The distributor who stops reordering. Nobody will come and tell you.
The first shipment is a win, the second is the business. Between the two lies the most neglected moment in all of export, because it's the only one that doesn't produce a single email to read.
A customer who stops buying doesn't write to tell you. There's no complaint, no cancellation, nothing to land in an inbox. Just an order that doesn't arrive, and an order that doesn't arrive makes no noise.
You need just one number, and you already have it: for each customer, the average gap between one order and the next. Anyone who has gone past one and a half times their usual gap needs a call today. A spreadsheet and an afternoon will do it, no software needed.
The threshold is per customer, never across the board. A customer who ordered every two months needs a call on day ninety. For one who ordered once a year, day ninety means nothing.
This piece is part of the guide to export operations for small food producers and covers the last of its eight steps: the one that comes after everything else has worked.
Why this loss is invisible by its very nature
Every other export problem announces itself. An incomplete spec sheet produces a stalled enquiry, a wrong document produces goods held at customs, an uncompetitive price produces a no. They're all events: they happen, and someone notices.
The reorder that never comes is the only problem that shows up as an absence. And absences don't appear on any list, because no system in the world sends a notification about something that didn't happen.
There's a second, more insidious reason: in export, silence is normal. Weeks go by between contacts with a foreign distributor even when the relationship is excellent. So three months without hearing from each other sets off no mental alarm: it looks like business as usual, until someone checks the calendar and realises the last order was in November.
From the inside, a customer lost through inattention looks exactly like a customer who's just taking their time.
The number, and how to work it out
You only need one thing, and it's already on your invoices: the order date and the customer's name, for the last two years. From there, for each customer:
- Line up the dates of their orders, from oldest to most recent.
- Work out how many days pass between one order and the next.
- Take the average: that's their typical gap.
- Count how many days have passed from their last order to today.
- Divide the second number by the first. Above 1.5 the customer is overdue. Above 2, the relationship has probably already ended, and you don't know it.
An example, made up to explain the calculation, not taken from a real customer: a distributor ordered on 10 January, 15 March and 20 May. The gaps are 64 and 66 days, so their average is 65. If today is 20 August, 92 days have passed since the last order: 92 divided by 65 is 1.4. Not an alarm yet, but that customer goes on this week's list, not next quarter's.
With twenty or thirty customers, all this is an afternoon's work on a spreadsheet. And doing it by hand the first time has an effect no dashboard can match: you notice things about your customers you didn't know, such as two you consider solid not having ordered for eight months.
The three causes, and how to tell them apart
When the number flags someone, the question becomes why. The real causes are almost always three, they need different responses, and you tell them apart by asking different questions.
| Cause | How you recognise it | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| They haven't sold throughthey still have stock | They reply happily but put off the order. If you ask, they can tell you how much they have left. |
The problem isn't the relationship but how fast it moves off the shelf. Help them sell: materials, sales points, pack sizes, an in-store promotion. |
| They've found an alternativeprice or service | Short, vague replies, or silence after a discount request that went nowhere. |
Find out what you lost, and ask directly. An uncomfortable answer is worth more than a customer who fades away with no explanation. |
| Something changed at their enda person or a strategy | The person you dealt with no longer replies, or someone else replies who doesn't know you. |
You haven't lost anything: you dropped off the radar without anyone deciding it. Reintroduce yourself; there's nothing to win back. |
The third is the most common and the most underrated, and it's also the easiest to recover. Nobody chose against you: a purchasing manager simply changed, and your product dropped off a mental list that the new person didn't even know existed.
The message that reopens the conversation
Two sure ways to waste the attempt: the chaser (“we haven't had an order from you for a while”), which puts the other person in your debt, and the empty message (“how are things?”), which gives them no reason to reply.
What works has three things: a concrete piece of news, a question that's useful to them, and an easy way out.
Subject: [product] - new format available / quick question Dear [name], We have just released [new format / new harvest / a batch of X available from week Y], and I thought of you because [specific reason connected to their market or channel]. Before sending details: how has [product] been selling through on your side? If it has been slower than expected, I would rather help you move the current stock than push a new order. If this is not the right moment, just let me know and I will get back to you in [month]. Kind regards, [name] - [company]
The third paragraph is what makes the difference, and it's the least intuitive: making it easy to say no gets you more replies. Customers who haven't ordered for months often stay quiet out of embarrassment, not lack of interest. A message that openly allows for “not now” removes that embarrassment, and with it, the silence.
The 1.5 times threshold doesn't come from a study: it's a rule of thumb, and we say so. It turns a feeling into a list, and you should adjust it for your seasonality: if you sell a product tied to holidays, your gaps won't average out well, and for those customers what counts is the comparison with the same period last year.
We don't quote a statistic on reorder rates for small Italian food exporters here because we haven't found a reliable public source for it. Besides, the number that counts is yours, and you can work it out in an afternoon.
When the spreadsheet stops being enough
The calculation is easy. The hard part is redoing it every week, for ever, while you're running production. That's what breaks, not the maths.
With twenty customers it holds. At forty, with orders coming in through three channels and different seasonality for each product, the sum gets done once in January, turns up something useful, and then doesn't get done again until the following year. Meanwhile customers fade out one at a time, each of them in silence.
That's the point where the job needs to come out of someone's hands and go into a place that watches it by itself: the list of who has gone quiet, for how long, and whose turn it is to act. With one rule that matters more than the technology, set out in Ethics: the system prepares and flags, but no message reaches a distributor until a person has read and approved it. A lost reorder is won back through a relationship, and relationships can't be automated.
Questions and answers
How can I tell that a distributor has stopped buying?
By looking at the dates, because nobody will tell you. For each customer, work out the average gap between one order and the next, then compare it with how many days have passed since their last order. Anyone who has gone past one and a half times their usual gap needs a call.
You only need the date and the customer for every order over the last two years. It's an afternoon's work with a spreadsheet, and it doesn't need software.
After how long should a foreign customer be considered lost?
There's no number that works for everyone, and using a generic one is the most common mistake. The benchmark is that customer's track record: past one and a half times their average it's a case to look into; at double, the relationship has probably already ended.
In practice: a customer who ordered every sixty days needs a call on day ninety. For one who ordered once a year, day ninety means nothing.
Why does a foreign distributor stop reordering?
Three causes cover almost every case. They haven't sold through and still have stock: the problem is shelf rotation, and you need to help them sell. They've found an alternative, on price or service: find out what you lost by asking. Something changed at their end, a person or a strategy: you dropped off the radar without anyone deciding it, and you need to reintroduce yourself.
The third is the most common and the easiest to recover.
What should I write to a distributor who hasn't ordered for months?
Not a chaser, and not a “how are things?”. You need a message with three things: a concrete piece of news (a new pack size, a new vintage, a batch available), a question that's useful to them (how the product is moving), and an easy way out if the timing isn't right.
The last is the least intuitive and the most effective: customers who haven't ordered for months often stay quiet out of embarrassment, not lack of interest. Making it easy to say no removes the embarrassment, and with it the silence.
Do I need software to track reorders?
No, and the first time round it's better not to. With twenty or thirty customers the sum takes a spreadsheet, and doing it by hand teaches you things about your customers that a dashboard wouldn't.
Software earns its place when the calculation has to be redone every week across dozens of customers, in other words when the problem is no longer doing the calculation but remembering to do it. People who buy the tool before doing the sum once usually end up with a dashboard nobody looks at.
Notes on sources
- This page doesn't quote industry statistics on reorder rates for small Italian food exporters because we haven't found a reliable public source for that specific figure. When the source doesn't stand up, the figure isn't published.
- The threshold of 1.5 times the usual gap is a rule of thumb, presented as such, not a research finding. Adjust it for your product's seasonality.
- The worked example in the text is made up to explain the calculation and doesn't describe a real customer.
The dates nobody checks can be made to surface by themselves.
Do the sum by hand the first time: it teaches you more than any tool. At Itria we start from the outside and build tailored digital systems for exporters. For you, that means more enquiries, fewer losses and less manual work. Drop us a line about what's slowing you down. We'll make the first move: we'll look at what a buyer sees when they search for you, and tell you what we found. Even if we never end up working together.