I'm starting to question the value of the strive towards increased retention, at least for the industry I work in. My employer is a rather successful webshop and as anyone else in the same business we hire in loads of third parties to help increase visibility, conversion and retention.

An article, which I sadly can't find again, had a quote from a customer that really made me think about this. The article was regarding not requiring users to signup before buying a product and the quote was something like "I'm not look for relationship with your site, I just want to buy something". For us, the customers that have a "relationship" with us is the first bunch of people I would drop, given the chance. They are the ones taxing customer service the most, they have the most complicate wished and while they might be your ambassadors, they will also stab you in the back.

For companies that ships actual goods, retention is not worth wasting money on. It's better to try to reduce your prices and cost. Be extremely visible on search engines and price comparison site and treat every customer as a new customer. If someone shopped with you before and had a positive experience they might choose you over a similar prices competitor, but price is king. Well... Price and deliverability.

As for online services retention makes sense of cause.