Ecommerce Metrics · Updated June 2026
Repeat purchase rate is the percentage of customers who have ordered more than once. Healthy Shopify stores typically see 20–35%. It is the clearest indicator of product satisfaction and retention-marketing effectiveness.
Repeat customers convert at roughly 3× the rate of first-time visitors and spend more per order. Consumables and pet categories naturally repeat more; one-off purchase categories (furniture, instruments) must engineer repeat behavior through accessories and content.
Customer lifetime value (CLV or LTV) is the total profit a business expects from a customer across their entire relationship. It combines average order value, purchase frequency, and customer lifespan — and it sets the ceiling on what you can afford to spend acquiring a customer.
Churn rate is the percentage of customers who stop buying from you over a given period. For subscription commerce it is the single most important health metric: a 5% monthly churn means losing nearly half your subscriber base in a year.
Email marketing is promoting and retaining via owned email lists — campaigns plus automated flows (welcome, abandoned cart, post-purchase, winback). Top Shopify stores attribute 20–30% of revenue to email because it costs nearly nothing per send and compounds with list growth.