You Want to Be in the Reorder Business, Not the Order Business.
The first sale tells you someone was willing to try. The second tells you something more interesting.
Welcome back to Laughing Hyena's column on African consumer business. We've been digging into customer retention for consumer brands, and some of the less obvious things that determine whether a consumer brand actually gets anywhere. You can catch up on the earlier pieces here: Why Does Every African Consumer Business Start With a Kiosk.
Lately, I've been thinking about the first time someone buys a product from a brand. That little notification that says an order has come in. For a founder, especially one that is building from scratch, that moment has no descriptive word. It's a miracle! You made something, put it out into the world, and someone decided it was worth paying for. For a brief moment, the market has answered: yes.
It is easy to get attached to that moment. And maybe we get a little too attached to it. Because the first purchase is exciting. But the second is what should count.
I don't mean that the first sale doesn't matter. Obviously it does. Without the first sale, there isn't a second. But the first purchase can mean many things. Someone might have been curious. They might have liked the packaging, heard about the product from a friend, seen an interesting post or simply been in the right place at the right time.
The second purchase has a different history behind it. The customer has actually lived with the product now. They know what it tastes like, how it works, whether it was worth the money. The novelty has gone. Whatever they thought they were buying the first time has been replaced by what they actually experienced.
And then, sometime later, they decide to buy it again. That is the transaction I've become more interested in.
The Moment a Product Becomes a Habit
Think about the things you buy regularly. There was probably a time when you tried them for the first time. You may not remember it anymore. Somewhere along the way, the decision became less interesting. You simply knew.
You knew which one you liked. You knew roughly what it cost. You knew where to find it. When you ran out, and you bought another.
That quiet transition - from I'll try this to - I'll have another one - is one of the most valuable things that can happen to a consumer brand. It is also where the business starts becoming less dependent on persuasion.
This is why I've always found the obsession with launches slightly amusing. A launch is designed to make people care about something they have never cared about before. Of course it matters. You need people to notice you before they can buy you.
But there is a danger in becoming very good at the first purchase. You can sell thousands of units and still not know whether you have built something people actually want.
A successful campaign can do that. A discount can do that. A good influencer can certainly do that. Even curiosity can do it. People are surprisingly willing to give a new product one chance.
What happens after that is harder to manufacture.
When the Product Has to Sell Itself
This is where repeat purchase becomes interesting. Imagine someone buys your drink because they saw it online. Great. They liked the packaging. They were curious. They tried it.
Then the drink is finished.
A few weeks later, they are standing in a shop again. Your billboard isn't there. The influencer isn't talking about you. The launch campaign has moved on to whatever comes next.
There is just the customer, the shelf and the memory of the last time. If they pick up your product again, something has happened that is more interesting than the original sale. The product has started doing some of the work that the marketing had to do the first time.
This is, I think, one of the quiet signs that a consumer brand is becoming a real brand. Not that everyone is talking about it, but that people are buying it without needing a fresh reason every time.
Eventually, the best brands can become almost boring in this respect. Not boring as products, but as decisions. You don't stand in front of the shelf wondering whether you should buy them. You already know.
Then You Have to Be There
There is a catch, though, and this is where last two week's piece on distribution comes back. You can have a customer who loves your product, finishes it and genuinely wants another one. If they can't find it, they will probably buy something else.
I've started to think that we sometimes make customer loyalty sound more complicated than it is. Of course people form emotional attachments to brands. Of course identity and community matter. But sometimes loyalty is much less romantic.
Sometimes the product you keep buying is simply the one that is there when you want it. That makes distribution part of retention.
A customer cannot reorder what they cannot find. And suddenly the boring business of getting products into shops becomes much more interesting.
The Number I Would Want to Know
If I were building a consumer company today, I would still care about sales. I would still celebrate the first thousand customers. I would still want the launch to go well.
But I would be watching something else very closely. What happened to those customers afterwards?
Not all of them will come back. They don't have to. Some people will try your product and decide it isn't for them. That's normal.
But if enough people finish what you made and think, I want that again, you have learned something important. You may have found the beginning of a habit.
And habits are strange things. They don't usually announce themselves. Nobody wakes up one morning and says, “Today I am going to become a loyal customer of this particular toothpaste.”
They just keep buying the same thing. Eventually, they stop being customers you acquired and become customers you retained. This is the ultimate goal of customer retention. That distinction matters more than it first appears. Because the first order is an introduction. The reorder is a relationship.
And I suspect the best consumer companies spend less time trying to make every purchase feel exciting and more time making sure the next one feels obvious.
That is the business you want.
Not the order business. The reorder business.
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