Repeat purchase rate is the percentage of your customers who have made more than one purchase from your store within a given time period. It is calculated by dividing the number of customers who have purchased at least twice by your total number of customers. If you have 10,000 customers and 3,200 have purchased more than once, your repeat purchase rate is 32%.
Repeat purchase rate is one of the clearest signals of brand health available to an e-commerce operator. A high rate means customers are finding enough value - in the product, the experience, or both - to return without being re-acquired through paid advertising. A low rate means the brand is effectively running a one-time-sale business, paying full CAC for every revenue dollar, with no compounding return on its customer base. The difference between a 20% and a 40% repeat purchase rate, at scale, is the difference between a brand that requires ever-increasing ad spend to grow and one that generates a meaningful base of organic, returning revenue.
Benchmarks vary significantly by category. Consumable products - supplements, coffee, skincare, pet food - naturally command higher repeat rates (40-60%+) because the product runs out and needs replacing. Considered purchases like furniture or electronics will sit much lower (5-15%) by nature. Comparing your repeat purchase rate to category benchmarks rather than cross-industry averages gives a more actionable picture of where you stand.
For growth marketers, repeat purchase rate is most useful as a diagnostic that surfaces where in the customer lifecycle retention is breaking down. Segmenting it by acquisition channel reveals whether certain channels attract higher-loyalty customers. Tracking it by first product purchased shows which SKUs create the best long-term customers - that information should feed directly into acquisition creative and landing page strategy, pointing ad spend toward the products that generate the most valuable buyers, not just the most buyers.
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