Many of us are familiar with the saying that you attract more flies with honey than vinegar, a metaphor about being kind. It’s also an apt proverb for the concept of customer stickiness. Satisfied customers who see the value in your product or service are more likely to make repeat purchases, which means more revenue for your business.

These customers are also the people who will vouch for your products through online reviews and word-of-mouth marketing. But how does customer stickiness differ from loyalty or retention? And how can you best increase the stickiness of your current customer base? Let’s break it down below.

This guide will show you how to measure customer stickiness and teach you strategies to increase it within your own business.

Table of contents

What is customer stickiness?

Customer stickiness is exactly what it sounds like—a business’s ability to keep customers sticking around and purchasing its products over time. You can also think of it as the result of creating and developing an offering that’s too good to pass up—or one that beats competing products. Improving stickiness involves developing strategies to increase the value of your product, ensuring it fits the needs and meets the standards of your buyers.

Giving ample attention to existing customers and focusing on increasing stickiness can have a significant payoff. According to a Bain & Company report, increasing customer retention by just 5% can improve your profits by up to 95%, and stickiness is a significant factor in retaining customers.

Customer stickiness vs. retention vs. loyalty

Although customer stickiness, loyalty, and retention are related and even used interchangeably, the concepts are slightly different. Stickiness is the likelihood of your customers purchasing products or services over and over again. Customer loyalty, on the other hand, measures a buyer’s commitment to opting for your brand over alternatives. Both customer stickiness and loyalty are components of customer retention over time.

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How to measure customer stickiness

There are a few ways you can measure customer stickiness, depending on which customer success metrics matter most to you and the type of business you’re running:

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

One way to understand customer satisfaction and stickiness is through a Net Promoter Score (NPS). You can find your NPS through a survey that asks a group of customers how likely they are to recommend or use your products on a scale of 1 to 10.

You then separate the respondents into three categories depending on how they responded to the question: detractors (0 to 6), passives (7 to 8), and promoters (9 to 10). Finally, you use this equation to calculate your NPS:

NPS = [(Total promoters / Total respondents x 100) - (Total detractors / Total respondents)] x 100

Customer retention rate (CRR)

Another stickiness metric is customer retention rate (which encompasses both customer stickiness and customer loyalty). This gives you an idea of how often customers return to purchase your products, which you can compare with average industry rates to see how you rank. To calculate CRR, use the following formula:

Customer retention rate = [(Customers at the end of a set period - Customers acquired during a set period) / Customers at the start of a set period] x 100

Daily active users/monthly active users (DAU/MAU)

Software as a service (SaaS) and tech businesses often use another ratio: DAU/MAU. This is calculated by dividing your number of daily active users by your number of monthly active users. You get a ratio by multiplying that resulting number by 100.

This ratio tells you what percentage of users return to your website, app, or platform on a daily basis. It can give you an idea of drop-off and user fluctuation over different periods. Here’s the equation:

DAU/MAU ratio = (Daily active users / Monthly active users) x 100

Customer lifetime value

Another useful insight to gauge customer loyalty and stickiness is customer lifetime value (CLV). CLV estimates how much your customers are likely to spend with you over the course of their interaction with your business. Knowing this can help you figure out how much you can afford to spend on acquiring and retaining them. A basic starting formula for CLV is:

Customer lifetime value = Average order value x Purchase frequency x Average customer lifespan

Customer churn rate

Churn rate is another important metric when it comes to customer stickiness, and is helpful for subscription-based businesses or services. This metric tells you the percentage of customers who no longer purchase your products.

Knowing your business’s churn rate can inform your strategy for increasing sticky customers and figuring out why customers leave. The formula for calculating your churn rate is:

Churn rate = (Customers at the start of a set period - Customers at the end of a set period + New customers acquired in a set period) / Customers at the start of a set period

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How to increase customer stickiness

Once you’ve crunched the numbers and are ready to take action to improve customer stickiness and retention, these tactics can help:

Develop and refine your products

Iteration allows you a chance to improve the products or services you offer, increasing your chances of turning leads into repeat customers. Customer feedback can offer valuable insight into what is and isn’t working when it comes to your offerings. Listening to consumers allows you to better satisfy their needs, leading to products they love and will continue to purchase.

Focus on customer service

Another crucial customer retention strategy is improving customer service. That could look like offering fast delivery, white glove service, personalized onboarding support, or simply answering questions and concerns politely and promptly. Customer service can significantly determine whether customers have a positive experience and return to your brand. In fact, a Shep Hyken report finds that 59% of customers say customer service is a more important factor than price in their purchase decisions.

Personalize your marketing efforts

If your marketing strategy doesn’t speak to your audience or align with their needs and values, they’ll likely seek out an alternative product that does. Invest time in understanding your target customer segments and speak to existing clients in a way that reminds them of your product’s value. Personalized marketing content can help customers feel closer to your brand and like they’ve been heard, which can also improve customer stickiness.

Reward existing customers

You want to give people more reasons to return to your business, and a great way to do this is by rewarding customers. You can improve customer loyalty and stickiness by creating a customer loyalty program, where buyers earn points for purchasing products.

You could also set up a referral program where both a customer and anyone they refer to your business are rewarded for completing a purchase. This increases customer engagement and word of mouth, since buyers are encouraged to share their experience with your products and recommend your business to their friends and family.

Customer stickiness FAQ

What is the difference between customer stickiness and customer retention?

Customer stickiness and customer retention are often used in a similar context, but they’re slightly different. Customer stickiness refers to a business’s ability to get customers to stay around and make repeat purchases, often because of the value that they get from a product or service. Customer retention is how companies hold on to loyal customers over time.

How do you measure customer stickiness?

There isn’t only one formula to measure customer stickiness. To get a good picture of customer stickiness, you can look at metrics such as your brand’s Net Promoter Score, repeat purchase rate, and customer retention rate.

What is a good stickiness ratio?

A good customer stickiness ratio ranges between 9% and 13%, hovering around 9.8% for ecommerce if you use the DAU/MAU calculation. As an example, average customer retention rates are 30% for ecommerce businesses and 77% for software brands.

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Customer stickiness, or a business’s ability to keep customers purchasing its products over time, impacts customer lifetime value and long-term profitability.

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The rise of the internet spurred the growth of ecommerce, but consumer trust didn’t come overnight. While early adopters embraced online shopping in the 1990s, many shoppers were wary of sharing credit card details online, preferring the familiarity and safety of brick-and-mortar stores.

Secure payment technologies and encryption gradually eased these concerns, laying the foundation of trust that now drives online shopping. Today, consumers purchase with confidence across devices, yet emerging security threats still challenge that trust. While the risk of online shopping remains low, vulnerable payment systems can expose customers to fraud, cyberattacks, data breaches, and financial losses.

A secure checkout flow isn’t just a technical requirement—it’s essential for protecting customers, transactions, and your brand reputation. Here’s what you need to know to build lasting trust in your online store.

Table of contents

What is a secure checkout?

Secure checkout is a protected payment system that safeguards online payments through encryption, which converts sensitive information like credit card data and billing addresses into unreadable code. Think of encryption as a lock-and-key system: the data gets scrambled (locked) using mathematical algorithms, and only authorized payment processors can unscramble (unlock) it, keeping customer data safe during its journey from the customer to your bank.

Secure checkout also includes fraud detection systems that flag suspicious patterns and potentially fraudulent transactions before they’re processed. Since customer data is most vulnerable during the payment process, secure checkout‘s encryption provides your first line of defense against cybercriminals attempting to intercept information.

Why is secure checkout essential for ecommerce?

Secure checkout isn’t just a feature—it’s a requirement. Here are the benefits of secure checkout:

Keep customer data safe at every step

Every online transaction transmits sensitive financial data across the internet—names, addresses, credit card numbers, CVV codes, and expiration dates—exposing multiple points of vulnerability to theft. Protecting this data prevents fraud, identity theft, and financial losses for both customers and your business.

Secure checkout systems protect this information through multiple layers of security, including encrypted connections and tokenization of payment data, replacing sensitive data with a temporary numeric token. These security measures ensure sensitive details are scrambled and unreadable even if intercepted by malicious actors.

Build long-term trust

The 2013 Target data breach exposed the payment card details of 40 million customers, resulting in years of bad press and an $18.5 million settlement—a cautionary tale for any business.

Data breaches do more than drain finances; they erode trust. Shoppers lose faith in the brand’s ability to protect their data and become hesitant to make purchases. While no system is foolproof, a secure checkout minimizes these risks, preserves customer confidence, and encourages repeat purchases.

Reduce cart abandonment rates

Secure checkout directly influences whether shoppers complete purchases. Familiar security indicators like SSL certificates, trusted payment gateway logos, and recognized security badges help instill confidence in customers. When they see these symbols on checkout pages, they’re more likely to complete their purchase than abandon their cart.

A 2024 survey found 25% of shoppers abandoned their carts because they didn’t trust the site with their credit card information, showing how weak security signals can directly hurt your bottom line. A separate study revealed that 76% of consumers say trust logos influence their confidence in a website, while 55% report abandoning purchases when security indicators are missing.

Stop payment fraud before it happens

Fraud detection in secure checkouts uses cutting-edge tech to analyze hundreds of transaction risk factors in real time, protecting your business from chargebacks and keeping your hard-earned revenue safe.

For instance, machine learning algorithms absorb patterns in historical data to detect subtle anomalies. Customer habits—like typing speed or sudden changes in purchasing patterns—or details like billing addresses, CVV codes, and IP geolocation can signal suspicious activity. Another key method, risk scoring, assigns risk levels to transactions to evaluate purchase history, geolocation, and device fingerprints (unique device identifiers for tracking) to identify risky behavior before it affects your bottom line.

Meet data protection standards with confidence

Businesses accepting online payments must comply with PCI DSS standards and regulations like GDPR in Europe. Non-compliance can result in steep financial penalties. A secure checkout system helps you ensure compliance by encrypting card data, maintaining secure payment environments, and aligning your processes with regulatory requirements.

6 ways to ensure secure checkout on Shopify

One of the most important steps in securing your online store is choosing the right ecommerce platform. Shopify comes with robust security features built in—from fraud detection to secure payment processing—to protect you and your customers. Here’s how to make the most of these security tools:

1. Opt for trusted payment gateways

Your payment gateway—i.e., your online payment processing service—protects customer card data, so choosing a reputable one is essential. Look for established providers with proven track records in security, reliability, and fraud protection. Shopify Payments is built into the platform; other trusted options include Stripe, Square, and PayPal.

Evaluate each gateway’s transaction fees, fraud analysis tools, and support for major credit cards. Your payment gateway should align with your business model and your customers’ preferred payment methods—particularly for international sales where local payment options matter. For example, some Canadian shoppers prefer to pay with Interac Debit, while customers in Asia often opt for popular payment methods like Alipay or WeChat Pay.

2. Use Shopify Payments with 3D Secure authentication

3D Secure adds a layer of fraud protection by requiring customers to authenticate their identity during online transactions. It redirects them to their card issuer’s domain for verification, then returns them to your store to completepayment. Implementing this process can shift liability for fraudulent chargebacks from you, the merchant, to the card issuer, reducing your financial risk.

3D Secure is automatically enabled with Shopify Payments and Stripe, activating as needed to comply with regulations like PSD2.

3. Take advantage of Shopify’s fraud analysis tools

Shopify’s built-in fraud analysis identifies potentially fraudulent orders by evaluating different indicators, like mismatched billing and shipping addresses or multiple failed payment attempts.

Orders are assigned a risk level—low, medium, or high—to help you make informed fulfillment decisions. Medium- and high-risk orders display a warning symbol beside their order number on the orders page. Reviewing the fraud analysis for each order lets you take corrective action, like verifying the order details or canceling the order to prevent chargebacks. With Shopify Flow, you can automate rules and block lists to manage which orders your store accepts.

4. Download third-party fraud apps from the Shopify App Store

Boost your store’s security by integrating third-party fraud prevention apps available in the Shopify App Store. These offer additional security features, including cart and checkout validations, allowing you to enforce specific rules. For instance, you can limit product quantities per purchase or require customers to complete custom fields during checkout.

Configure and activate the app’s checkout rules in your Shopify admin to align with your store’s policies, cutting the risk of fraudulent transactions.

5. Change your address collection preferences

You can manage how customer addresses are collected and validated in Shopify’s checkout settings—a key security feature to combat checkout fraud. By default, Shopify allows different shipping and billing addresses, streamlining checkout but potentially increasing fraud risk for certain businesses.

For most stores, the default setting—allowing different addresses—strikes a good balance between security and customer needs. However, if your store sees frequent fraudulent orders, you can require shipping and billing addresses to match.

The address validation feature also enhances security by automatically checking shipping addresses during checkout and suggesting corrections for invalid entries, reducing the risk of shipping fraud and failed deliveries.

6. Display badges to increase confidence

Secure checkout badges may not directly enhance your store’s actual security, but they foster customer trust. Badges like Norton and payment logos like Visa and Mastercard associate your store with trusted brands, reassuring customers of your legitimacy.

Place these badges near the checkout button, on product pages, and in the shopping cart to reduce shopping cart abandonment.

Secure checkout FAQ

How do I know if my checkout is secure?

Test your checkout system’s security by running a PCI compliance scan, reviewing your SSL certificate status, ensuring your payment gateway meets current security standards, and verifying that your platform encrypts payment details during online checkout.

What is the symbol for secure checkout?

Common indicators include the green padlock icon in your browser’s address bar, along with trusted payment logos like PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard, and recognized badges like Norton Secure or SSL certificates.

Does Shopify offer secure checkout options?

Yes. Shopify provides comprehensive security through fraud analysis tools, automatic SSL certificates, 3D Secure checkouts, and built-in PCI DSS compliance on all plans to help you safely accept payments.

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Protect your ecommerce store with secure checkout methods that keep customer data safe and prevent fraud.

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