Congrats, you got the sale… but your work isn’t done. If you really want to make money in your eCommerce business, you’ve got to figure out how to get those customers to KEEP coming back.
Stage 4 of the 4-step eCommerce sales funnel it’s all about creating a post-purchase experience that wows your customers and makes sure they have a great experience with your product.
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eCommerce Sales funnel recap
Step One: Awareness
This stage is all about creating content that allows the customer to discover they have a problem to get more visibility for your eCommerce store. Oftentimes your potential customers are not even aware that they have a problem that needs solving.
Building on our non-toxic cleaning example from last week, an idea for content that invites awareness is a blog post or video about creating a safe home environment for your kids. In the blog or video, you could mention your non-toxic cleaning supplies.
Step Two: Interest
A great way to create more interest in your product is through a content upgrade from the blog post or video post.
For example: Top 10 Items For A Non-Toxic Home.
This allows you to insert your product as part of the top 10 items and helps potential customers realize that non-toxic products are important.
Step Three: Purchase
At this point, your potential customer is either on your email list or engaging with you a lot on social media – or both! You want to give them more education about your specific product and your company so they decide to buy from you over your competition.
They’ve made a purchase, now what?
How do you get the customer to make a second purchase?
Start thinking about the post-purchase experience:
- What did they need?
- What do you need to do to ensure that they leave a positive review?
- Did they receive their product quickly enough?
- What is the unboxing experience like?
- How do you communicate with them after the sale?
Many of us are accustomed to Amazon shipping. As a result, there are some people you'll never be able to please — those people don't matter. Most importantly, you need to set clear expectations both on your website and in your confirmation emails about the shipping times.
Let your customer know orders typically leave your warehouse within one to two business days for example. In addition to the order confirmation email, send them a shipping confirmation and a delivery confirmation. The first two are turned on by default in Shopify, however, you might have to turn on the delivery confirmation email.
As a customer, the delivery confirmation is my favorite. As someone who doesn’t check my mailbox every day, the delivery email gets me excited to go and check out my mailbox.
Make the unboxing experience special
That doesn't necessarily mean you have to spend a shitton of money on custom packaging — will likely end up in the garbage.
Wrap it up in pretty tissue paper, a branded sticker or even insert or handwritten note thanking them for their purchase. All that goes a really long way at minimal pricing.
Check out printdirtcheap.com for inserts and stickers, which ships from California – really convenient because that’s where I’m located. You might want to find someone that ships locally to you so that you can save some money.
Post-purchase emails
Post-purchase emails are more than just the order confirmation and delivery emails mentioned before. Aside from those transactional emails, do you have an email that goes out after your customer makes a purchase? If you don't, you should. And if you do, keep reading.
Your goal is to make sure the customer has a good experience with your product so that they'll leave you a good review. What you put in this email is 100% going to depend on your product.
- Do you need to educate them on anything?
- Does your product have a learning curve? If you're not sure, think about the feedback you've receive in the past.
- Are there common problems that come up that seem to be from user error?
- What questions do you see over and over again?
That's the type of content you want to include in your post purchase emails. If you are selling hair styling products, can you send them a demonstration video? If you're selling candles, remind them to cut the wick before they burn it. If you are selling CBD, you need to explain how to use the right amount.
If you're a clothing boutique, it's going to be a little bit harder to be product specific.
You could send them a seasonal styling guide that includes items you sell in your store to give them ideas about how to incorporate your collection into their existing closet.
Depending on the number of items you sell, you could trigger different flows based on the product itself. If you're using
For example, I had a client that had three main products, so we have a dynamic block for each one of those items. If they purchased two of the three items, they would see two of those dynamic blocks. If they only purchased one item then they will only see one dynamic block.
Here’s some instructions on how to set this up in Kaviyo
Split your post-purchase email flows between first-time customers and repeat customers
You don't need to send the same educational content to repeat buyers. Resend this educational email to anyone who didn’t open it the first time three or four days later. You can do this by adding a condition that says if they didn’t open the first email, resend. Because they didn’t open the first email, you can easily copy the original content and change the subject line. If this is all sounding overwhelming to you, and you want a little bit more support here, I do offer one on one strategy calls where we can hash this out together. I'm here to support you.
Consider sending a bounce-back offer to first-time buyers to encourage them to make their second purchase. Allow plenty of time to redeem the offer as they’ll want to try your product before they commit to a second purchase from you.
For repeat buyers, you can keep it a bit more simple with just a thank you email. Let them know you appreciate them so much and remind them about your rewards program, this is a great place to remind them. Encourage them to share your product and your business on social media or invite them to the others channels where you create content for them.
When it comes to second-time purchasers, make sure you're conveying how much you appreciate their support for your business. Take some time to brainstorm the best ways to do this. Start with a brain dump, and write down everything your customer needs to have a good experience with your product. Sign up for the free resource library for a tool to help you do this!
Another thing that you can do with your post-purchase emails series is add in evergreen content. Share any blog posts or videos that aren't time sensitive. This way you're keeping in touch with your customer, even if you're not sending regular campaign emails.
Rewards programs are a great way to build loyalty
The reward you give doesn't have to be big, it can be as small as 5% back, which is what most rewards programs will give you. It's best to do this in point form so that they have to spend a decent amount of money before they get their first reward.
For instance, for every $100 they spend, they get a $5 reward to use toward their next purchase. You can also create different tiers to better reward your most loyal customers. The higher the tier, the higher the perks. You can also reward them with free products or give them more bonus reward days where they can earn double rewards points.
A Subscribe & Save option might be a great way to keep customers coming back for more if your product is consumable. A replenishment email series is also a great way to get people coming back. Check out recharge, they're my favorite subscription platform for Shopify, which also plays pretty nicely with
If you're not ready to add a subscription element to your business, start with a replenishment flow. If you know your customer needs to replace your consumable product every 30 days, you can send a reminder email about 21 days after you fulfill their order to nudge them toward making their next purchase. Klaviyo has a flow specifically for this which will link them to a cart on Shopify with the items already added. It's pretty nifty.
If you do nothing else, start with the post-purchase emails because you can get a lot of bang for your buck there. Also start building amazing relationships with your customers.
Listen to the Episode
Podcast Episodes Mentioned
- Ep. 12: Sales Funnel Series: Awareness
- Ep. 13: Sales Funnel Series: Interest
- Ep. 14: Sales Funnel Series: Purchase
