> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Repeat Customer Rate, Adobe Commerce > Repeat Customer Rate for Adobe Commerce stores. Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it. **Metrics type:** [Supporting Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained) • **Category:** [Ecommerce Platform](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) ## At a glance > Percentage of customers who placed more than one order during the rolling 90-day window. Defined as `COUNT(customers WITH 2+ orders in window) ÷ COUNT(customers in window) × 100`. Headline retention KPI. Industry-typical: 25-40% for DTC, 50-80% for B2B-leaning Adobe stores. | | | | ------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **What it counts** | The set of distinct customers who ordered in the period; of those, how many ordered more than once. Aggregated by `customer_id` for registered customers, by `customer_email` for guests. B2B Companies are aggregated by `company_id` if the toggle is enabled. | | **API field** | `customer_id`, `customer_email`, `extension_attributes.company_attributes.company_id`, `created_at`, `entity_id` from `GET /rest/V1/orders`. | | **In-window vs cohort framing** | This is the **in-window** repeat rate: customers who placed 2+ orders within the 90-day window. Different from cohort retention which asks "of customers who first ordered in March, what % returned by April?". Both useful; this card is the simpler in-window view. | | **VAT / tax / shipping / discounts** | n/a, the card is a customer count ratio. | | **Refunds** | A refunded order still counts as an order placed; the customer is still counted. | | **Cancelled orders** | Included by default. A customer who placed 1 captured + 1 cancelled order is "2 orders" → repeat. Toggle to exclude cancelled for "captured-only" repeat rate. | | **B2B Company toggle** | Many B2B Companies have multiple buyers (head office + branch); aggregating to `company_id` reveals true Company-level repeat behaviour. Without the toggle, each buyer is counted separately, deflating B2B repeat rate. | | **Guest dedup caveat** | Guests with two emails (work + personal, typo) appear as two distinct customers, deflating the rate. Real repeat rate is typically 5-10 percentage points higher than measured. | | **Currency** | Unitless; no currency. | | **Multi-store scope** | All Store Views by default. A customer who shops on UK and US Store Views (same email) is counted once across views. | | **Time window** | `90D` rolling. Shorter (30D) under-counts repeat (not enough time to repeat); longer (365D) over-counts (includes churned customers). 90D is the marketing standard. | | **Alert trigger** | `<25% (Tier-1 retention floor)`. Below 25% indicates an acquisition-heavy growth pattern with weak retention; over the long term, unsustainable. | | **Sentiment key** | `repeat_rate` | | **Roles** | owner, marketing | ## Calculation ``` COUNT(orders > 1 by customer_email) / CARDINALITY(customer_email) WHERE date BETWEEN [period_start, period_end] ``` ## Worked example A B2B+DTC industrial-supplies merchant on Adobe Commerce 2.4.7. 90-day rolling, 14,420 orders, 9,820 distinct customers/companies (after Company aggregation). **Customer-level repeat:** | Slice | Distinct customers | 2+ orders | Repeat rate | | ---------------------------------------- | ------------------ | --------- | -------------------------- | | All customers (Company-aggregated) | 9,820 | 2,640 | **26.9%** | | DTC consumers only | 8,640 | 1,820 | 21.1% | | B2B Companies only | 1,180 | 820 | 69.5% | | Wholesale Customer Group (subset of B2B) | 950 | 740 | 77.9% | | VIP Customer Group | 250 | 230 | 92.0% | | Guest checkouts (by email) | 1,840 | 110 | 6.0% | | Excluding cancelled-only customers | 9,720 | 2,610 | 26.9% (no material change) | **Comparison to prior 90 days:** | Window | Repeat rate | Threshold (25%) | | ---------------------- | ----------- | --------------- | | 13 Feb to 13 May 26 | 26.9% | clean (above) | | 14 Nov 25 to 12 Feb 26 | 24.2% | breached | | **Change** | **+2.7 pp** | improving | **Insight pattern:** 1. **Headline 26.9% is just above the 25% floor.** Healthy for a B2B+DTC mix. Below 25% would have triggered the sentiment alert. 2. **DTC repeat at 21.1% drags the headline down.** This is the lever to pull, post-purchase email flows, second-order incentives, replenishment-product subscriptions. 3. **B2B repeat at 69.5%** is healthy but should be 80%+ for industrial-supplies (where buyers reorder consumables). The 20-30% non-repeat B2B Companies are either: (a) one-off purchasers, (b) accounts that went silent (cross-link with [B2B Account Silence](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/adobe-commerce/b2b-accounts-gone-quiet)), or (c) accounts that re-routed to a different supplier. 4. **VIP Customer Group at 92%** is the loyalty cohort working as designed. Use this as the upper-bound benchmark. 5. **Guest 6% repeat is low because of email-dedup caveat.** A guest using multiple emails appears as multiple "1 order" customers. The actual same-person repeat rate among guests is closer to 12-15%; the card under-counts. 6. **Improvement of +2.7 pp over the prior period** suggests retention work is landing. Cross-link with [`klaviyo.flow_revenue_share`](/nerve-centre/klaviyo/flow_revenue_share) for email-flow attribution. 7. **Cross-link with [Customer Order Frequency](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/adobe-commerce/customer-order-frequency)** for the per-bucket distribution that this rate is the headline of. ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together | Card | Why pair it with Repeat Customer Rate | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [Customer Order Frequency](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/adobe-commerce/customer-order-frequency) | The per-bucket distribution this rate summarises. | | [New Customers](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/adobe-commerce/new-customers) | The first-time-buyer cohort; the conversion-to-repeat target. | | [Customer Count](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/adobe-commerce/unique-customers) | The denominator. | | [Customer Trend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/adobe-commerce/customer-acquisition-trend) | Customer count over time; pair with this card for retention vs acquisition. | | [B2B Account Silence](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/adobe-commerce/b2b-accounts-gone-quiet) | B2B-specific retention card; flags the silent accounts. | | [Churn Risk](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/adobe-commerce/customer-churn-risk) | The forward-looking version of repeat rate. | | [Customer Segments](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/adobe-commerce/customer-spend-segments) | Customer Group breakdown. | | [`shopify.repeat_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/repeat-customer-rate) | Cross-platform peer. | | [`klaviyo.flow_revenue_share`](/nerve-centre/klaviyo/flow_revenue_share) | Email-flow attribution; pair to attribute repeat-rate lift. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in Adobe Commerce Admin:** > **Reports > Customers > Customers by Number of Orders**. Lifetime view of repeat behaviour. Lifetime ≠ in-period; use as a directional check. For the in-period customer set: > **Sales > Orders** filtered to the period; export to CSV; group by `Customer Email`; count distinct emails with 2+ orders. Compare to total distinct emails. Tedious; the card is faster. For B2B Companies: > **Customers > Companies > \[Company]** > Orders tab for each Company. Manual, only practical for spot-checks. **Why our number may legitimately differ from a manual Admin computation:** | Reason | Direction of divergence | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------- | | **Lifetime vs in-period framing**. Reports > Customers > Customers by Orders is lifetime; this card is 90D rolling. A customer with 50 lifetime orders but only 1 in the last 90 days is "repeat" lifetime, "new" here. | Material difference | | **B2B Company aggregation**. Default in this card is per-Company; Admin doesn't aggregate. | Card higher when toggle is on | | **Guest dedup**. Card aggregates guests by email; multiple emails inflate the unique-customer count. | Card under-counts repeat | | **Cancelled inclusion**. Card includes by default; manual count usually excludes. | Standard | | **Time-zone, sync lag**. Standard. | Minor | **Internal identity:** `repeat_rate = COUNT(customers in period WITH 2+ orders) ÷ COUNT(customers in period) × 100` Component cards (self-consistency): * [`adobe_commerce.customer_count`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/adobe-commerce/unique-customers) * [`adobe_commerce.order_frequency`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/adobe-commerce/customer-order-frequency) (sum of "2 orders" + "3-5" + "6-10" + "11+" buckets ÷ total = repeat rate) **Cross-connector reconciliation (when these connectors are connected for this merchant):** | Card | Expected relationship | What divergence tells you | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [`klaviyo.repeat_segment_size`](/nerve-centre/klaviyo/repeat_segment_size) | Klaviyo's "2+ orders" segment should match this card's repeat-customer count | Material gaps mean the order-event sync from Adobe to Klaviyo has data quality issues. | | [`google_analytics.ga_returning_users_rate`](/nerve-centre/google_analytics/ga_returning_users_rate) | GA4 returning-user % is session-cookie based; usually higher than this card (sessions repeat more than orders do) | Don't reconcile directly; treat as directional. | ***
Documentation cross-reference (for agencies running multiple platforms) * [`shopify.repeat_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/repeat-customer-rate) * [`bigcommerce.repeat_rate`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/repeat-customer-rate)
## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **My DTC repeat rate is 21%, is that bad?** Below the 25% Tier-1 floor, yes. DTC ecommerce typically should run 25-40%. Below 25% suggests acquisition is winning new customers but they're not coming back, classic "leaky bucket" growth. Investigate post-purchase email flows, second-order incentive thresholds, and product-quality (refund rate, NPS). **B2B repeat at 70% but I think it should be higher, why?** Two main causes: (1) Companies that went silent (cross-link [B2B Account Silence](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/adobe-commerce/b2b-accounts-gone-quiet)); (2) buyers within a Company who place once-per-quarter, falling outside the 90-day window. For B2B-heavy industrial supply, target 80%+. Use `Company` aggregation toggle for the right number. **Why use 90 days and not 30 or 365?** 30 days under-counts repeat (not enough time for a second purchase). 365 days over-counts (includes anyone who bought 11 months ago who may have churned by now). 90 days is the marketing-standard balance for ecommerce. **Guest dedup is undercounting my repeat rate, can I fix?** Vortex IQ supports identity-resolution as an opt-in feature: matches guests by IP + credit-card-fingerprint + email-similarity to dedupe. Adds 5-10 percentage points to most merchants' apparent repeat rate. Contact support to enable. **Wholesale Customer Group at 78% repeat, should we leave it?** B2B Wholesale should approach 90%+ for healthy retention. 78% means \~20% of Wholesale accounts didn't repeat in 90 days, that's a churn risk. Cross-link with [B2B Account Silence](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/adobe-commerce/b2b-accounts-gone-quiet) for the at-risk list. **A customer placed 1 order, refunded the next day, do they count as 1 or 0 customers?** 1 customer (they ordered). They count for 1 in the denominator. If they later return for a 2nd order, they'd count for the numerator (2+ orders). Refund is a creation-time event; this card uses creation-time identity. **My multi-store, can I see repeat per Store View?** Yes. Filter by `store_id`. UK and US have very different repeat patterns (UK B2B-heavy, US DTC-heavy in this hypothetical). **Why does the rate sometimes go down day-to-day?** The denominator includes new customers who are inherently "1 order" until they return. A burst of new acquisition (e.g. a successful PR placement) deflates the rate temporarily. Use 7-day rolling on the rate itself for trend; the underlying retention behaviour didn't change. **Klaviyo says my repeat rate is 35%, this card says 26.9%, gap?** Klaviyo computes repeat from `placed_order` events; if event sync from Adobe to Klaviyo is incomplete, Klaviyo sees fewer customers and inflates the rate. Or Klaviyo uses a different window. The card uses Adobe's order index directly, more reliable. **Cancelled-only customers, are they "real"?** A customer who only ever placed cancelled orders (no captured) is debatable. The card includes them by default in the denominator, which slightly deflates the rate. Toggle to exclude for "captured-only" view; usually changes the rate by \<1 pp. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Repeat Customer Rate* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Adobe Commerce and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. [Start for free](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.