Launching a subscription program on BigCommerce doesn’t have to be complicated. See why direct-to-consumer merchants use sticky.io Subscriptions to start and scale a subscription program directly within the BigCommerce platform.
Updated:
May 12, 2023
Even the best ecommerce subscription offers won’t catch fire if they’re not easy to buy — but what’s the best way to provide a good customer experience without using too many resources? The answer lies with a subscription app that does most of the work for you. There’s no reason for your team to spend hours implementing each subscription offering or answering emails because a customer’s purchase didn’t work the way they expected. Leverage the power of a reliable subscription app, and you’ll have more time to advertise and optimize your offerings.
There are a lot of BigCommerce subscription apps to choose from, but they’re not all created equal. We built our app for BigCommerce with the flexibility to support any type of subscription sales plus the reliability any mid-size or enterprise company expects. It offers everything you need in a tool while also being quick and easy to implement.
We’ve focused on optimizing customer and merchant experience because we know how valuable your time is. That’s why we’re confident our subscription app for BigCommerce is the best way to sell what your customers want, when they want it, with just a few clicks. Here are the four biggest ways your team will benefit.
Integrating new tools into a platform like BigCommerce sometimes means setup and maintenance burdens. Using our subscription app mitigates those hurdles because it fully integrates with the existing BigCommerce user interface (UI) and checkout process. There’s no need for your team to spend time making your subscription checkout flow look the same as the one that exists for straight sales. They are the same. That’s because our BigCommerce subscription app doesn’t just handle repeat purchases; it processes straight sales, subscription purchases and mixed-cart transactions.
As a Multi-Storefront certified app, sticky.io Subscriptions can be used across multiple storefronts, allowing merchants to create and manage unique subscription experiences within a single store for different brands, regions and customer segments.
It’s easy to serve any customer base once you’ve installed sticky.io Subscriptions because we built wide shipping and billing compatibility into our app. Keep your shipping configuration as-is, and integrate with the same third-party solutions by FedEx, UPS and USPS you’ve been using. Our app is also compatible with the ShipperHQ integration, so you can give your customers more shipping choices and accurate information.
In a consumer survey conducted in partnership with PYMNTS.com, over 80% of consumers stated the desire for payment options that match their preferred payment methods. We make it easy for you to deliver that experience. You can offer customers a variety of payment options with our multiple payment gateway integrations and even enable multi-currency support.
Making the shopping experience easier for customers also makes it easier on you with our BigCommerce subscription app. It only takes a few steps to install sticky.io’s BigCommerce app and fully sync it with your store catalog. From there, you can start selling subscriptions in a snap.
Consumers who commit to a subscription offering expect to receive a tailored experience. Lack of personalization options is a common driver of subscription abandonment. Our research with PYMNTS.com found nearly 1 in 4 customers choose to cancel a subscription because it doesn't allow the option to change shipping frequency. Keep these customers around by offering flexible billing and subscription cycles. sticky.io Subscriptions for BigCommerce supports:
You can offer multiple options per product and let consumers choose their own frequency. Shoppers will find it easier to receive exactly what they want — and each option can be set up in just a few clicks.
We also help show customers the value of a subscription by making it easy to set up subscribe-and-save options with dynamic discounting. Build this option into a page that offers straight sales for an easy upsell opportunity that will help your company increase its monthly recurring revenue (MRR). The subscribe-and-save option lets you cater to customers who only want the straight sale while opening the door to a deeper relationship.
Beyond adding subscriptions to your existing product catalog, you can build membership programs that reward paid subscribers with exclusive access to products, discounts and shopping experiences. Customers will have their access to members-only content and benefits granted or revoked based on their subscription status. With this, you can offer program subscribers early or exclusive access to products, discounts based on their membership status or access to digital services and content. As an added bonus, the Memberships feature was built to leverage the native BigCommerce Customer Groups function, so your program management and monitoring all take place directly within BigCommerce.
A subscription business model isn’t just about winning customers; it’s about keeping them. A good retention plan includes ways to combat voluntary (active) and involuntary (passive) churn. Our team knows what causes customers to churn, and we included tools to help you combat some of the most common reasons.
Voluntary churn happens when customers aren’t satisfied with the subscription experience. Cancellations occur when the costs are too high or the subscription itself isn’t meeting their needs, whether for timing, product amount or product variety reasons. Give customers the option to modify their subscriptions before canceling them outright, and you’ll be able to keep more of them around. sticky.io’s BigCommerce subscription app allows customers to:
We’re also one of the only BigCommerce subscription apps that allows customers to easily pause and resume their subscriptions or choose to receive their next shipment early. These options all live in our customer portal so subscribers can easily find and modify their purchases.
Involuntary churn isn’t caused by customer unhappiness — it’s caused by billing errors. Our app for BigCommerce helps merchants capture lost revenue with dunning strategies and automatic retries for failed transactions.
As an added layer of protection, merchants will see flags on rebill orders that are expected to fail and will receive actionable in-app recommendations on how to get each failing subscription chain back on track.
It’s easy to send transactional emails, including dunning emails, using Klaviyo or Mailchimp. Most customers don’t want their subscriptions to fail; when they receive immediate notice that there’s a problem, they can step up to prevent involuntary churn. Our transactional email offerings also include rebill reminders, success notifications and pause or cancellation confirmations. These emails keep customers informed and allow them to make proactive updates to their information so their products are delivered on time.
We’ve focused on making subscription offerings easy for sellers to set up and manage, even those with significant transaction volumes. Our app supports single sign-on (SSO), which allows you and your team to use your BigCommerce credentials to access sticky.io Subscriptions. There’s no need to manage multiple accounts and remember multiple passwords; you and your team can log in to your backend the same way you always have.
Our customer portal is mirrored by a merchant portal that makes it simple to manage individual subscriptions if necessary. Should a customer require help, modifying their subscription is just as easy for your support team as it would be for the individual. It takes less time to improve your customers’ experience when changes can be made with just a few clicks.
sticky.io also comes with tools to help you improve your subscription offerings as a whole. Our custom reporting and analytics dashboards show stats, including:
These metrics help you understand your company’s trajectory, see what you can improve upon, and plan for future subscription cycles. And you won’t have to fuss with spreadsheets to figure out the numbers: Our analytics dashboard visualizes the data for you. Having such a clear view of your performance helps you build and test new strategies to improve customer experience and increase your MRR and ARR.
Your customers expect a quality experience every month, and you should be able to expect one, too. It’s hard to keep up with consumer demands when meeting individual needs requires heavy investment. We offer all the resources you need to launch and manage irresistible subscriptions in one easy-to-use app. It builds on the strong user experience BigCommerce already offers rather than requiring you to attempt an imitation. And it does so reliably and with minimal upfront investment. Sellers can get started with our onboarding and customer support teams standing by to answer any questions that arise with your launch.
A good subscription backend allows you to create good subscription offers and fulfill customers’ expectations. sticky.io complements and extends the excellent BigCommerce buying experience to keep customers coming back.
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