Do Heavy Buyers Stay Heavy?

The TL;DR: not so much.

In a classic study,The NPD Group measured the purchase frequencies of 2,261 consumers across 27 brands in both CPG and non-cpg categories. Then they came back a year later to see how much folks were stll buying.

They found a couple things.

First, nearly three quarters of buyers are light buyers. Few are heavy. This is the universal Banana Curve (or negative binomial) seen in virtually every brand ever, from Apple to Zara, from Harley to Hulu. (Including yours, dear reader.)

Chart titled “Don’t Assume Heavy Buyers Stay Heavy” with images

Second, they found that while 87% of light buyers stayed light, only a third of mediums stayed medium, and about HALF of heavy buyers stayed heavy.

That’s quite a lot of churn — even though the total proportion of light, medium & heavy buyers remained unchanged.

And third, while they did see Double Jeopardy (small brands tended to have lower retention of heavy buyers), there was a LOT of wiggle between brands, with retention of heavy buyers ranging from 15% to 72%.

Why is this so?

Lots of reasons. But generally, there’s no real neeeeed to be loyal to a brand. Though we’re mostly creatures of habit, those habits meander. Especially when there are 5 or 6 brands that are comparably good. (And just statistically speaking, if you’re already a heavy buyer, the odds are you’ll meander down, not up.)

As I like to say, we’re ”brand fickle”, not “brand loyal.”

Caveats galore, of course. But the lessons are important:

• Assume your buyers will change their purchase levels in randomish ways.
• Stop using the word “loyal”. ”Heavy” and “habitual” and "repurchase" are better terms for behavior.
• Assume your category follows Double Jeopardy, but do what you can to capture the wiggle. (Curious how? Ask me.)

Source: Baldinger & Rubinson (The NPD Group). 1996. Journal of Advertising Research 36, 22-35