Looking to sell subscriptions online? If yes then you have landed on the right article where we will highlight some tips that you can consider before starting an online subscription box business.

“About Us: SFWP Experts is an award-winning Los Angeles WordPress website design company specialized in offering conversion-centric custom web design services to all sizes of businesses. Our professionals can create highly effective and fully responsive eCommerce as well as a standard website. We at SFWP Experts have a team of content writing and marketing experts, dedicated to delivering high-quality and fact-based content to educate our audience about the latest trends, tools, tips, and more.“

With the increase in online shoppers and competition, sellers are seeking unique ways to sell their products to their customers. Starting or including a subscription box in your business can help you to reach out to the new customer and grab their attention on your product.

The subscription eCommerce market is growing rapidly with a business selling beauty products to wines to toys and many more. Mainly in subscription box sellers combine and mix a selection of products around a particular theme. For example a grooming kit, chocolates, wines, toys, and more.

Customers schedules their subscription box depending on their requirement and there are few online store that allows customers to customize their subscription box. Offering these types of features enhances your selling experience and customer’s buying experience.

It is said that the lifetime value of a subscription buyer is much higher than a normal shopper. Because your subscription box buyer brings more revenue and value compared to a normal shopper. If you are having products that can be converted into weekly or monthly subscription box then ts worth including subscription box in your online store.

In this article, we will help you to identify different easy that can help you to enhance your online subscription selling store.

If you are looking to create a woocommerce store for your business then check our article on How To Set Up A Fully Functioning WooCommerce Store Using WordPress?

6 tips to consider before selling subscription box online in 2020

1. Select a niche and subscription box idea for your store

Before you start selling any subscription box first identify what you are passionate about which will directly help you to select the niche for your subscription. If you already have a running online store then you can skip this step. But if you are planning to start new online to sell subscription then first identify what you would like to sell to your customer?

In reality, a subscription box business is something that requires creativity, target market research, and mainly depth knowledge about how the product works and solves customer problems. A creative idea can separate your subscription commerce business from your competitors.

Analyzing your target market, competition, customer profile and more can help you build an effective and efficient subscription box business for your website. Before staring your subscription box business you can identify the answer for below-listed questions:

What is the niche you are going to select for your subscription box business?
Who is going to be your competitor?
Who is your target audience?
How your subscription box business can solve your target audience’s problem?
What type of subscription box customer expects?

If you are a new beginner then getting an in-depth insight about all the above mentioned can be tough. But make sure you study your competitor’s subscription business so that you can offer and create more i=engances version of subscription boxes.

2. Identify and understand your target customer and competitor

No matter what type of online store you are going to start for your business, having an in-depth ides about your customer and your competitor helps you to enhance your online storer selling experience. After identifying your niche next you can search for your competitor.

Undoubtedly subscription commerce is growing rapidly and every new beginner has equal space to grow its subscription box business. Every business has competition and your competitor are the one that helps you to grow your business. Getting insight into their business functioning can help you to save a lot of time and money.

You can type in the keywords that belong to your niche and search for your business competitor. While researching about your competitor’s subscription box business functioning you can look to answer a question like

How many competitors you are going to compete with?
What type of products and boxes they are offering?
How much they are asking for a subscription box?
How you can differentiate your website from your competitor’s website?

Apart from that, you can also check their eCommerce website design, marketing strategy, SEO ranking, and more.

After getting insight into your competitor business, next comes the most crucial step where you have to understand your potential customer, behavior, problems, and more. The best way to do it is by researching your competitor’s customers. Make use of the below question to get a better understanding of your potential customers.

Who can be your potential; customer?
How your product can solve their problem?
Who are your competitor’s customers?
What is the type of subscription boxes they prefer to buy?
What is your competitor’s income level?
What are the problems faced by your competitor’s customers and many more?

Once you are aware of the above question then it will become easy for you to analyze and create a subscription box that meets your customer expectation.

3. Sourcing and packaging of your product

After determining your niche, competitor, and customer. next, we recommend determining how you source and package your subscription box. Most of the newly created websites skip this step and direct jump on creating their store.

Later on, after creating their store they come across this step and it becomes difficult for them to manage their website as well as packing and sourcing of the product. That’s why before creating your store make sure you identify how you will package and source your product.

If you are selling handcrafted products like craft, soap, baked goods, and more then make sure you know whether you will hire a manufacturer to create your product or you will do it under your manufacturing unit.

You can also determine how you will package your products. Mainly in subscription box packaging of the product matters a lot. There are many subscription box businesses out there that offer attractive box packaging to grab their customer attention. If you want your business to stand out from the crowd then its essential to offer attractive product packaging.

4. Create your online store

After performing all the above steps next you can jump onto creating an attractive and fully functioning online store for your subscription box business. You can either create a custom-coded e-commerce website design or you can take the help of ecommerce websites builder platforms like woocommerce, Shopify, and more.

If you are looking to build your online store using woocommerce then check our blog on How To Set Up A Fully Functioning WooCommerce Store Using WordPress?

Every ecommerce website builder platform all the necessary steps that allwos you to produce an effective and efficient woocommerce website for your business. There are various plugins, third party addons, apps, and more present that will help you to enhance your online store functioning.

While adding different apps and plugins like tax calculation, page builder, price listing, and many more. You can add one more feature that will allow your customer to customize their subscription box.

Using your analytics you can find the most liked and frequently brought products. Once you are aware of the products liked by your customer then you offer customized subscription boxes. Or you can also allow your customer to customize their subscription box.

5. Select the pricing structure for your subscription box

One of the crucial step that will either boss you subscription box sell or plummet your future sells. Remember apart form your website design and product one thing that can sperate your business form your competitor’s business is your subscription box pricing.

Many website owners commit a mistake by mispricing their subscription boxes. Keeping your subscription box pricing too high with a hefty product margin can hurt your business. On the other hand, keeping your subscription box pricing too low to make it competitive can still hurt your business. That’s why you have to be careful while selecting the pricing for your subscription box. Check the subscription box pricing calculator by createjoy.com.

Below we are listing things that you can consider while deciding your subscription box pricing:

The total cost of products in your box
Box and other accessories like a sticker, stamping and more costing
Cost of the material used in packing your subscription box
Shipment cost
Fulfillment cost
Customer transaction fees and platform charges
Other third-party add-ons cost (monthly or yearly)
Marketing Cost

6. Create a prototype fo you subscription box

One of the oldest sayings, you need to have your first shipment ready before you start marketing. In reality, focusing on your first shipment may affect your preparation for prelaunch.

Creating a prototype of your subscription box will enable the user to get an in-depth idea about what type fo subscription box they will receive every month.

You can make use of your prototype box images to create a library that can be later on used for advertisement, marketing or we can say create a buzz about your subscription box. Below we are listing some tips that you can consider when creating your subscription prototype.

Select your product (gather all the product that you are going to sell)
Choose the type of box you are going to send it to your customers
Select the packaging material for your subscription box
Click a clear picture of your subscription box prototype

7. Create an effective prelaunch strategy for your business

One thing that will decide your subscription box future sales is your prelaunch strategy. Prelaunch refers to the process where you market your product before launching it on your website officially. Generally, the prelaunch strategy is created to grab potential customer’s attention, collect your potential customer’s email, and create a buzz about your subscription box.

Most of the prelaunch campaign is launched to create the buzz and encourage potential customers to signup for your product. There are a few things that you need to consider to have a successful prelaunch campaign

Decide how long your prelaunch campaign will be running
Seat a goal for email signup
Create an attractive and persuading prelaunch page (landing page)
Connect your prelaunch page with reputed and effective email marketing tools
Create your social media page and market it during the prelaunch
Along with your prelaunch campaign focus on product sourcing, ordering boxes and selecting your shipment
Create an effective and impactful shipment strategy

Conclusion

If you have an idea or product that can be converted into subscription boxes then we recommend you create one and start offering it to its potential consumer. Selling a subscription box allows you to get a more valuable customer.

Above we have listed all the essential tips that you can consider before starting your online subscription box sales. If you wonder heater its a good time to seel subscription box or not. Then let me tell you it the best time to start you subscription box sales whne customer are more diverting toward subscription box to save their time and money.

You can make use of popular platforms and tools like WooCommerce, Shopify, ChargeBee, Createjoy, and more to create an online store that allows you to sell subscription boxes.

You can also reach out to the best ecommerce website design company to create an effective and revenue-generating subscription box business model as well as the website that will allow you to sell a variety of products to your subscribers each month.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How do the subscription boxes make money?

Subscription box pricing and profit margin are comparatively different from normal product profit. Subscription boxes are charged on a monthly basis that means your subscribers have to pay a certain amount of many each month to get the subscription box. For example, if your customers are paying $20 month for that subscription box cost but you are shipping the same box for $8 or $11 then the difference amount is the product you make by selling subscription.

If you are looking to start a subscription box business then we recommend hiring the best eCommerce website design company that can help you in setting up your whole subscription box business depending on your target audience requirement.

2. How much does it cost to start a subscription box business?

Geeting an exact amount is quite difficult because a subscription box selling store contain different variable and ever business has a different type of product. But if you are looking to get the estimate then it will probably cost you between $9000 to $15000 depending on your requirement.

Looking to set up a fully functioning online store that allows you to successfully sell online subscription box? If yes then we recommend you partner with an experienced ecommerce website design company that can assist you in creating an online store that attracts your target audience and persuades them to take action on your product.

3. How to acquire more customers for your subscription boxes?

Your customer aquisition rate totally depends on your website design, customer busing experience, and clearly your customers are communicating with your website. Hiring an experienced ecommerce website design company can help you to boost the sales of your subscription box by converting your visitors into subscribers.