Subscriptions are taking over the ecommerce world. If you’re selling online and you don’t have subscriptions options on your products, chances are you could benefit quite a bit from making the transition.

Subscriptions aren’t just a trend, they are a powerful new direction that ecommerce is taking. And it’s here to stay.

If you take a look at some of the biggest Shopify Plus brands, they are all offering subscription products.

Why? They know how powerful a recurring payment and automatic repeat deliveries can be for both the merchant and the customer.

In this article, we’re going to go over the 7 different ways subscriptions can create loyal customers.

7 Ways Subscriptions Create Customers Loyalty

Here is our list of the top reasons we think you should start offering subscriptions on your Shopify store.

Harnessing the power of repeat charges and automatic recurring billing is the best way to grow your business.

Hope you enjoy our quick round up of the main reasons subscriptions is the best sales strategy you can implement now on your store with minimal effort.

1.Creates a Forever Transaction

Selling subscriptions can help you get a customer for life.

When a shopper signs up for a subscription product on your site, they are creating a forever transaction.

They enter their credit card once, and are then charged on a repeat basis forever until they cancel.

When they sign up for a subscription product, like a bag of coffee on a monthly basis, they are instantly transformed into one of your most loyal customers.

They are voting with their dollars, and saying they love your products so much, they are willing to subscribe to them on an ongoing basis.

Selling subscriptions is an extremely powerful tool in your merchant tool-belt, and can be a game changer for your online shop.

2. Create Stronger Customer Relationships

When a customer signs up for a subscription product or membership, they are committing to your brand.

They are saying they trust your brand so much they are willing to get charged on a repeat basis and receive your products or services.

Whether you’re selling refill products like coffee or candles or a curated subscription box, your relationship with your customer will be stronger if they subscribe than if they only buy your product once.

By receiving repeat orders, they are becoming more and more immersed in your brand and are the perfect audience to sell more products to. After-all they are already interested in buying your products!

Your subscribers are going to be around for the long run. They are always going to be there when you launch a new product or have new inventory to debut.

You can look at your subscribers as your brand’s fan-base.

3. Recurring Payments are Powerful

Subscriptions are a great way to create loyal customers because it’s powered by recurring payments.

Recurring payments are automatic charges that occur on an ongoing basis.

When a customer signs up, for example, for a subscription box every month they are getting charged automatically every month.

Subscription software like Ongoing lets you have this ability to use recurring payments on your products and services.

Recurring payments is the main backbone of subscriptions, and is what enables the merchants to get recurring orders automatically for their subscribers.

The customer is charged automatically by the software, such as Ongoing, and the order is created.

4. Repeat Orders Create Loyal Customers

The moment when the customer has their aha-moment when using a subscription software service is the moment their customer is automatically re-billed.

The merchants finally sees how powerful it is that they didn’t have to do anything to bring the customer back to their site, and yet here is a new order created on a recurring basis because they are selling subscriptions.

Whether the merchant is selling physical products or digital services, they still depend on the subscription software, like Ongoing to handle the repeat orders for them.

For physical products, a customer would receive a product at their door every month.

And for non-physical products, a customer would be an “active” member every month.

Without a subscription app, you simply can’t make this happen on Shopify.

You need an app like Ongoing Subscriptions to be able to let customers choose a subscription plan, get charged automatically on a recurring basis, and receive repeat deliveries.

5. The Subscription Convenience Factors

Most people have busy lives. Having to go to the store to buy something every month is kind of hassle.

If you sell a product on your Shopify store that people would want on a regular basis, offering subscription options on your store is the best way to solve this problem your customers are facing.

Take for example protein powder.

This is a consumable, meaning it’s meant to be used up and replaced.

Once your customer finishes their protein powder supply, they’ll need more. Allowing them to select the frequency they would like to receive the product is the best way to offer your customers convenience with subscriptions.

It’s also a “Set it and forget it” model which is good for both the merchant and the customer.

6. Up-sell Opportunity with Subscribers

It’s easier to up-sell to your existing subscribers because you already know they love and trust your brand.

You’ll also be doing your subscribers a favor, by telling them about your latest products, or products that are similar to the ones they already purchased.

Your subscribers are always looking for fresh new products to buy.

So it’s a great idea to approach your existing customers first (those who have a subscription order with your store) and see if they might be interested in buying something else?

Maybe there is another product you sell on your store that pairs really well with what they purchased.

This is the best way to increase your revenue and also keep your customers in the loop on current offerings.

7. Discounts Keep Customers Subscribed

One of the best ways to create a strong subscription plan is by offering a discount.

For example, you can say subscribe and save 10%. That means if the customer is willing to sign up for ongoing deliveries and ongoing payments, they can get 10% off every order!

That’s a huge savings for your customer, and is enough reason to keep them subscribed.

They know that if they unsubscribe and want to buy your product again in the future, they would have to pay full price.

So it makes sense for customers to choose the subscription option, and stay subscribed to the products they love and use on a frequent basis.

Who should sell subscriptions?

Of course subscriptions aren’t for everyone.

If you sell a product people order frequently like consumables, then subscriptions are for you.

If you think your store could sell a subscription box, or offer memberships…then subscriptions are also for you.

However if you sell a product like a scissors or something people would only want to order once, then subscriptions aren’t going to be the right match for your shop.

Best Subscription Software for Customer Loyalty

Ongoing is the best subscription software for creating customer loyalty.

You can easily turn any product into a subscription in just a couple minutes, it super easy to use and fun to set up.

You can easily get up and running with Ongoing subscriptions in just a few minutes.

Ongoing lets your customers select their preferred delivery frequency for their subscriptions which is super neat.

Ongoing also lets you create subscription discounts so you can incentivize people to subscribe and save some money.

Summary

Subscriptions are the best way to generate more sales on your store. Once you get the first subscription order, that means you’ll get lots of subsequent orders that will follow.

The future of subscriptions is that they are just going to be come more and more popular.

Almost everyone these days already offers subscriptions products on their store, so if you don’t want to get left behind your competition, make sure to take a look into this sales strategy.

Having subscription offerings on your store can make the difference between one sale and many sales.