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UCI ONLINE RETAIL · REPORT 01 / 03

The average customer
isn’t the business.

A small customer core carries most of the recorded value. Big baskets, repeat buyers and a handful of export accounts make a blended sales dashboard a poor description of this retailer.

2010–2011 observations · 38 countries · report prepared 2 September 2026

32.0%of known-customer value comes from the top 1%
93.1%of known-customer value comes from repeat buyers
1.76×mean order value versus the median order

Real public retail data, not client data. Descriptive business intelligence, not causal inference. Positive-sale value is not settled revenue or profit. Business hypotheses and external research are labelled separately; no current-market benchmark is implied.

01 concentration

A small core. A large dependency.

Share of known-customer positive-sale value; denominator £8,911,407.90 across 4,338 identifiable buyers.

Customer concentrationShare of known-customer value. Bars start at zero. Top 1% of known customers: 32.0%; Top 10% of known customers: 61.4%; Remaining 90%: 38.6%Top 1% of known customers32.0%Top 10% of known customers61.4%Remaining 90%38.6%
Share of known-customer value · zero baseline
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MeasureShare of known-customer value
Top 1% of known customers32.0%
Top 10% of known customers61.4%
Remaining 90%38.6%

The top 1% is contained within the top 10%; those two bars must not be added. Percentile group sizes are rounded up in the analysis.

02 repeat activity

Repeat buyers dominate the value.

A repeat buyer has more than one observed order in this window. This is not a retention rate, lifetime value estimate or proof that a retention campaign would work.

Repeat customer activity versus value shareRepeat-buyer share; denominators differ. Bars start at zero. Share of known buyers: 65.6%; Share of known-customer value: 93.1%Share of known buyers65.6%Share of known-customer value93.1%
Repeat-buyer share; denominators differ · zero baseline
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MeasureRepeat-buyer share; denominators differ
Share of known buyers65.6%
Share of known-customer value93.1%

03 basket tail

The £533 average hides the typical order.

All-country positive orders; quantiles describe order value, not customer value. Large baskets pull up the mean.

Mean and median order valueGBP per positive order. Bars start at zero. Median order: £304; Mean order: £533; 90th percentile: £940Median order£304Mean order£53390th percentile£940
GBP per positive order · zero baseline
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MeasureGBP per positive order
Median order£304
Mean order£533
90th percentile£940
19.3% of value in the top 1% of ordersLargest order: £168,469.60. A large-order review and a typical-order view answer different commercial questions.
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Order percentileGBP
25th£151.98
50th / median£303.57
75th£495.00
90th£940.15
99th£4,808.41

04 export baskets

A market opportunity - or a few big accounts?

Four selected markets, not a ranking of market potential. Small export samples and absent margin/shipping data prevent a profitability conclusion.

Average order value in selected marketsGBP per positive order. Bars start at zero. UK · 18,058 orders: £500; Netherlands · 94 orders: £3,037; Australia · 57 orders: £2,430; EIRE · 289 orders: £981UK · 18,058 orders£500Netherlands · 94 orders£3,037Australia · 57 orders£2,430EIRE · 289 orders£981
GBP per positive order · zero baseline
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MeasureGBP per positive order
UK · 18,058 orders£500
Netherlands · 94 orders£3,037
Australia · 57 orders£2,430
EIRE · 289 orders£981
Explore the exact figures
MarketOrdersKnown buyersPositive-sale value
United Kingdom18,0583,920£9,025,222.08
Netherlands949£285,446.34
Australia579£138,521.31
EIRE2893£283,453.96

05 assortment

One spectacular order is not repeatable demand.

A product-leaderboard warning, not a conclusion that the underlying record is an error.

£168,469.60PAPER CRAFT , LITTLE BIRDIE
80,995 units · 1 positive order

Show frequency beside value.

Separate repeat-selling products from one-off bulk orders before stocking against a sales leaderboard. These positive-sale figures do not match later cancellations or measure realised margin.