Let repeat buyers repeat the order without searching: put a reorder link in every confirmation email, offer saved orders to regulars with accounts, and add a subscription only for products used at a steady rate.

The same order, found from scratch

Some products run out on a schedule. Coffee beans, pet food, furnace and water filters, supplements, printer ink: the customer knows roughly when the next order is due.

Yet many online shops treat each of those orders as a first visit. The customer finds the site again, searches for the product, works out which size they bought, and types the card number in once more.

Every one of those steps is a chance to end up somewhere else. A search for the product shows other shops and their ads, often above yours.

Which is a strange way to treat the customers most likely to buy again.

What a repeat order asks of the customer

The fourth wears regulars down. A business customer whose usual order runs to a dozen lines rebuilds it from memory each time, and one missed line means a second order and a second delivery charge.

Three ways to bring them straight back

There are three common tools: saved orders in a customer account, a reorder link in the confirmation email, and a subscription that sends the order on a schedule.

None of them is new. Most shop systems offer at least one built in and the others as add-ons, although setting them up well takes more than ticking a box.

Which to use depends on how steadily your products are used and how your customers like to buy.

Saved orders for customers with accounts

A customer who signs in can see past orders, each with a button that puts the same items back in the basket. For trade customers and regulars, this is the natural home for repeat buying.

Its weakness is the account itself. Many shoppers check out as guests and never set a password, so their history is invisible to them.

Offer the account after the order is placed, with one field for a password, rather than demanding it before payment. Someone who has just bought is far more willing than someone still deciding.

A reorder link in the confirmation email

The simplest option needs no account. Each confirmation email carries a link that rebuilds that exact basket, so the customer lands on a filled cart, checks it and pays.

When the next order is due, most people search their inbox for the shop's name. A subject line with your shop's name in it is what makes the old confirmation easy to find.

A reminder at the usual interval goes further. CASL treats a purchase as implied consent that lasts two years from the sale, and the reminder still needs your identification and an unsubscribe link that works.

A simple subscription

For products used at a steady rate, a subscription sends the order every few weeks and charges the card each time. The customer stops thinking about it, which is the point.

Make the terms plain before checkout: how often, what it costs, how to change it. Then make skipping a delivery, changing the date and cancelling possible online, without a phone call.

Subscriptions that are hard to leave produce complaints and disputed charges. Easy cancellation is what lets people say yes in the first place.

Leave card details with your payment provider, which stores and charges them for you. Keeping card numbers on your own server brings security obligations no small shop wants.

A worked example

An arborist supply store on an industrial street sells climbing gear, saws and rope, along with what tree crews use up: saw chain, files, bar oil, wedges and gloves. Most online orders come from small tree care companies.

A typical crew ordered the same dozen items every three or four weeks, usually from a phone in the truck.

Each order was rebuilt from scratch: every item searched for, the chain guessed at, the card typed in again. Some crew leads gave up halfway and phoned the order in.

The store did three things. Trade customers got accounts with a saved list for each crew, and one button that put the whole list in the basket.

Every confirmation email gained a link that rebuilt that order, for customers who never made an account.

And bar oil, which a busy crew goes through at a steady rate, became a delivery every four weeks, with skip and cancel links in each reminder.

Nothing about the products changed. The usual order simply became one tap away, instead of fifteen minutes in a truck.

Prices, stock and changes

A repeat order meets whatever has changed since the last one: new prices, new packaging, discontinued products.

Show the current price and stock before payment, never the old ones. If an item is gone, say so and suggest its replacement, rather than quietly dropping it from the basket.

Subscribers deserve notice of a price change before it applies, with a link to cancel if it no longer suits them.

Choosing for your products

Steady use suits a subscription: one dog's food, a water filter every two months. Irregular use suits a reorder link: office coffee, or chain for a crew whose work follows the weather.

Business customers usually want saved lists and invoices more than subscriptions, because their orders change with their work.

Most shops end up with two of the three. The reorder link is the one almost every shop can use.

The counter-case

Products bought once, or rarely, gain little from any of this. A furniture shop or a gift shop has few customers who reorder the same thing.

A catalogue of three or four products, which regulars know by heart, needs less help as well.

And subscriptions add work: failed card charges, address changes, skipped months. A shop without someone to handle those should start smaller.

For anything bought on a cycle, though, make the second order easier than the first, starting with the link in the confirmation email.

Before the next order

  1. List the products customers buy repeatedly.
  2. Check which tools your shop system already has.
  3. Add a reorder link to every confirmation email.
  4. Offer an account after checkout, not before.
  5. Put your shop's name in every email subject.
  6. Add a subscription only for steady-use products.
  7. Make cancelling possible online, without a call.

Step three is the change to make first. It needs no account and no new habit from the customer, and it turns an email they already keep into the quickest way back.

Making sure the first order fits is covered in parts and accessories without a fits-what list.

Frequently asked questions

Why do repeat customers drift to other shops?

Because every repeat order starts with a search. Customers must find the shop, the product and the exact version again, and other shops appear at each of those steps.

Which reorder option should a shop start with?

A reorder link in each confirmation email. It needs no account, the customer finds it by searching their inbox, and it rebuilds the exact basket they bought.

Do saved orders need a customer account?

Yes. Order history and saved lists need the customer to sign in. Offer the account after checkout, with a single password field, instead of demanding it before payment.

Can I email customers a reminder to reorder?

Yes. Under CASL, buying from you counts as implied consent for two years from the sale. Each reminder still needs your business's identification and a working unsubscribe link.

What makes a subscription fair to customers?

Plain terms before checkout, notice of any price change before it applies, and links to skip, change or cancel that work online without a phone call.

What if the product has changed since?

Show the current price and stock before payment. If the item is discontinued, say so and suggest the replacement rather than quietly dropping it from the basket.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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