Post-purchase behavior: The key to repeat purchases
Carly Greenberg
·August 22, 2024
Modern retailers know that sales conversion rate is not an indicator of how successful your business is.
You may be generating high sales volume, but what are you spending to get those conversions? If you’re investing heavily in advertising and demand generation strategies to acquire new customers, and consistently seeing churn, then you’re not building a sustainable business.
But if you’re seeing high customer retention, with frequent repeat purchases from a consistent group of buyers, you’ve already got a great foundation for success. It costs five to seven times as much to win over a new customer as it does to retain an existing customer, so by building a steady base of loyal customers, you’ll be able to significantly lower your acquisition costs.
How do you do this? Focus on providing a superlative customer experience through every phase of the buyer’s journey — all the way from the first touchpoint to the post-purchase experience.
In this article, we’ll focus specifically on that last phase. The post-purchase experience refers to the time period after the customer has purchased an item and has the opportunity to evaluate it, positively or negatively. Retailers who prioritize enhancing the post-purchase experience have a unique competitive advantage when it comes to building customer loyalty.
What is post-purchase behavior?
In a nutshell, post-purchase behavior encompasses everything that happens after a customer has committed to purchasing a product.
These elements include:
Order confirmation and tracking
After a shopper has placed an order, they’re anxious to know when it’s going to arrive, so transparent communication and order tracking at this stage is crucial.
They need more than a vague ETA: By using Loop Order Tracking, you can provide real-time order tracking to provide shoppers with an accurate delivery window, helping them gain confidence in your service. You should provide your customers with regular updates throughout the customer journey: start with an order confirmation, then provide updates when the order is scheduled for shipment, when it’s en route, when it’s out for delivery, and when it has arrived. Notify your customers according to their preferences: Some prefer email, while others prefer the real-time engagement of SMS or in-app notifications.
In the event that the order is delayed, be proactive and provide an immediate notification so they’re not left wondering where their order is. By providing them with an updated timeframe, you’ll be able to avoid “where’s my order?” customer support requests, and reassure your shopper around the status of their order.
Your order tracking capabilities should include a branded order tracking page, where customers can see their real-time order status, review common order-related FAQs, and get relevant product recommendations. As 60% of customers track their orders at least once a day, using your order tracking page to curate products your customers will love can lead to renewed engagement and upsell revenue.
Order unboxing
Once the order arrives, how does the customer feel about the unboxing process?
Customers are increasingly focused on sustainability in packaging: 46% say they’re bothered when a package has unused space, and 1 in 5 consumers won’t buy from a brand that uses Styrofoam in its packaging.
They may also have issues with the packaging or the product itself during unboxing: 37% of ecommerce shoppers said they sometimes encounter problems with their online orders, including a missing item (36%), damaged item (34%), unacceptable replacement for out-of-stock item (32%), or damaged/leaking packaging (30%).
Try to alleviate packaging and unboxing concerns by using compact, sustainable packaging for all of your orders, and using only carriers with great reputations. If the order is large and must be shipped in multiple boxes, that should be clearly communicated upfront, so the shopper knows they’re not missing items from their order.
Customer support
Customers often have questions about their orders, either during the shipping process or after the order has arrived. What is your team doing to address these questions and resolve problems quickly?
Consider using a chatbot that provides quick links to a variety of FAQs, so that customers can do things like check their order status, get information on your returns policy, or find out how to set up a product once it’s arrived. By providing automated self-service support for simple requests, you’ll be able to free up your CX team’s time to handle more complex queries that require in-person support.
Returns and exchanges
Depending on your industry, up to 30% of your product sales may end in a return—and how you navigate this process makes all the difference in whether the shopper will buy from your brand in the future.
Rather than treating returns as an inconvenience, provide your customers with a seamless returns experience that empowers them to easily send back a product they don’t want and replace it with one they do. By using Loop’s Shop Now & Later feature, you can make exchanges as easy as shopping, enabling customers to apply their store credit to any item in your store. Any difference in price can be automatically applied with either a credit or debit to their method of payment, with no need to process a new transaction.
To encourage them to choose an exchange rather than seek a refund, consider offering Bonus Credit that they can apply to their account. By offering a small amount of bonus credit, you can incentivize shoppers to browse your entire inventory—increasing the chances of upsell revenue if the new item they choose costs more than the original product.
By encouraging customers to exchange products rather than request refunds, you’ll be able to transform one-time shoppers into loyal customers. After all, if they simply return a product for a refund, they’re not likely to revisit your brand. But by providing a seamless post-purchase experience that’s optimized to generate retained revenue through exchanges, you’ll be able to keep shoppers from slipping away, resulting in higher lifetime revenue.
That said, you’ll likely find a small percentage of shoppers that exploit your returns policies to get free merchandise, often with the intent of reselling it for a profit. Don’t respond by creating a strict returns policy: By using Loop’s fraud detection tools, you’ll be able to prevent returns abuse by targeting common high-risk behaviors, while ensuring the rest of your shoppers have a positive returns experience.
It’s crucial to get all of these elements right, or you’ll risk losing valuable customers. Post-purchase dissonance occurs when the buyer’s reaction to the purchasing experience isn’t what they’d hoped for — often known as buyer’s remorse.
But focusing on delivering a great post-purchase experience, we can do a lot more than just prevent dissatisfaction. Done right, customer experience can build loyalty, word of mouth, and increase the likelihood of repeat purchases.
Want to learn how Loop can uplevel your post-purchase experience? Book a demo.
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