How To See Repeat Customers In Woocommerce

How to See Repeat Customers in WooCommerce: A Comprehensive Guide

Introduction

Understanding your customer base is crucial for any business, and WooCommerce store owners are no exception. Identifying and nurturing repeat customers is especially vital, as they contribute significantly to revenue, brand loyalty, and positive word-of-mouth marketing. This article will guide you through various methods to identify and analyze your repeat customer data in WooCommerce, empowering you to optimize your strategies for retention and growth. We’ll explore both built-in features and plugin solutions, providing you with a comprehensive toolkit.

Main Part: Identifying and Analyzing Repeat Customers

1. Using WooCommerce’s Built-in Reporting

WooCommerce offers basic reporting functionalities that can provide initial insights into repeat customers. While not as granular as dedicated plugins, it’s a good starting point.

• Navigate to WooCommerce > Reports > Customers.

Here, you’ll find a “Customers vs. Guests” chart. While it doesn’t explicitly list repeat customers, it shows the trend of registered vs. guest purchases. A rising trend in registered customers suggests increased repeat business.

• Customer List: Under the “Customer List” tab, you can view registered customers. You can sort this list by “Last Order” to see who has made recent purchases. This can help you manually identify frequent buyers.

Limitations: This method is rudimentary and doesn’t offer advanced filtering or analysis. You can’t easily determine the average number of purchases per customer or identify high-value repeaters.

2. Utilizing WooCommerce Customer Management Plugins

Several plugins extend WooCommerce’s capabilities for customer management and reporting, making it much easier to identify and analyze repeat customers. Here are a few popular options:

• Metorik: A powerful WooCommerce analytics and reporting plugin. It allows you to:
• Segment customers based on various criteria, including the number of orders placed.
• View repeat purchase rates and lifetime customer value.
• Automate marketing campaigns based on customer behavior.
• Customerly: Focuses on customer support and engagement. It offers features like:
• Customer segmentation and filtering based on purchase history.
• Live chat and email marketing integration.
• Detailed customer profiles with order history.
• Advanced Coupons for WooCommerce: While primarily a coupon management plugin, it offers customer segmentation features based on purchase history, which can be used to target repeat customers with exclusive offers.

Example using Metorik (Conceptual):

While specific plugin interfaces vary, the general process involves:

1. Installing and activating the plugin.

2. Configuring the plugin to connect with your WooCommerce store.

3. Navigating to the customer reporting or segmentation area.

4. Creating a segment based on the number of orders placed (e.g., “Customers with 2+ Orders”).

5. Analyzing the resulting customer data.

3. Code Snippets for Custom Analysis (Advanced)

For developers or those comfortable with code, custom code snippets can provide highly tailored analysis of repeat customer data.

Example Code Snippet (Retrieving Repeat Customers and Order Count):

<?php
/**
Get Repeat Customers and their Order Count.
*/
function get_repeat_customer_data() {
global $wpdb;

$query = $wpdb->prepare(“

SELECT

postmeta.meta_value AS customer_email,

COUNT(posts.ID) AS order_count

FROM {$wpdb->prefix}posts AS posts

INNER JOIN {$wpdb->prefix}postmeta AS postmeta ON posts.ID = postmeta.post_id

WHERE posts.post_type = ‘shop_order’

AND posts.post_status IN (‘wc-processing’, ‘wc-completed’)

AND postmeta.meta_key = ‘_billing_email’

GROUP BY customer_email

HAVING COUNT(posts.ID) > 1

ORDER BY order_count DESC

“);

$results = $wpdb->get_results($query);

if ( ! empty( $results ) ) {

echo ‘

Repeat Customers and Order Count:

‘;

echo ‘

‘;

echo ‘

‘;

echo ‘

‘;

foreach ( $results as $result ) {

echo ‘

‘;

}

echo ‘

Email	Order Count
‘ . esc_html( $result->customer_email ) . ‘	‘ . esc_html( $result->order_count ) . ‘

‘;

} else {

echo ‘

No repeat customers found.

‘;

}

}

// Call the function

get_repeat_customer_data();

?>

Explanation:

• Database Query: This code directly queries the WordPress database to retrieve customer email addresses and their corresponding order counts.
• `post_type = ‘shop_order’`: This filters the query to only consider WooCommerce orders.
• `post_status IN (‘wc-processing’, ‘wc-completed’)`: This ensures only completed and processing orders are counted. You can adjust this to include other order statuses as needed.
• `meta_key = ‘_billing_email’`: This retrieves the customer’s billing email from the order’s metadata.
• `GROUP BY customer_email`: This groups the orders by customer email.
• `HAVING COUNT(posts.ID) > 1`: This filters the results to only include customers with more than one order (repeat customers).
• Output: The code then displays the results in a simple HTML table.

Important Considerations:

• Security: Always sanitize and validate user input to prevent SQL injection vulnerabilities. The code above uses `$wpdb->prepare` to sanitize the query.
• Performance: Complex queries can impact website performance. Use caching and optimize the query for large datasets.
• Placement: Place this code within your theme’s `functions.php` file or a custom plugin.
• Adjustments: Modify the query to fit your specific needs, such as including specific date ranges or order statuses.

4. Exporting Data for External Analysis

WooCommerce allows you to export order data as a CSV file. This data can then be imported into spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets for further analysis.

• Navigate to WooCommerce > Orders.
• Filter or search for specific order types (e.g., completed orders).
• Select “Export” from the bulk actions menu.
• Choose the desired CSV format and fields.
• Import the CSV file into your spreadsheet software.

Once the data is in a spreadsheet, you can use various functions and formulas to identify repeat customers based on email addresses, customer IDs, or other relevant fields. You can also create charts and graphs to visualize repeat customer behavior.

Conclusion

Identifying and understanding your repeat customers is a crucial step in optimizing your WooCommerce store for long-term success. By leveraging WooCommerce’s built-in features, utilizing dedicated customer management plugins, employing custom code snippets, or exporting data for external analysis, you can gain valuable insights into your customer base and tailor your strategies to foster loyalty and drive revenue. Focusing on customer retention is often more cost-effective than acquiring new customers, making it a key area for business growth.