Klaviyo Replenishment Flow Setup: A Playbook for Consumables

The cheapest repeat order is the one a customer was already planning to make

Every consumable DTC brand loses a share of second orders to inertia and competitor ads. A shampoo customer runs out on a Tuesday, sees a competitor on Instagram Wednesday morning, and now the second order is gone. A replenishment flow exists to insert your brand into that decision window at the right moment.

This is one of the highest-ROI flows in Klaviyo because it rides on habit, not persuasion. The customer already liked the product enough to finish it. The flow just needs to show up at the right time.

TL;DR ▸ Use SKU-level replenishment windows, not a single account-wide default. ▸ Three-email structure: pre-empty nudge, at-empty reminder, post-empty recovery. ▸ Exclude active subscribers. Offer subscription as the soft CTA, not a discount. ▸ Measure by repeat order rate on a 120-day cohort, not by flow revenue alone.

Step 1: Build the SKU replenishment map

The first task is not a Klaviyo task. It is an ops task. Pull your top 20 consumable SKUs by volume. For each one, document:

▸ Expected days of supply at normal usage. ▸ Light, normal, and heavy usage variance. ▸ Whether the product is often bought in multiples (changes the expected window). ▸ Typical reorder day from your own transaction data, if you have enough repeat history.

The output is a simple table that lives in a shared doc and gets referenced by every replenishment flow you build.

The trigger day is deliberately set earlier than the expected empty day. You want to land before the runout, not after.

Step 2: The three-email sequence

The flow should have three messages. Not one. Not seven. Three.

Email 1: Pre-empty nudge (sent on trigger day) Subject line references the product by name. Body is short: "You are probably about a week out on the [product]. Here is a one-click reorder link, and here is the subscription option if you would rather not think about it again."

Email 2: At-empty reminder (sent 7-10 days after email 1) Subject references running low, not the brand. Body repeats reorder link, adds usage tip or behind-the-scenes content. No discount yet.

Email 3: Post-empty recovery (sent 14-21 days after email 2) Subject asks if they switched. Body acknowledges they may have tried something else, offers a low-friction path back, optionally includes a small bundle or free shipping. This is the only email where an incentive belongs.

Each email should link to the product page with the SKU pre-filled in cart, not to the homepage. The whole flow fails if the customer has to hunt for the product after clicking.

Step 3: Audience entry rules

The flow entry trigger in Klaviyo should be "Placed Order" filtered by SKU or product category, with a time-delay that matches the SKU trigger day.

Filters on entry: ▸ Has not placed another order in the last N days (where N equals the trigger day). ▸ Is not an active subscriber for this SKU. ▸ Is in the Active Engaged segment as defined in our Klaviyo segmentation for DTC guide. ▸ Has not received a replenishment email for this SKU in the last 45 days.

That last filter matters. Customers who buy the same SKU repeatedly should get the flow once per cycle, not every time. A membership cap or a custom property flag handles this.

Step 4: Subscription as the soft CTA

A replenishment email that does not mention subscription is a missed conversion to a higher-LTV relationship. But a replenishment email that leads with subscription often underperforms one that leads with the one-click reorder.

The pattern that works: reorder as the hero CTA, subscription as the secondary. Something like "reorder now" above the fold, then a single line below the main button that reads "or subscribe and we send it automatically at the right interval".

If you are running a full subscription program, this is where it earns its keep. See our subscription development service for how we build subscription offers that convert from one-time buyers without cannibalizing existing revenue.

Step 5: Measure the right metric

Flow-level revenue in Klaviyo is the wrong headline metric for replenishment. The right metric is second-order rate on the 120-day cohort.

Compare two groups: customers who entered the flow in a given month vs a matched group of customers who would have entered but were held out as a control. Measure the share of each group that placed a qualifying reorder within 120 days. The delta is the real lift.

This is the measurement approach our retention engagements use. If you are not running a holdout, the attributed revenue in Klaviyo will overstate the flow impact, often by a large factor. For a broader look at how we measure post-purchase effectiveness, see our post-purchase experience for repeat buyers breakdown.

The REPEAT framework for replenishment

A quick checklist to run before any new replenishment flow goes live:

▸ Run the SKU map. Every flow keyed to a documented window. ▸ Exclude active subscribers. Never email them as if they are one-time buyers. ▸ Page deep-links work. Cart is pre-filled, not a homepage dump. ▸ Email three times max. More is noise. ▸ Active Engaged pool only. Do not wake the dead with a replenishment ping. ▸ Test incentive on email three only. Never on email one.

Common failure modes

Over-generalized window. A store with thirty consumable SKUs cannot run one 45-day flow for everything. The reorder window varies too much. The fix is the SKU map.

No subscription exclusion. Sending replenishment reminders to active subscribers is embarrassing and erodes trust. Every flow should filter out anyone with an active subscription on the SKU in question.

Leading with discount. A 10 percent off coupon on email one trains the customer to wait. The coupon belongs on email three, or not at all.

Homepage link. A customer with limited attention who clicks a replenishment email and lands on a homepage is going to bounce. Link to the product with the quantity pre-selected.

No control group. Without a holdout, you cannot tell whether the flow is driving repeat orders or just intercepting reorders that would have happened anyway. Budget a 10 percent holdout for at least the first ninety days.

Layering with other flows

The replenishment flow does not live in isolation. It needs to coexist with:

▸ The Klaviyo post-purchase email sequence, which ends before replenishment begins. ▸ The Klaviyo winback flow, which catches customers who missed the replenishment window entirely. ▸ Campaign calendar pushes, which should suppress replenishment-flow recipients on overlap days.

Build a simple conflict matrix. If a customer is in the replenishment flow and a category-wide campaign goes out, the replenishment email takes priority for 24 hours. After that, the campaign can send. This kind of coordination sits in the customer experience service engagement because it spans email, SMS, and support.

Example: a supplement brand's rebuild

One of our supplement clients was running a single 45-day replenishment reminder with a 15 percent discount. Repeat order rate on the 120-day cohort was roughly flat year over year despite ad spend increases.

We rebuilt the flow around SKU-level windows, moved to the three-email sequence, removed the email-one discount, and added subscription as the secondary CTA. Second-order rate on the 120-day cohort improved measurably within two cycles. The discount-free first email outperformed the old discounted version, and email three, which kept a smaller incentive, carried the recoveries.

The change that mattered most was not creative. It was the SKU map. Once the trigger day matched the actual consumption pattern, the emails started landing at the right moment.

What to do this week

▸ Export your top 20 consumable SKUs by order volume. ▸ Document the normal use window for each SKU in a shared doc. ▸ Build one replenishment flow for the top SKU using the three-email structure. ▸ Set a 10 percent holdout to measure lift honestly. ▸ Exclude active subscribers and Active Engaged non-members from entry. ▸ Link each email to a pre-filled cart, not a homepage. ▸ Review after two full cycles. Expand to the next five SKUs once the first flow is stable.