First-of-its-Kind Customer-Led Benchmarks Uncover the Metrics That Drive Growth Across 100 Leading Retailers
Bluecore, a retail shopper identification and customer movement technology, today announced the release of its Customer Growth Benchmarks Report. Bluecore’s data helps retailers measure against peer-performance metrics that are most effective in increasing customer value and profitable growth, versus standard channel-focused marketing benchmark reports. The report provides data across four key phases of the customer lifecycle: acquisition, conversion, retention, and loyalty; with all phases having a foundation in shopper and customer identification.
Based on the entire 2023 calendar year, the report includes data from more than 100 retailers across the Apparel, Sporting Goods and Outdoor, Health and Beauty, Toys and Gifts, Footwear, Home Goods, and Jewelry and Luxury categories. Each industry is benchmarked separately so that retail leaders are able to compare their own performance with a relevant peer set. While every vertical has unique trends, Bluecore finds that across the board, retailers focused on the metrics and best practices that drive customer movement have higher performance across the customer lifecycle.
- Identification drives higher purchase. Understanding who shoppers are helps retailers nurture them through the lifecycle far more effectively. Retailers with average ID rates above 40% saw repeat purchase rates that were 53% higher than the average. At the same time, retailers with ID rates below 10% saw repeat purchase rates that were 33% lower than the average.
- High retention and repeat purchase are core drivers of business health. Average repeat purchase rates were 16.5% with Health and Beauty leading all industries with a rate of 21.5%, followed by Sporting Goods and Outdoor (21.2%) and Apparel (20.2%). Across every vertical, active buyers placed 57.6% more orders — and spent 69.2% more — than new buyers.
- Lapsed customers are a hidden opportunity for retailers. Because reactivated buyers are more valuable than new customers, this segment represents a major opportunity. Customer reactivation rates averaged 6.6% with Health and Beauty leading at 9.2% and Apparel following with 8.5%. Even a small increase in reactivation drives positive results as sales per reactivated buyer is 12.7% higher and purchase frequency is 7.7% higher than for new buyers.
“This report focuses on the critical benchmarks that are most aligned with business health, not the metrics that are simply easy to track – like channel engagement. Our philosophy and practice of ‘customer movement’ is founded on customer centricity, which the data shows drives higher purchase rates, retention rates and revenue,” said Jason Grunberg, CMO at Bluecore. “This data proves that reach is truly the foundation for a healthy retail or DTC brand and if you’re a retail leader who doesn’t yet understand your identification rates and reach across acquisition, conversion, retention, and loyalty, you’re at risk of not being on the path to keep or alter your growth trajectory.”
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