Woo customer cohort analysis

woo-customer-cohort-analysis

Purpose

Group WooCommerce customers by the month they registered, then compute the percentage who made a second purchase (retention), their average order count, and cumulative lifetime value (LTV) per cohort. Exports a cohort table for growth analysis and marketing attribution. Read-only.

Prerequisites

• WooCommerce store with REST API enabled
• Consumer Key with Read scope
• Minimum WooCommerce version: 3.5.0

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
store_url	string	yes	—	Base URL of the WooCommerce store
consumer_key	string	yes	—	WooCommerce REST API consumer key (ck_...)
consumer_secret	string	yes	—	WooCommerce REST API consumer secret (cs_...)
dry_run	bool	no	false	No effect — read-only skill
format	string	no	human	Output format: human or json
months_back	int	no	12	How many months of cohorts to analyze
min_cohort_size	int	no	5	Exclude cohorts smaller than this count

Authentication

WooCommerce uses OAuth 1.0a for HTTP and Basic Auth over HTTPS.

For HTTPS stores (recommended):

Authorization: Basic base64(consumer_key:consumer_secret)

For HTTP stores (development only): Use OAuth 1.0a — include oauth_consumer_key, oauth_nonce, oauth_signature, oauth_signature_method=HMAC-SHA1, oauth_timestamp, oauth_version=1.0

Never log or output consumer_key or consumer_secret values.

See docs/AUTHENTICATION.md for full setup instructions.

Safety

Read-only skill — no mutations are executed. Safe to run at any time.

Workflow Steps

Step 1 — Fetch all customers

GET /wp-json/wc/v3/customers
  ?orderby=registered_date&order=asc&per_page=100&page=1

Extract: id, date_created, orders_count, total_spent

Step 2 — Group by registration month

For each customer: cohort = YYYY-MM of date_created

Step 3 — Compute cohort metrics

For each cohort:

• customer_count — total customers registered that month
• repeat_buyers — customers with orders_count >= 2
• retention_rate — repeat_buyers / customer_count * 100
• avg_orders — average orders_count per cohort member
• avg_ltv — average total_spent per cohort member
• total_revenue — sum of total_spent for cohort

Step 4 — Export

API Endpoints Used

GET  /wp-json/wc/v3/customers   — customer list with spend and order data
GET  /wp-json/wc/v3/orders      — supplementary order history if needed

Pagination Strategy

WooCommerce REST API uses page/per_page pagination (not cursor-based).

Standard pattern:

page = 1
while True:
  response = GET /endpoint?per_page=100&page=page
  process(response)
  if len(response) < 100: break
  page += 1

Maximum per_page is 100 for most endpoints. The X-WP-Total and X-WP-TotalPages response headers report totals. Always read X-WP-TotalPages on the first request to estimate job size.

Session Tracking

Claude MUST emit the following output at each stage. This is mandatory.

STARTUP:

╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗
║  SKILL: woo-customer-cohort-analysis     ║
║  STORE: <store_url>                      ║
║  TIME:  <ISO-8601 UTC>                   ║
║  MODE:  READ-ONLY                        ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════╝

PER-OPERATION (emit after each API call batch):

[N/TOTAL] <METHOD> <endpoint> → <result_count> records | params: <key>=<val>

COMPLETION (human format):

╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗
║  COMPLETE: woo-customer-cohort-analysis  ║
║  RECORDS PROCESSED: <n>                  ║
║  OUTPUT: <filename>                      ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════╝

COMPLETION (json format):

{
  "skill": "woo-customer-cohort-analysis",
  "store": "<store_url>",
  "completed_at": "<ISO-8601>",
  "records_processed": <n>,
  "output_file": "<path>",
  "dry_run": false
}

Output Format

CSV filename: woo-customer-cohort-analysis_<YYYY-MM-DD>.csv Columns: cohort_month, customer_count, repeat_buyers, retention_rate_pct, avg_order_count, avg_ltv, total_cohort_revenue

Error Handling

Error	Cause	Resolution
401 Unauthorized	Invalid credentials	Verify consumer_key and consumer_secret
403 Forbidden	Key lacks Read scope	Regenerate with Read scope
429 Too Many Requests	Rate limit	Wait 2 seconds and retry
Small cohorts excluded	Cohorts below min_cohort_size	Reduce min_cohort_size or extend months_back

Best Practices

• Compare cohort retention rates over time to measure the impact of post-purchase email campaigns.
• Use avg_ltv by cohort to identify which acquisition channels produce the highest-value customers.
• Run quarterly to track how customer quality trends are evolving.