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Repeat Purchase Rate Formula: How to Calculate and Use It

Repeat Purchase Rate Formula: How to Calculate and Use It ! Salon owner checking repeat booking records The repeat purchase rate formula is simple: divide the number of customers who bought two or more times by your total number of unique customers, then multiply by 100.

Repeat Purchase Rate Formula: How to Calculate and Use It

Repeat Purchase Rate Formula: How to Calculate and Use It

Salon owner checking repeat booking records

The repeat purchase rate formula is simple: divide the number of customers who bought two or more times by your total number of unique customers, then multiply by 100. If 2,200 of your 8,000 customers came back at least once, your repeat purchase rate is 27.5%. The hard part is not the division. It is choosing the right customer list and the right time window, because those two choices decide whether the number tells you something true or just flatters you.

This guide shows the formula, three worked examples for a salon, a cafe and a shop, the mistakes that skew the result, and what to do when the number is lower than you hoped.

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TL;DR

  • Formula: Repeat purchase rate = (customers with 2 or more purchases ÷ total unique customers) × 100.
  • Window matters: a cafe or salon should measure over 30 to 90 days, a high-value retailer over 365 days. A mismatched window gives a falsely high or falsely low result.
  • Do not confuse it with retention rate: repeat purchase rate looks at your whole customer base, retention rate follows a specific cohort over time.
  • Benchmarks are guides, not targets: published ranges are mostly from online stores, so compare yourself with your own past numbers first.
  • The lever is the second visit: most improvement comes from turning first-time customers into second-time customers.

Table of Contents

The repeat purchase rate formula

The standard version is the one most finance and analytics references use: customers with two or more purchases divided by total unique customers, times 100. Some sources write it without the multiplication and give a decimal, for example repeat customers divided by total customers. Same idea, different formatting: 0.275 and 27.5% are the same result.

Written out:

Repeat purchase rate (%) = (Number of customers with 2+ purchases ÷ Number of unique customers) × 100

Three definitions you need before you calculate anything:

  1. Repeat customer: someone with at least two purchases in the period you chose. Two purchases by the same person on the same day are usually one visit, so decide up front whether you count orders or visits.
  2. Unique customers: each person counted once, however often they bought. If you count transactions instead of people, the rate will be wrong.
  3. Period: the window in which you count. Without one, the number has no meaning, and you cannot compare it with next quarter.

Worked examples for local businesses

The figures below are illustrative, not client results. Swap in your own numbers.

A hair salon over 90 days

Your booking system shows 320 different clients between 1 July and 30 September. Of them, 134 booked at least twice.

134 ÷ 320 = 0.419, so the repeat purchase rate is 41.9%.

For a salon with a typical visit cycle of six to eight weeks, a 90-day window fits: most regulars will have had time to come back once. If your clients typically visit every four months, extend the window to 180 days or the rate will look weak for no real reason.

A cafe over 30 days

You run a loyalty card, so you can identify customers. In September, 900 identified customers bought something. Of them, 450 bought on two or more days.

450 ÷ 900 = 50%.

Caution: this only covers customers you can identify. Walk-in cash buyers are invisible, so the real rate across all guests is lower. Say so when you report it, and track the same group of identified customers each month so the trend stays honest.

A gift shop over 365 days

For a shop where people buy a few times a year, a short window would show almost nothing. Over the last 12 months you had 2,400 unique customers and 480 of them purchased twice or more.

480 ÷ 2,400 = 20%.

The window guidance in this ecommerce repeat purchase guide makes the same point: match the window to your natural purchase cycle. A default 365-day benchmark applied to a cafe makes retention look falsely inflated, while a 30-day window on a high-end furniture store reports almost zero loyalty.

Business type Typical window Why
Cafe, bakery, lunch spot 30 to 90 days Customers can buy weekly
Hair or beauty salon 90 to 180 days Visits follow a grooming cycle
Fashion or gift retail 180 to 365 days Purchases are occasional
Jewelry, furniture 365 days or longer Purchases are rare and high value

The first two rows follow the 30 to 90 day guidance for cafes and salons. The salon and retail windows beyond that are our own rule of thumb: set them from your own visit cycle.

How to pull the numbers in four steps

  1. Fix the window. Pick start and end dates and write them down.
  2. Export unique customers. From your booking tool, POS or loyalty platform, list each customer who bought at least once in that window.
  3. Count purchases per customer. Flag everyone with two or more visits.
  4. Divide and multiply by 100. Save the result with the window and date, so you can compare like with like next time.

If you use a spreadsheet, a pivot table with customer ID in rows and a count of transactions in values does steps 2 and 3 in a minute. If you have a database, a GROUP BY customer with HAVING COUNT(*) >= 2 does the same; Metabase explains the SQL version.

What is a good repeat purchase rate?

What is a good repeat purchase rate? — overview diagram

Published benchmarks vary a lot by sector. One D2C unit economics guide puts healthy rates at 20 to 30%, with consumable categories such as beauty and food and beverage reaching 40 to 55%. Another source for small online stores suggests 25 to 40% as a target range.

Two warnings before you compare yourself:

  • These figures come mostly from online brands, not from Dutch salons, cafes or high street shops. Treat them as a rough frame.
  • Your own trend beats any benchmark. If you were at 28% last quarter and you are at 33% now with the same window and method, something is working.

A 40% rate in a salon may be average, while 40% in a furniture shop would be outstanding. Compare like with like.

Repeat purchase rate vs. retention rate

The most common mistake is mixing up the two. Repeat purchase rate describes what share of your customers have bought two or more times, across the whole base. Customer retention rate is cohort-based: it follows a group of customers who started in the same period and asks how many are still active after a set time.

The retention formula looks like this: (customers at the end of the period minus new customers) ÷ customers at the start × 100.

Use each for a different question:

  • Repeat purchase rate: “Do my customers come back at all?”
  • Retention rate: “Of the people who first visited in March, how many are still coming in June?”

Mixing them gives data that hides whether your marketing retains new cohorts or whether you are simply living off a loyal core.

Why a single blended number can mislead you

New customers start at a 0% repeat rate by definition. A busy month with many first-time visitors drags your blended rate down even when your regulars are more loyal than ever. The opposite happens too: a quiet period with few newcomers lifts the rate without anything improving.

The fix is to group customers by the month of their first purchase and look at each cohort’s repeat rate separately. Then you can see whether customers acquired after you changed something (a new loyalty card, a reminder message, a new stylist) behave better than those before.

If you want to go deeper, our guide on retention cohort analysis with a copyable workflow walks through it, and this piece on proving channel lifetime value with marketing cohort analysis shows the analyst’s view of the same idea.

Our perspective: the second visit is the one to win

We build digital loyalty cards for salons, cafes and shops, so we look at this metric through one question: what happens after the first purchase?

Our view is that the repeat purchase rate is less a report card than a to-do list. The single most valuable move is turning a first-time buyer into a second-time buyer, because someone who has bought twice is statistically more likely to buy a third time. That is where the curve bends in your favor.

A few things we would do before anything else:

Our positioning is practical: no app download for your customers, a card that sits in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet, and a push notification that can bring people back. But the metric works whichever tool you use. Count honestly, and act on the second visit.

— erenmette

How to raise your repeat purchase rate

Once you have a baseline, pick the tactics that fit your business. Each of these targets the second visit.

  1. Give a reason to return soon. A stamp card where the first stamp is already given starts the habit. See how a digital stamp card for your shop works in practice.
  2. Rebook before the customer leaves. For salons, the most reliable repeat is the next appointment made at the chair. Our posts on client retention for hairdressers and five practical retention tips for hairdressers cover this.
  3. Follow up after the first purchase. A short thank-you and a nudge to come back is the lowest-effort way to start. If email is your channel, a specialist in lifecycle email automation can build the journey for you.
  4. Reward your best customers visibly. Branded extras for loyal buyers can strengthen the relationship, as this look at why branded merchandise helps conversions argues.
  5. Raise visit frequency in retail. For shops, our guide on increasing purchase frequency in retail has concrete ideas.

For a longer list of quick wins, see 10 customer retention tips you can apply today.

Where repeat purchase rate sits among other metrics

Repeat purchase rate does not stand alone. Average order value is total revenue divided by the number of orders, and customer lifetime value is average order value times purchase frequency times customer lifespan. Repeat purchase rate is the quickest signal of the frequency and lifespan parts.

A simple example: a cafe where the average order is €6 and a customer comes 20 times a year is worth more than a cafe with an €8 average order and 6 visits a year, even though the second ticket looks bigger. That is why frequency deserves as much attention as basket size.

Annual customer spend comparison for two cafes

Track the metric automatically with a digital loyalty card

Calculating the rate by hand works, but only for customers you can identify. A digital loyalty card makes every stamp a data point: each customer has an identity, each visit is logged, and you can see who has come back and who has not.

Beepify gives salons, cafes and shops a customizable stamp card that lives in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. Customers collect stamps by scanning a QR code, you see the activity in an analytics dashboard, and you can send a push notification to bring people back. You can read about the Apple Wallet stamp card or compare plans on the pricing page. The Starter plan costs €45 per month, or €540 per year. If you are starting from scratch, our seven-step guide to setting up a loyalty program is a good first read.

Common mistakes to avoid

  • No window. A rate without dates cannot be compared.
  • Counting orders, not people. Ten orders from one person is one customer.
  • Including very new customers. Someone who bought yesterday has had no chance to return. Exclude the last stretch of the window, or use cohorts.
  • Ignoring unidentified buyers. If half your sales are anonymous, say so when you report the rate.
  • Chasing the benchmark. A higher rate from a shorter window is not an improvement.
  • Changing the method midway. If you change the window, restate the old figures.

FAQ

How do you calculate repeat purchase rate?

Divide the number of customers who bought at least twice in your chosen period by the total number of unique customers in that period, then multiply by 100. For example, 134 repeat customers out of 320 gives 41.9%. Always note the window you used.

What is the difference between repeat purchase rate and customer retention rate?

Repeat purchase rate shows the share of your entire customer base that has bought more than once. Retention rate tracks a specific group, usually a cohort of new customers, over a set time. Use repeat purchase rate for an overall loyalty snapshot and retention rate to see whether newer customers stay.

What time window should I use?

Match it to how often your customers naturally buy. Cafes and salons usually fit 30 to 90 days, while high-value retailers may need 365 days. Too long a window flatters a high-frequency business, and too short a window hides loyalty in a low-frequency one.

What is a good repeat purchase rate?

Online brand benchmarks commonly cite 20 to 30%, with consumables like beauty and food reaching 40 to 55%. Those numbers come mostly from ecommerce, so use them as a rough reference. Your own trend over the same window is a better yardstick.

Can a small local business use this formula?

Yes, as long as you can identify your customers, through bookings, a loyalty card or customer accounts. Without identification you can only estimate. A digital loyalty card is one simple way to capture that data.

Sources

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