One huge rage that we're seeing in ecommerce is subscription box offerings. Subscriber boxes are an intriguing offering… from meal kits, children's education products, to dog treats… tens of millions of consumers sign up for subscription boxes. Convenience, personalization, novelty, surprise, exclusivity, and price are all characteristics that drive subscription box sales. For creative ecommerce businesses, subscription boxes can be lucrative because you turn one-time buyers into repeat customers.
The subscription eCommerce market is worth about $10 billion (excluding Amazon Prime and its “subscribe and save” option).
Most subscription software treats subscription as just a feature of your business: they kind of support it, but it’s often unsophisticated and doesn’t integrate easily into your business or existing website. And in other cases they are simply not subscription-first, and are instead marketplace-first or website-builder first.
There's a lot of complexity in the subscription box e-commerce capabilities. Great offerings incorporate account administration, personalized selections, delay requests, substitutions, automation, and – of course – subscription-based payment processing. The vast majority of popular e-commerce platforms don't incorporate these capabilities in their platforms… requiring third-party integration or custom development to make it all work properly.
Subbly: Subscription Box Ecommerce Platform
I'm assisting a company right now to identify all their choices in getting their service off the ground and discovered Subbly. Subbly offers the following subscription box features as a core to their platform:
- Subscription billing – Take payment from your customers on a recurring basis automatically without having to manually do anything. Once your customer is subscribed, Subbly will take care of the rest so you can rest confidently knowing your recurring revenue is coming in next week, month, or year.
- Cut off dates & set renewal dates – Bill all your customers on the same day each month, set a cut-off day for shipment day, and choose the day your customers' shipments are sent. Billing and shipments that fit around your business needs.
- “Build-a-box” and other complex billing needs – Want to let your customers customize their subscriptions by configuring options, or choosing the products inside of their shipments? Look no further, Subbly has a special survey builder to allow for customizable subscriptions for your customers and to allow you to offer a custom experience.
- Customizable billing and shipping cycles – Monthly, Weekly, Annually, Quarterly and beyond! Combine shipping and billing cycles to fit your exact billing and shipping frequency needs. You can also let your customers choose what they prefer during the checkout.
- Failed payment recovery – Failing card payments are frustrating! Involuntary churn can be reduced with our built-in failed payment recovery tools and automation.
- Trial periods – Let your customers try a sample subscription box for a lower amount and have them renew on a shorter cycle than normal at the full price of the normal subscription.
- Commitment periods – Destroy churn with commitment periods. Offer a 12-month subscription paid monthly and offer a discount to incentivize customers to commit.
Subbly can also integrate with an existing store on Wix, Shopify, Squarespace, WooCommerce, Weebly, or be embedded on your current websites.
Subbly is fundamentally a subscription first e-commerce platform. Along with a website builder, checkout workflows, shipping & logistics integration, marketing & growth tools, customer management (CRM), and other features… it's a great platform that continues to enhance its offerings.
Disclosure: I'm using an affiliate link for Subbly throughout this article.
