Stories / Ecommerce
Ecommerce Brand: Repeat purchase rate up 110%, LTV 2.3x
Paid acquisition costs climbing every quarter, with only 14% of customers ever placing a second order.
- Client
- Ecommerce Brand
- Industry
- Ecommerce
- Size
- 9 people
- Timeframe
- 6 months
Anonymised at the client's request · figures verified · published with written permission
The situation
Blended ROAS had fallen from 4.1 to 1.6 in eighteen months. The team's answer had been more creative, more channels, more spend.
Nobody in the business could say what happened to a customer between the delivery email and the next campaign blast.
The product was genuinely good. The 14% repeat rate was a relationship problem, not a quality problem.
What we did
- STEP 01
Counted the real cost of a customer
Fully loaded CAC including agency fees and returns was £48. Average first-order contribution was £21. Every new customer lost money unless they came back — nobody had written that sentence down before.
- STEP 02
Rebuilt the first ninety days as a designed sequence
Six touches: dispatch, use-it-well guide on day 3, a real human check-in on day 12, a replenishment nudge timed to actual consumption, a review ask, then an offer. Only the last one sold anything.
- STEP 03
Fixed the reorder friction before adding incentives
Reordering took nine clicks and a password reset. Fixing that alone moved repeat rate four points before a single email changed.
- STEP 04
Reported cohorts, not months
Monthly revenue hides everything. The board pack switched to 90-day cohort contribution, which made the improvement visible before it was profitable.
The numbers
| Measure | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Repeat purchase rate | 14% | 29% |
| 12-month LTV | £62 | £143 |
| Blended ROAS | 1.6 | 3.4 |
| Email revenue share | 8% | 26% |
Measured over 6 months
What didn't go to plan
Revenue was flat to slightly down for the first eleven weeks while spend was throttled. If the owner hadn't had six months of runway, this plan would have been wrong for them.
In their words
“We spent two months not chasing new customers. It was the most uncomfortable and most profitable decision we've made.”
Managing Director · Ecommerce
The lesson
Retention is cheaper than acquisition, and far less flattering to report.