What is repeat order share?
Repeat order share is the percentage of orders placed by customers who have ordered before. It's calculated as returning customer orders divided by total orders in the period. Repeat buyers don't need to be acquired again, so they're the cheapest revenue a consumer brand has, and this share shows how much of sales comes from them.
Formula
Returning customer orders ÷ total orders
Example
A hypothetical supplement brand took 4,000 online orders in a month, and 1,400 came from customers with a prior order. Repeat order share = 1,400 ÷ 4,000 = 0.35, or 35%.
How to read it
Higher is better in the sense that more revenue arrives without acquisition cost. The trap is that the share can rise for a bad reason: if new customer acquisition stalls, repeat orders become a larger share of a shrinking total. Read it next to new customer counts and blended CAC, and expect it to dip during big acquisition pushes.
What moves it
- Product consumption cycle and replenishment timing
- Subscription programs and subscribe-and-save offers
- Email and SMS retention marketing
- Product quality and first-order experience
- Volume of new customers acquired in the same period
What to do when it's flagged
- Check whether new customer volume changed before reading too much into the share
- Review time between first and second order by cohort
- Tighten post-purchase email and SMS flows for first-time buyers
- Test a subscription or replenishment reminder for consumable products
How Inflection tracks it
Inflection's KPI Monitor tracks repeat order share without a default flag; thresholds are set per client based on their product and purchase cycle.
Total orders come from Shopify; returning customer orders are entered manually until that input is connected.
Updated 2026-10-11. Example figures are hypothetical.