Subscription businesses are booming. The recent global health crisis sparked a shift for consumers worldwide, with many experimenting with new hobbies and consuming new media. Extra time at home, as well as limits on in-person shopping, prompted a rise in subscriptions for everything from beauty products to pet kits. Ecommerce platforms like BigCommerce support subscription businesses, helping to accelerate ecommerce expansion. Examining these growth trends means focusing on subscription billing that offers customers seamless experiences.
U.S. consumers are spending $15 billion on retail subscriptions each month. With the market representing such a golden opportunity, BigCommerce merchants need a flexible solution to help launch and manage subscription offers. With the benefits of subscription billing options, merchants can better focus on delivering products that customers want on a recurring basis.
BigCommerce is providing merchants an easier way to manage products, orders and customers like a pro. Through its customization options and scalable catalog API, merchants are more capable of managing operations that help grow recurring revenue.
However, building a successful ecommerce business may require careful examination — not just of platform-specific tools — but methods and strategies that help merchants address rising costs of acquiring new customers and retaining customers once subscribed. Subscription billing software that integrates flawlessly with ecommerce powerhouses like BigCommerce can help ensure that merchants are able to sell products with the best billing experience available.
For ecommerce operations that focus on driving one-time purchases, billing processes are relatively straightforward. A customer makes a purchase and the merchant bills that customer. On the other hand, when selling retail subscriptions, billing is more complex and nuanced. Aspects of billing that subscription merchants need to address include:
Subscription billing that addresses these needs can eliminate costly expenses for merchants seeking to capitalize on recurring revenue streams.
Subscriptions have swiftly become part of daily life for many consumers. In fact, a 2021 Visa survey found that 99% of consumers globally pay for at least one subscription. Subscriptions’ increasing popularity has also prompted a growing number of businesses to adopt subscription business models to aid in growing customer engagement and long-term revenue.
The seamless payment experience is one of the core draws for consumers when purchasing subscription offers. Providing effortless shopping that meets customers’ high expectations, however, also means integrating BigCommerce’s robust features with other native subscription billing applications. Together, these well-paired systems can create a flawless checkout and subscription management process for both customers and merchants.
Signing up for a subscription should, overall, be convenient for all online shoppers and across multiple channels, including online, mobile or even directly through sales team members. Customer checkout features aren’t the only benefit of subscription billing solutions. With the right tools, merchants should look to provide additional benefits, particularly for loyal users.
A flawless subscription billing experience also helps merchants address other important business processes, such as:
Beyond the numerous benefits for merchants, customers are also discovering advantages to subscription billing. The set-it-and-forget-it option is favored by most online shoppers. Seamless subscription billing can ease other customer pain points such as:
Utilizing subscription billing solutions allows merchants to form better relationships with customers and increase overall average customer lifetime value. Fortunately, integrating software with BigCommerce is quick and easy.
BigCommerce partners with other technology solutions to give merchants these specific subscription billing tools to assist in scaling their stores.
To set up a subscription business on BigCommerce, integrating subscription billing software is essential. Native applications built for subscription billing on BigCommerce have become an efficient way to sell goods on a recurring frequency. While there are many options available, sticky.io specifically enables your business to focus on data-driven insights while promoting hassle-free integration and flexible subscription solutions.
With easy-to-use features, sticky.io addresses strategies for online businesses looking to create scalable recurring revenue while simultaneously addressing the skyrocketing prices of acquiring new customers by working to reduce churn and increase customer longevity.
Finding the best results for your subscription offering begins with understanding customer behavior and data. A future-forward recurring billing platform will provide insights to help merchants scale their business, save time and reduce customer churn.