Customer Development: What The Customer Purchases Matters

Here I'm looking at first-time buyers who only bought one item. Remember, these are the customers in our example who are least likely to purchase in the future. So we need something ... anything ... to help us identify the customers in this meager cohort who are most likely to want to be developed.

We're looking at rebuy rates (annual) below.

Look at the product category the customers bought from for clues:

• Category 2 = 23%.
• Category 11 = 24%.
• Category 16 = 18%.
• Category 17 = 15%.

You're going to invest more energy developing customers who bought from Categories 2/11. There is a ton of urgency developing customers in Categories 16/17, because they are less likely to repurchase and therefore need to be acted upon in the Welcome stage (first three months after a first order).