will match exactly. Check the report's definition, particularly if orders were canceled, refunded, or replaced. Keep your chosen definition consistent when tracking changes.

Review the rate monthly using the same window length. Then look at customers by acquisition month or channel to find where return patterns differ. By the Numbers' cohort analysis shows how groups of new customers return over time.

How long do customers take to place a second order?

Second orders continue arriving after the first month. The table follows new customers whose first purchase fell between September 2024 and August 2025. It shows the share who returned within each period, across 1,299 stores.

Use your own purchase cycle to time reminders, rather than copying another industry's schedule. For products customers use up, a reminder near the expected replenishment date can be useful. For occasional purchases, later messages may be more relevant than an immediate discount.

Our guide to improving customer retention on Shopify covers follow ups in more detail. Another useful measure is the share of customers who move from a second order to a third. It can show whether customers keep returning after their first repeat purchase.

Is your repeat purchase rate low? What to check first

Investigate a low rate in this order. Start with comparison problems before spending money on a new retention offer.

1. Check the metric and period. Confirm that your rate and benchmark answer the same question over the same window.
2. Choose relevant peers. Compare with your industry and store size before using the overall median as a target.
3. Look at recent acquisition. Customers who arrived late in the period have had less time to order again.
4. Consider what you sell. Durable goods may need strong profit on the first purchase more than frequent reorders.
5. Review the purchase experience. Look for delivery problems, product disappointment, returns, or support issues before assuming customers need discounts.

Compare customers by their first product and acquisition channel to narrow the investigation. A gap points to a question worth checking; it does not establish its cause. Once you find the problem, see our ways to increase repeat purchase rate on Shopify.

For a broader view of store performance, our ecommerce benchmarks bring related metrics together.

How we measured it

These benchmarks use anonymized, aggregated data from Shopify stores in the By the Numbers network. No individual store is identifiable from any figure. Stores that use an analytics app are not a random sample of all Shopify stores, so read the figures as a reference point, not as an average for the whole market.

Keep reading

If you want the full picture on cohort analysis and retention, start with cohort analysis for Shopify.

Related reading: How to Improve Customer Retention on Shopify, Customer Churn Rate on Shopify: Calculate and Reduce It and How to Predict Churn Using Segmentation (Shopify).

By the Numbers builds this into the dashboard. See cohort analysis.