The US economy has been stumbling a bit.
Might be a recession. Might not be.
But it's clear that a lot of people are businesses are struggling, especially the smaller ones.
Getting your Shopify store through a downturn is a dual-edged sword.
On one hand you want to reduce your costs, run lean, and survive on less. Hunker-down, make it to the recovery, and then you can scale back up.
On the other hand, down markets leave a lot of opportunities open for those willing and able to act. From acquiring competitors to getting inventory at fire-sale prices, if you pay attention you can find great deals.
But you got to have the numbers to back you up. It's a narrow ledge to walk along.
In this vein I've built a Downturn focus report into Repeat Customer Insights.
It looks at a downturn from a customer retention perspective. At launch there are two areas the analysis examines for your store:
What products (and variants) aren't pulling their weight? This weaker merchandise is causing your customers to defect and should be culled or improved.
Are you prompting customers to reorder often enough (if at all)? Timing your marketing to your customer behavior is a major opportunity that gets overlooked. It's not sexy but it can become one of your strongest sales channels. It's also a unique opportunity that no competitor can take from you.
I'll be adding to this Downturn report over time. There are about a dozen more ideas and advice I'm working out, but I wanted to get an early version out in case you can use it now.
Eric Davis
Retain the best customers and leave the worst for your competitors to steal
If you're having problems with customers not coming back or defecting to competitors, Repeat Customer Insights might help uncover why that's happening.
Using its analyses you can figure out how to better target the good customers and let the bad ones go elsewhere.