From contact lenses and cosmetics to coffee and pet food, there are so many products on the market that customers use over and over again.

These types of consumable items that customers repurchase regularly lend themselves to being offered on a subscription basis.

But sometimes a subscription doesn’t always match your customer’s rate of consumption and this can lead them to either being overstocked or running out too quickly.

So what if you could let your customer set their own reminders and have full control over their delivery schedule?

Well, a replenishment email campaign can do just that. 

In this article, we will explain how replenishment emails work, why they’re effective and how to set them up on Shopify.

How do replenishment emails work?

Replenishment emails work by sending your customers timely re-purchase reminders for items they have purchased from your store.

After a set period of time, the customer will be automatically sent an email asking them if they would like to re-order the same product again. This email will contain a link back to the website, making it easy and convenient to replenish their products.

A good replenishment email should arrive just in time to allow the customer to place another order and have it arrive before the last of the initial order runs out. 

Why replenishment emails are effective

Something many eCommerce merchants will agree with is that getting first time shoppers to return to your store for a second purchase can be a challenge.

The subscription model has been a popular method used by some merchants as a way to address this one-and-done transaction trend.

Whilst subscriptions are convenient and offer long-term savings, they can also be a bit inflexible and difficult to adjust.

That can sometimes leave customers with too much or too little and feeling the need to cancel altogether.

Replenishment emails allow customers to set their own schedule with a pay-as-you-go alternative which has absolutely no commitments.

This allows you to maintain an ongoing relationship with the customer and, if appropriate, offer them a loyalty discount for returning for their next re-purchase.

Sending replenishment emails on Shopify

The Replenish app makes sending replenishment emails on Shopify really easy.

Once installed, there’s just a few simple questions to answer such as how much discount you’d like to offer replenishment customers, if any at all, and what you want the email subject to say.

As soon as that’s done, your customers will be able to start getting replenishment emails from their first purchase.

From their side, they will be presented with the Replenish widget on the Order Status Page, where they can opt-in to receive replenishment email reminders.

They can also set the interval of the reminder, for example, one week, three weeks, two months etc.

When the time nears, the customer will be automatically sent an email containing a replenishment link to a pre-loaded cart of those items.

Replenish also allows the customer to modify reminders for individual products in their cart, rather than the whole order, via the Customer Portal.

If your customers want to deactivate replenishment reminders on certain products they can also do this in the Portal.

After creating a few triggers, you can relax in the knowledge that Replenish is doing all the hard work for you as it automatically sends repurchase reminders to your customers.

Simply head over to the Shopify App Store and install Replenish to get started straight away.