Repeat Purchase Rate

Purpose

Measure customer loyalty by computing the repeat purchase rate — the percentage of buyers in a period who placed at least two orders. Segments by new vs. returning customer status and tracks trend over rolling windows. Read-only.

Prerequisites

• WooCommerce store with REST API enabled
• Consumer Key with Read scope
• Minimum WooCommerce version: 3.5.0

Parameters

Authentication

WooCommerce uses OAuth 1.0a for HTTP and Basic Auth over HTTPS.

For HTTPS stores (recommended):

Authorization: Basic base64(consumer_key:consumer_secret)

For HTTP stores (development only): Use OAuth 1.0a — include oauth_consumer_key, oauth_nonce, oauth_signature, oauth_signature_method=HMAC-SHA1, oauth_timestamp, oauth_version=1.0

Never log or output consumer_key or consumer_secret values.

See docs/AUTHENTICATION.md for full setup instructions.

Safety

Read-only skill — no mutations are executed. Safe to run at any time.

Workflow Steps

Step 1 — Fetch completed orders in range

GET /wp-json/wc/v3/orders
  ?status=completed&after=<date_after>T00:00:00Z&before=<date_before>T23:59:59Z&per_page=100&page=1

Extract: id, customer_id, billing.email, date_created.

Step 2 — Group orders by customer

Group by customer_id (use billing.email for guest orders as fallback key). Count distinct orders per customer within the window.

Step 3 — Compute repeat purchase rate

repeat_customers = count(customers with order_count >= 2)
total_customers  = count(distinct customers)
repeat_rate_pct  = repeat_customers / total_customers * 100

Step 4 — Compute per rolling window

Divide date range into window_days windows and compute rate per window.

Step 5 — Export

API Endpoints Used

GET  /wp-json/wc/v3/orders      — order history with customer identifiers
GET  /wp-json/wc/v3/customers   — customer lifetime order count for context

Pagination Strategy

WooCommerce REST API uses page/per_page pagination (not cursor-based).

Standard pattern:

page = 1
while True:
  response = GET /endpoint?per_page=100&page=page
  process(response)
  if len(response) < 100: break
  page += 1

Maximum per_page is 100 for most endpoints. The X-WP-Total and X-WP-TotalPages response headers report totals. Always read X-WP-TotalPages on the first request to estimate job size.

Session Tracking

Claude MUST emit the following output at each stage. This is mandatory.

STARTUP:

╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗
║  SKILL: woo-repeat-purchase-rate         ║
║  STORE: <store_url>                      ║
║  TIME:  <ISO-8601 UTC>                   ║
║  MODE:  READ-ONLY                        ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════╝

PER-OPERATION (emit after each API call batch):

[N/TOTAL] <METHOD> <endpoint> → <result_count> records | params: <key>=<val>

COMPLETION (human format):

╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗
║  COMPLETE: woo-repeat-purchase-rate      ║
║  RECORDS PROCESSED: <n>                  ║
║  OUTPUT: <filename>                      ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════╝

COMPLETION (json format):

{
  "skill": "woo-repeat-purchase-rate",
  "store": "<store_url>",
  "completed_at": "<ISO-8601>",
  "records_processed": <n>,
  "output_file": "<path>",
  "dry_run": false
}

Output Format

CSV filename: woo-repeat-purchase-rate_<YYYY-MM-DD>_<YYYY-MM-DD>.csv Columns: period_start, period_end, total_customers, one_time_buyers, repeat_buyers, repeat_rate_pct, avg_orders_per_repeat_buyer

Error Handling

Best Practices

• A repeat rate below 20% in a mature store often signals poor post-purchase engagement — consider email win-back sequences.
• Guest orders are grouped by billing email — high guest checkout rates reduce accuracy; encourage account creation.
• Pair with woo-customer-cohort-analysis to understand which acquisition cohorts have the highest retention.