8 Tips To Drive Repeat Business As A Retailer

With the retail eCommerce domain growing increasingly competitive, businesses have realized that the costs of acquiring new customers are significantly higher as compared to the costs of retaining existing customers. Did you know that the cost of attracting a new customer is five times more than the cost of retaining the existing one? 

Because of these exorbitant costs of customer acquisition, businesses are shifting their focus on customer retention to drive repeat purchases among customers. Repeat purchases can contribute significantly to the company’s revenue and growth. It decreases the amount of money a brand would spend on acquiring new customers by leveraging simple tactics to identify loyal customers and promote the best-selling products or services.

However, even though the retail industry is known for impulsive purchases, businesses are struggling to engage existing customers and encourage them to place repeat orders. In this post, we shall share the top 8 tips to encourage customers into making repeat purchases.

8 Tips to Drive Repeat Sales to Your Retail Business

Create a Subscription Model

Subscription-based businesses are currently on the rise. Many companies have adopted these usage-based pricing models, such as tiered pricing, volume pricing, pay-as-you-grow pricing, monthly subscriptions, and more to bill their customers on a recurring basis. 

The subscription-based pricing follows a recurring billing model where the customers pay for your products monthly rather than paying it all in one shot. Recurring billing ensures that your customers will purchase from you every month, thereby ensuring an assured flow of repeat orders throughout the month.

For example, Amazon offers a Subscribe & Save program for all its customers to help them shop for the desired products at a discounted price. It also offers the option to schedule these deliveries as per the customers’ preferences. 

This program has simplified the lives of customers as they no longer have to reorder the products manually every month as Amazon’s automated system takes care of the same. On the other hand, Amazon receives repeat purchases from these customers every month which boosts its revenue.

Subscription-based billing model lowers customer churn, boosts customer satisfaction, and helps in customer retention. It develops a strong bond of trust with your customers and strengthens customer relationships.

Introduce A Loyalty Program

Starting a loyalty program is one of the proven ways to encourage repeat purchases among customers. All you need to do is reward the customers with loyalty points, freebies, discount coupons, and more every time they purchase with your business. 

By offering incentives to customers through loyalty programs, you encourage customers to buy again from your brand and build stronger customer relationships. It differentiates your brand from competitors by driving customer satisfaction and boosting customer retention. 

Follow these tips to build an effective loyalty program for your customers.

• Offer discounts to customers who have become members of your loyalty program.
• Organize giveaways and contests for program members.
• Start a referral program and reward members who refer customers to your business.
• Leverage gamification to make the program interactive and interesting.

Provide Excellent Customer Service

Customer service plays a crucial role in determining whether or not a customer would repurchase from a brand. Note that customers might not remember the products they purchase from a brand over time but they certainly remember the buying experience and customer service that particular brand offered. Build a robust customer service strategy to ensure maximum customer satisfaction. 

Here are a few simple tips to help you deliver excellent customer service.

• Understand your customers to know more about their purchases and what they like or hate about your company.
• Leverage helpdesk software to connect with customers and have meaningful conversations with them. Offer them personalized support and quick solutions to their queries.
• Install a live chat widget on your website and assign human agents to converse with the customers and solve their queries.
• Train your customer support team to offer excellent service to all the customers every time. Ensure that they focus on building lasting customer relationships.
• Remind your team that customer service is an ongoing process and ensure that they follow up with the customers even after their issues are resolved.

Leverage Retargeting Ads

Retargeting ads offer businesses the best way to serve previously engaged customers with engaging advertisements thereby increasing the chances of repeat purchases. It brings your brand to the spotlight by repeatedly pushing your content to the customers who are interested in buying from your businesses. 

Did you know that retargeting can increase conversion rates by 150%? No wonder, retargeting ads are being leveraged by many businesses for increased conversions, brand awareness, and customer retention.

For example, J.Crew Factory is a leading clothing retailer based in the US. This brand leverages retargeting ads to promote its flash sale on Facebook. Check out the screenshot below.

Here are some tips to boost your retargeting ad conversions.

• Include a simple yet powerful CTA.
• Be creative with the content you use in these ads. Experiment with text, images, and videos.
• Avoid overloading customers with repetitive ads. 
• Leverage A/B testing to understand the engagement on the ads and craft your future strategies accordingly.

Invest in Personalization

Personalization is an efficient strategy to boost repeat engagement and customer loyalty over time. It fosters a strong connection with the customers by helping you craft relatable experiences for them. By using customer data based on their details, buying habits, and more, you can tailor your marketing campaign to convey the right message and strengthen the customer’s association with your business.

Here are some tips to leverage personalization in your marketing campaigns.

• Segment your customers into various groups based on criteria, such as gender, age, location, interest, and more.
• Send re-engagement emails to the customers who have gone cold.
• Personalize your messages with tailored product recommendations or exclusive coupon codes to drive more conversions.
• Leverage various sales techniques, such as cross-selling and upselling to encourage customers into buying more products. 
• Send cart abandonment emails to those customers who have left your website without completing their purchases.
• Continue to engage the customers even after they have completed their purchases by sharing informative blog posts, interactive quizzes, short videos, and more.

Offer Freebies and Discounts

All customers love good deals. Offering discounts and freebies to customers is one of the best promotional strategies businesses can adopt for driving repeat sales. In fact, 93% of customers use a coupon or discount code while making purchases. Further, 60% of customers admitted that they opt for a full-sized product after trying out a freebie.

Research and plan unique ways to present amazing discount coupons or freebies to your customers. For example, you could offer a cashback of 10% to customers that can be applied to a future purchase giving them a reason to return to your brand for making additional purchases.

Here are a few tips that you can follow.

• Ensure that your freebie or coupon is valuable. This will help you attract new customers and engage existing ones to boost sales.
• Offer good quality freebies to persuade customers to come back to you.
• Promote your discount coupons and freebies on various channels, such as websites and social media, thereby boosting brand awareness and sales.

Maintain An Active Social Media Presence

Social media is the perfect medium for promoting your products to customers and developing a strong brand image. A consistent social media presence builds a sense of trust among the customers – a crucial aspect for driving repeat sales. 

Plan an excellent social media strategy by understanding your customers and identifying the type of content that will resonate with them. Create eye-catching graphics and videos to capture the attention of your customers. 

Remember – relevant and relatable content will help you stand out among the competitors and convince your customers to buy from you again and again.

Engage with your customers on social media by responding to their comments, messages, and more. You can also share the content they create on your social media pages to drive more engagement.

Ask For Customer Feedback

Customer feedback forms the foundation for making improvements in customer experiences. In fact, 89% of customers would make additional purchases after having a positive experience with a brand. Hence, capturing customer feedback and implementing those changes in your business is the best way to engage customers with your brand and foster long-term associations.  

Asking for feedback from your customers will make them feel heard. They will feel special as they are more than just a number for your brand. It will help you improve your offerings and optimize customer experiences to deliver the products or services as per their expectations. Thus, your customers will not look for similar offerings elsewhere.

Develop a questionnaire and send it to the customers to understand what they think about your products or services, customer support, and the brand. Capturing feedback is simply not enough. You must use the feedback to improve the level of customer experience. Working on customer feedback demonstrates that you are listening to customers and improving your existing processes or offerings based on their needs.

Wrapping Up

Providing a great experience to customers by engaging them with your brand will help you build and maintain lasting relationships with them. It will strengthen their trust in your brand and boost customer loyalty. 

Offering a positive shopping experience and customer support is more likely to encourage customers to purchase from you in the future and refer your products to their friends. So, follow the tips we shared in this post to create engaging customer experiences and unlock the key to driving more repeat purchases.

Contributed by Hazel Raoult is a freelance marketing writer and works with PRmention. She has 6+ years of experience in writing about business, entrepreneurship, marketing, and all things SaaS. Hazel loves to split her time between writing, editing, and hanging out with her family.