Lululemon's effective technique for turning customers into addicts

Lululemon's customer base is often described as a "cult following."

Popular fashion blogs like the Lululemon Addict highlight the brand's fandom.

One Lululemon customer on the fitness blog Fit City Blonde describes her addiction to the brand.

"It is no secret that I am completely obsessed with Lululemon. Every Tuesday night around 7 p.m., I park myself in front of my computer and wait for the latest 'What's New' upload. Every Thursday morning, I wake up and check the 'We Made Too Much' upload," the blogger writes.

Lululemon has a very effective tactic for creating a loyal customer base: creating "neurologically addictive experiences," retail expert and author Robin Lewis writes on his blog The Robin Report.

These experiences include free yoga classes and run clubs.

"They are addictive because each time customers co-create the experience with the brand, they are shaping it to their mood of the moment," Lewis writes. "When this happens, the experience is new, different and unique. Therefore, their brains release dopamine each time, giving them such a rush they want to come back to over and over again."

Lululemon is also compelling to customers because it stocks very few of each item and updates selections often, meaning shoppers never know what they'll find.

This tactic is also effective because customers will impulsively buy clothes out of fear they will sell out, helping Lululemon sell most of its clothing at full price.

"So, not only does the co-created experience entice them to keep coming back, more often and more quickly for their fix, they stay longer and buy more," Lewis writes. "Thus it increases the value of the store and everything in it."