Returning customers are valuable. But are they a priority for eCommerce companies?

To find out, we surveyed more than 450 eCommerce professionals from the Global eCommerce community who shared their experience in retaining customers by answering 15 questions on Customer Retention. 

 The objective is to understand how important Customer Retention is in eCommerce, so, we collected insights from a wide range of industries and eCommerce companies with annual revenue ranging from >$1M to <$500M.

82% of the total face high and brutal competition in their industries;

Only 34% of the total monitor their Customer Retention Rate;

Less than 20% dedicate resources (budget and human resources) to Customer Retention; 

30% don’t know their retention rate  and 42% are satisfied with their current retention rate

NPS, Customer Lifetime Value and Customer Retention Rate are among the least monitored KPIs;

450

eCommerce professionals took the Customer Retention study. 

They are either working for eCommerce companies or working for agencies having eCommerce clients.

20%

of the total come from Fashion, Beauty and Bridal industry.

"Other" means: 

Food, Logistics, Transportation, Retail and Furniture. There's an interesting rise of new verticals in eCommerce.

82%

of the total mentioned facing high and brutal competition in their industries. 

This opinion is consistent across all eCommerce professionals and all industries surveyed.

50%

of the professionals surveyed work for eCommerce companies with less than $10M in annual revenue.

Revenue size proved to be a key indicator of whether a company focuses on retention or not.

The higher the revenue, the higher the focus on retention

More than 50% of the companies with annual revenue of at least 11M$ either dedicate budget to retention or include retention in their marketing budgets. The highest percentage of companies which dedicate budget is within the 51M - 100M $ segment.

Companies with >1M$ in annual revenue are the least to dedicate budget to retention. These are also mainly focusing on customer acquisition.

45%

spend between 5% and 20% of their total budget on marketing activities.

With so many eCommerce players fighting for customer attention, winning companies will need to start investing marketing dollars into existing customers for an increased ROI.

“ Precision marketing is the ability of marketers to hyper-target prospects based on their behaviors, their desires, and their previous purchases. 

 A full-on precision marketing campaign uses information about previous purchases to hyper-targeted ads to individuals and then allows you to calculate a return-on-investment on an ad-by-ad basis.”

 Jamie Turner, Internationally recognized author, speaker, and CEO

Source: The 17 Ecommerce Trends + 96 Online Shopping Stats Fueling Sales Growth in 2019

63%

of the total still allocate most budget, at least 70% towards customer acquisition.

There is still a big focus on customer acquisition rather than optimizing the relationship with the existing customers.

“Increased competition for ad spend will cause record ad prices. Winning retailers will invest in selling to existing customers for two reasons: 1. to increase Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) in order to justify spending so much in ad prices. 2. to increase sales.”

Steve Deckert, Co-Founder, Smile.io

Source: The 17 Ecommerce Trends + 96 Online Shopping Stats Fueling Sales Growth in 2019

40%

Less than

monitor customer-centric KPIs like Customer Retention Rate, Customer Lifetime Value, Net Promoter Score, and Customer Retention Costs.

There is still a big focus on sales-driven KPIs like Conversion Rate, Average Order Value and Acquisition Cost, while customer-centric KPIs fall behind with less than 30% of total monitoring these.

Net Promoter Score, Customer Lifetime Value and Customer retention rate are among the most important growth indicators for an eCommerce

• These are more likely to apply advanced segmentation in their marketing activities (i.e buying behavior segmentation); 

•  These are more likely to also monitor Customer Retention Costs and Customer Lifetime value; 

• They use Customer feedback, loyalty programs, product recommendation, satisfaction surveys, and competitive analysis to improve their current retention rate; 

• They also allocate resources (budget and people) to customer retention.

34%

of the total monitor their Customer Retention Rate

Only 20% of eCommerce professionals have a dedicated budget for customer retention.

Only 14% have a dedicated person handling this.

20%

of the total have a dedicated budget for Customer Retention.

14%

of the total have someone responsible for Customer Retention. 

eCommerce professionals who monitor Retention Rate declared to be less satisfied compared to the ones who don't.

They are becoming problem aware and more willing to dedicate resource to improve this.

37%

are satisfied with their customer retention 

Customer Retention still has a low priority on the eCommerce agenda.

Still, 59% of the companies that have a budget for customer retention are satisfied with their current RR.

31%

don't know their Retention rate. 21% mentioned having a retention rate lower than 30%. 

On average, less than 3 out of 10 customers come back and place a second order leaving eCommerce companies with an untapped potential.

30%

Less than

Use segmentation in various formats to improve their retention (i.e buying behaviors segmentation, offer priority support for special customers, analyze NPS scores).

As customer experience becomes the norm, knowing your customers becomes a necessity.

• Companies with more than 10$M in annual revenue;

• Companies who also allocate budget and resources to customer retention;

• Companies who also monitor: Retention Rate & Costs, Customer Satisfaction, Customer lifetime value;

• Companies who also use Customer feedback, Net Promoter Score results and Customer journey to improve their customer retention rate.

23%

monitor Net Promoter Score and use Net Promoter Score to optimize their retention.

30%

Less than

use customer-centric data to personalize the website content for their customers (i.e buying behavior, needs, wants interests, passions, hobbies).

Growth is not an accident.
It’s the natural consequence of customer retention.

At Omniconvert, we are launching REVEAL to help eCommerce companies grow by leveraging the power of their existing customers.

REVEAL is in beta version. We’re inviting 100 e-commerce players to benefit from our special treatment as early adopters: