How User Data Can Streamline Repeat Purchases

Many businesses concentrate much of their effort on new customer relationships. Once that first purchase happens, there isn’t much effort to grow the relationship beyond a one-time purchase. Here are 5 ways to catch the attention of savvy online shoppers and grow repeat purchases by using user data.

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How to Streamline Repeat Purchases

Companies that neglect customer retention miss out on huge opportunities that result in the bulk of their business. So, getting customers to come back over and over again must be at the top of your to-do list. 

One way to ensure customer retention and repeat purchases is your company’s priority is to optimize the purchase experience. You can do so most effectively by leveraging customer data. 

If you want to stay ahead of the curve, there’re plenty of ways to fill the gaps left by competitors. Let’s explore how user data can streamline repeat purchases. 

1. Make Customer Data Safety a Priority 

People don’t make repeat purchases because it takes too long to input checkout information. To help with that, companies have made it so customers can save their payment information. However, most people don’t trust saving their payment information online because of how common data breaches are these days.  

If you want people to trust your business enough to save their payment information on your site and streamline the purchase experience in the process, you must make it a safe place for sensitive information. If a customer makes a profile and saves their payment information, that’s a good indicator they’ll be back for another purchase. 

You can protect your business from a data breach by: 

  • Knowing what sensitive information is in your company’s possession 
  • Securely disposing of personal information you don’t need 
  • Ensuring customer and business information is stored in a safe place 
  • Putting together a plan for how you will respond to a data breach should one happen
  • Becoming GDPR complaint

You can also use customer data to streamline the purchasing experience for a wise approach to customer feedback. 

 

2. Get Smart About Customer Feedback 

When you solicit customer feedback, you can learn precisely what your customers want and need to become loyal customers. With that being said, coming up with customer feedback questions on a whim isn’t the best approach. 

By collecting user data, you can find out what your customers are doing. Similarly, you can ask them why they’re doing it. Getting feedback on actual customer behavior is way more productive than guessing what customers want. 

Benefits for Returning Customers

Collecting customer data also helps you brainstorm what products and services could better your customer experience in the future. You can then ask your customers if these products would indeed bring them back. 

For instance, we touched on how prioritizing data safety and security could prompt customers to make repeat purchases above. They’d be able to save their payment information in a secure system for easier and faster purchases. 

However, before moving forward with this service, it’s best to confirm what your customers actually want by getting feedback. You can leverage any insights to do things like improving your checkout design.

3. Improve Your Checkout Design 

Often, customers don’t come back to make another purchase from a business because the checkout design is too complex. For example, they can’t find the buttons to complete a purchase, or they have to go through too many pages to buy a product. 

When you collect customer data, you can determine what your customers like and dislike about your checkout design. 

Where are they dropping off at in the process? How are they navigating your checkout page in general? Are the steps in your checkout process logical? Which payment options do they use the most? Are your visual elements resonating? 

You can make adjustments to your checkout design to make these processes more efficient. 

Also, collecting customer data can optimize the purchase experience to learn more about your repeat customers. 

4. Learn More About Your Repeat Customers 

Learning more about your repeat customers makes it easier to design a shopping experience that caters to them. Although it’s good to collect data on your customers, focus on your repeat customers. This way you will ensure your purchasing process encourages recurring purchases. 

For example, let’s say you collect data on what products customers come back to purchase the most. You could include them as product recommendations at the bottom of the purchase confirmation email. You could find out how customers return to your website for another purchase, like through an email or social media, and optimize that repeat buyer’s journey. 

Lastly, user data can optimize the purchasing experience by personalizing it. 

5. Personalize the Customer Experience

A customer is more likely to make repeat purchases if you personalize their experience

The more they visit and interact with your site, the more data you can collect on their demographic information, purchasing behavior, what they visit most often on your site, and so forth. 

With this information, you can send your customers personalized shopping recommendations, tailored blog content, unique coupons and discounts, exclusive event invitations, and other things through personalized customer experiences

Ultimately, tailoring the entire buying experience to your customers’ unique needs, wants, interests, and behaviors makes them feel like you created your brand just for them. This gives you a better chance of connecting with them and growing a lasting customer relationship. 

Integrating User Data For Repeat Purchases 

User data can streamline repeat purchases but ideally needs to be unified for agility. With businesses using many software applications today, system integration is key to synchronizing the flow of data across your business. A managed integration service like VL OMNI powers robust eCommerce, file-based, B2B, and ERP integrations to do so.

Through our integration platform, we’re able to incorporate business rules into the solution. This allows for a better data flow across your business and visibility into user data. 

Got any questions about eCommerce integration?

Ultimately, brands that optimize the overall purchasing experience by prioritizing customer data safety and getting smart about the customer feedback process will welcome more repeat buyers. 

By leveraging user data successfully, you can also improve your checkout design, learn more about your repeat customers, and personalize their shopping experience.

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About the Author

Beau Peters

Beau Peters

Beau is a creative professional with a lifetime of experience in service and care. As a manager, he's learned a slew of tricks of the trade that he enjoys sharing with others who have the same passion and dedication that he brings to his work. When he is not writing, he enjoys reading and trying new things.

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