Retention · 8 min
When push notifications inflate repeat purchase
An open is not a second order. After cash-on-delivery, there is often a quiet 21-day gap while the shopper decides whether the parcel was a mistake.
Retention After First Purchase spends half a week on this inflation. Marketing dashboards love push open rates because they move when you shout. Repeat purchase, honestly defined, moves when the product, the size, and the delivery did not disappoint.
We ask students to suppress push-attributed orders for 72 hours after a blast and to watch what remains. The remaining line is usually smaller and more useful. If it disappears entirely, you did not have retention. You had a notification habit.
The COD gap
For prepaid cards, a second order can arrive quickly. For COD, many shoppers wait until they are sure they will not refuse the next rider. In fashion we often see a gap around three weeks — long enough for a first wear, a possible exchange, and a decision. Counting a push-driven browse on day four as “retained” insults that timeline.
Size exchanges complicate the picture. An exchange is not a second purchase. If your repeat metric includes it, you are celebrating a fit problem.
What we do not claim
This note is not a sermon against push. Used as a shipping update or a genuine restock, it is logistics. Used as a daily tap on the glass, it is how repeat purchase becomes fiction. The programme will not design your CRM journeys; it will teach you which numbers to stop putting in the Monday stand-up.