Sales Distribution by Repeat Buyers

Sales Distribution by Repeat Buyers groups your customers by how many orders each placed in the date range, and shows how much each group spent. It shows how much of your revenue comes from one-time customers and how much from repeat customers.

How It’s Calculated

Each customer is put in a group by the number of orders they placed in the date range: 1-time for one order, 2-time for two, and so on up to 9-time. After that the groups are 10-19-time, 20-29-time and so on, and 100+ time for 100 or more. A customer with exactly 99 orders in the range falls in no group.

The table has one row for each group that has a customer in it. The columns are:

• Customer Group: the group, such as 2-time.
• Orders: the total number of orders placed by customers in the group, not the number of customers.
• Average Order Value: the group’s sales before returns, divided by its orders.
• Gross Sales: each item’s price times its quantity, before discounts, shipping, tax and returns.
• Discounts, Shipping and Tax: what Shopify records on those orders.
• Total Returned: money refunded in the date range to customers in the group.
• Net Sales: Gross Sales minus Discounts, plus Shipping, minus Total Returned. It doesn’t add tax, so if your prices include tax, it still contains it.
• Total Sales: Gross Sales minus Discounts, plus Shipping and Tax, minus Total Returned.

The chart has a column for each group’s share of Total Sales, as a percentage, and a line for the group’s Average Order Value.

The Date Range

This report uses the longer ranges, from Trailing 2 months to Trailing 8 years. It opens on Trailing 1 year. A trailing range starts on the 1st of a month and runs to the end of the current month, so Trailing 1 year covers the last 13 calendar months.

The range changes the answer. A customer who placed 1 order this year and 1 last year is in the 1-time group on Trailing 1 year and in the 2-time group on Trailing 2 years.

How to Choose a Date Range explains these ranges.

What Counts

• Only orders in the date range count, and only customers who placed one. Orders with no customer attached aren’t in any group.
• With Sales Channel, Segment or Filters on, a customer’s group counts only the orders that match.
• Orders that were canceled, or whose payment was voided or expired, don’t count.
• A refund counts when it was made in the date range, against the customer who got it. Only customers with an order in the range are in the table. Refunds on orders placed more than 2 years before the start of the date range aren’t counted.
• Days follow your store’s time zone, and every amount is in your store’s currency.
• There’s no comparison period.

What Good Looks Like

Add up the share of Total Sales for every group from 2-time up. That’s the part of your revenue that comes from repeat customers in the range.

The right share depends on what you sell. Compare your store with itself over time.

A line that rises across the groups means customers who order more also spend more on each order. A flat line means they spend about the same each time.

What to Do About It

• Most sales from the 1-time group: you depend on winning new customers. Work on the second order with Cohort Repurchase Rate, which shows when customers usually return.
• Repeat customers with a lower average: check Sales by Discount Code for codes that repeat customers use.
• Your best repeat customers: open Customer Loyalty to reach them, or Sales by Customer to see them by name.

Where to Find It

• Sales Distribution by Repeat Buyers: open Reports and look under Sales.
• Sales by Number of Orders: sales by each order’s place in the customer’s history.
• First-time vs Returning Sales: new and returning customers, period by period.