Michael Roebuck's Blog

Repeat Orders; For Yahoo to mark an order as "Repeat" the order must contain the same Billing Name, Email Address, Address and Credit Card Number.

What is a repeat order and why is it important? I'm sure you've been checking the "Repeats" link under the "Statistics" heading in your store manager. Or I'm sure you've noticed the very bottom of your order after it's been printed reading, "Orders from same customer" followed by order numbers. These are past orders placed by the same customer. For Yahoo! to mark an order as "Repeat" the order must contain the same Billing Name, Email Address, Address and Credit Card Number.

Unfortunately, that's all the information Yahoo! gives you regarding repeat orders. It's difficult to determine lifetime value or re-order rate using default Yahoo! statistics.

Understanding your repeat customers is important so you can track the lifetime value of a customer and determine how much money you want to invest in each new customer. It's also important for re-orders. If you sell a consumable product, how long does it take to get a re-order? Or more importantly, Why aren't customers coming back (or are they)?

Your marketing department may want to send an email to customers who haven't re-ordered in a set amount of time or multiple other efforts to achieve a higher re-order rate. Everyone knows it's cheaper to retain a customer then it is to obtain a new one.

If anyone has a cool Yahoo! tool, trick or any information regarding how to track this stuff, please let me know. Thanks!