Strategizing the Replenishment Time

Understanding your customers' behavior is crucial to customize their journey and achieve sustained growth – especially understanding when customers are likely to need more of what they love. Knowing the replenishment time of your products can be a game-changer. Especially for CPG brands, mastering the timing of these repeat purchases is key to driving loyalty and increasing customer lifetime value. Here's where to find the replenishment time per product and how to strategize this information.

Reality vs. Expectations

Many products are designed with a usage cycle in mind, often intended to last for a set period, such as 30 days. However, in reality, customers may repurchase much later than anticipated. Factors like varied usage rates, customer forgetfulness, or alternative product choices can lead to significant deviations from the expected replenishment schedule. Additionally, the start of product usage often doesn't align with the order date. Many customers don't begin using a product immediately upon delivery, which can further extend the time before they need a refill.

Imagine a perfect row of dominos, each spaced exactly 30 days apart—this represents the expected replenishment cycle. If everything went as planned, customers would reorder like clockwork, knocking over the next domino right on time.

But in reality, some customers run out early (knocking over their domino on Day 25), while others take much longer (Day 45, 60, or beyond). Some may even forget to reorder, leaving dominos standing.

Understanding actual replenishment time allows you to align strategies with real customer behavior—ensuring timely communication, optimizing subscription offers, and adjusting product sizing. Instead of assuming a fixed cycle, you can nudge customers based on when they're most likely to buy again.

Product-Based Replenishment Flows

Replenishment time varies significantly from product to product, making it essential to tailor your replenishment flows accordingly. For some brands, it's even more valuable to set up these flow on a SKU level, or at a category or even brand level. For example, replenishment times may vary for different sizes of the same product or for items in different categories, such as shampoos versus conditioners.
Product-based replenishment flows are effective for:

• Brands with multiple products that have different usage cycles
  Even within the same category, products deplete at different rates—e.g. for a beauty brand customer, mascara might last two months, while foundation lasts three to four months. A one-size-fits-all approach to reminders can result in poorly timed nudges. Product-based flows ensure that each item’s actual replenishment time determines when customers receive a reminder.
  
  
• Brands with a single hero product
  If your business revolves around one core product, securing repeat purchases is crucial for sustained revenue. A well-timed replenishment email can keep customers engaged, ensuring they reorder before they run out. These flows also provide an opportunity to introduce subscription options at the ideal moment.
  
  

Replenishment Time in RetentionX

The good news is that RetentionX comes preloaded with the replenishment time for your SKUs, products, categories, and brands.

To find this data, navigate to All Variants, All Products, or All Categories, or All Brands and look for the Replenishment Time metric. This value represents the median number of days it takes for a customer to repurchase the same product. Using the median helps normalize outliers, ensuring a more accurate reflection of typical buying behavior.

Taking a look at the following example, customers typically replenish the moisturizer after 79 days, while it takes usually 155 days for them to repurchase mascara.

Strategizing the Replenishment Time

Let's see how you can make the Replenishment Time actionable:

Personalize Customer Communication

Utilize the Replenishment Time to send personalized reminders or emails suggesting a reorder just before the expected replenishment date.

1. Email Flows
   Create sequenced messaging based off the customers' last purchase. This messaging should be both personalized and relevant, directly targeting your customers' need to replenish their supply of the product:
   
   

   Example Klaviyo Flow

   🔎 As seen from iliabeauty.com

2. Remarketing Ads
   Leverage RetentionX’s dynamic segments to build highly targeted remarketing campaigns. Identify customers approaching their expected replenishment time and seamlessly sync these segments with your marketing audiences on platforms like Meta, Google, TikTok, or Pinterest. 
   
   
   
   

   Taking the "Smoothing Moisturizer" as an example, the brand could create an audience of customers who purchased the product within the last 250 days but haven’t repurchased in the last 70 days. Since the replenishment time for this product is 79 days, these customers are likely due for a refill. Customers who pass the 70-day mark receive a timely reminder to reorder, while those who haven’t repurchased for 250 days are automatically removed from the segment to keep targeting relevant. At the same time, new customers meeting the criteria are continuously added to the audience, ensuring an always-up-to-date remarketing flow.
   
   

Optimize Subscription Models

Instead of offering a standard subscription interval, recommend replenishment cycles based on actual customer behavior. In addition, understand the actual product cycle by allowing customers to modify their subscription frequency to match their individual usage patterns reduces churn caused by overstock or stockouts. By ensuring that customers receive products when they actually need them, subscriptions feel more flexible and personalized, leading to higher retention rates.

🔎 As seen from peets.com

Complementary Products
Understanding when customers are likely to reorder a product can help you suggest complementary items that might be needed around the same time. For example, if a customer typically repurchases foundation every 90 days, and the replenishment time for a primer or setting spray aligns with that, you can create bundles of these products. This not only enhances the customer's routine and convenience but also boosts your average order value (AOV).

🔎 As seen from sculptedbyaimee.com

Not using RetentionX yet?