What happens after a customer's first ever purchase is a starter pack — do they come back, what do they buy next, and how many lock in the refill subscription. Based on all-time Shopify order history; the cohort is the 5,915 customers whose first purchase was a starter pack in the last 12 months.
Data source Shopify order history (all-time), pulled via the Shopify Admin REST API (2024-01) and sequenced per customer — 30,113 customers / ~84,600 orders, earliest Nov 2020. Cohort = customers whose first‑ever order was a starter pack (order tag Starter Pack or a line item titled “starter”) dated on or after 10 Jun 2025 = 5,915. Wholesale/draft orders and order-less records excluded. Pull script: pull-pott-starter-pack-cohort.cjs.
The starter pack works as a front door — 41.4% come back — but the pre-populated refill subscription is being removed by four out of five buyers. That matters because subscribers return 86.6% of the time versus just 36% for everyone else. Closing the subscription-skip gap is a bigger lever than any price change.
Of the 2,448 buyers who came back, here's what their second order contained. (Shares exceed 100% — an order can hold several items.)
73% of second orders are deliberate web purchases, not auto-charged subscription refills. Median time to return: 34 days.
Among non-subscribers who chose to return, 36% bought another starter pack rather than a refill — most likely gifting or a second scent, not "graduating" to refills.
Data source Each repeater's second order by date within the cohort (n=2,448); contents categorised from Shopify line-item titles + order tags. An order can hold several items, so shares sum above 100%. Deliberate = second order placed on the web rather than an auto-charged Recharge refill (subscription_contract source); time-to-return from order timestamps. The “chose to return” gifting cut isolates non-subscriber deliberate repeaters (n=1,252).
The starter-pack landing page pre-populates a refill subscription. Here's how often buyers actually keep it on their first order.
Opt-in by recent month (fully-tracked period):
Data source Opt-in = the first starter order carries the Subscription First Order tag (Recharge subscriptions run on order tags, not native Shopify selling plans, which are always null here). The positive tag is applied consistently across all 12 months. The monthly bars use Apr–Jun 2026 only — the window where opt-in is fully tagged.
Same first-order value either way (~£94). The difference is what happens next. Measured on customers with at least five months to return.
A subscriber is ~2.4× more likely to come back. The subscription is doing nearly all of the retention work.
Data source Maturity-controlled sub-cohort: first starter order placed Jun–Dec 2025 (n=4,179), so every customer has had ≥5 months to return — this removes the bias where recent buyers look loyal-less simply for lack of elapsed time. Split by whether that first order opted into the refill subscription (tag as above). First-order AOV is near-identical either way (£93.61 opted / £91.76 not), so the gap is behavioural, not spend-driven.
The proposal — raise the base price and give first-timers a stronger discount, so the increase mainly bites on repeat purchases — is structurally sound, with one caveat and one upgrade.
The repeat purchase is overwhelmingly refills — so raising the base price is raising the refill price. Defensible (high switching cost once they own the vessel), but your non-subscriber repeaters are the most price-sensitive group. A flat, no-strings first-order discount mostly subsidises buyers who never return.
Put the stronger first-time offer behind the subscription, not the one-off pack — "subscribe to refills, get your starter pack for £X." That raises base/refill margin, still gives first-timers the discount, and attacks the 81% subscription-skip that drives the retention gap above.
Data source Interpretation of the findings above — no new data. A precise LTV scenario (what to set the base price and gated discount to) needs starter-pack and refill COGS/margin from Pott.