Retention-First Growth®: The Future of Profitability in Ecommerce

Brands celebrate revenue milestones whilst quietly bleeding profit. £200K brands reaching six figures. £1M brands hitting seven. £10M brands scaling to eight. Different numbers. Identical economics.

Acquisition costs exceed first-purchase margins. Profitability depends on repeat purchase. And 70% of customers never return.

This creates a $4.8 trillion annual profit leak across global ecommerce.

Why Funnels Fail

Funnels end at purchase. They treat customers as transactions: acquire, convert, done. When 70% of first-time buyers never return, the funnel collapses under its own economics.

The Flywheel Replaces the Funnel

The Retention-First Growth® Flywheel maps the complete customer lifecycle as a circular, self-reinforcing system. Customers move through five orbits: Capture, Activation, Value Core, Loyalty, and Reactivation. Each interaction feeds energy into the next. Momentum compounds. Value accelerates.

Customers never fall out. They either accelerate forward or loop back for recovery.

The Performance Gulf

Top performers generate 9× more revenue per recipient. Their cart recovery drives $27 per recipient versus $3 industry-wide. Their repeat purchase rates reach 40–50% compared with 15–20% average.

These metrics measure flywheel velocity.

The Complete Methodology

Chapter 1 delivers the diagnostic. Chapters 2–5 build the flywheel system. Chapters 6–7 establish the operating rhythm. Chapter 8 reveals how agentic AI transforms retention into autonomous optimisation.

The gap between acquisition-led and retention-first brands widens every quarter.

This book delivers the blueprint.