The subscription box business model is alive and well, just ask those that blazed the journey like Dollar Shave Club or BarkBox. Yes, many of the best subscription boxes have followed a similar model to achieve success. Now, it’s your turn to take your subscription business to the next level.
You’ve launched your subscription box business and things are going great. Your reoccurring payment business model is paying off. You’ve chosen the right products to full your subscription boxes and you’re starting to get feedback from your customers. Your ecommerce business is growing and now you want to take it to the next level.
In this article, we’ll give you a few recommendations for growing your subscription box business.
What’s Your Strongest Sales Channel?
If your ecommerce subscription business is off to a great start, there’s likely one or two main selling channels that are fueling your growth. Many subscription businesses that struggle do so because they’re trying to use too many selling channels. If you happen to own a struggling subscription box business, try focusing on getting one sales channel right before you try to sell everywhere.
Now, for those of you seeing growth, your primary focus should be doubling down on the channels that are working and removing those that are not.
If Amazon is your main sales channel, double your resources there. You want to make sure your channel sales are strong and consistent before you move to another channel.
Marketing To New Sales Channels
Once you’ve established your subscription box business on one channel, it’s now time to start exploring other channels to reach your potential customers.
Now, remember what we said earlier about ensuring you have established consistent sales on at least one channel. If you haven’t, the last thing you need to do is try marketing on new channels. Marketing may not be your priority problem, rather it may be your copy, messaging or product that needs improved.
In order to grow your subscription box business to the levels you want, you must establish your sales channels one at a time. When you have consistent sales on a channel, this is the time you move to new channels.
Outsourcing Your Fulfillment
Subscription box businesses have a lot of moving inventory. While you likely started your ecommerce subscription box business by fulfilling your own products, that can change quickly if you start seeing more consistent sales.
The last thing you want or need is to have your fulfillment process overwhelmed due to high demand. You must be prepared for growth, even if you’re not overwhelmed at the moment. If you have a big sales day and can’t fulfill those orders, it can be enough to ruin your business forever. This is very serious, that’s why you want to be prepared now rather than later.
Outsourcing your fulfillment to a 3PL company like Thill can ensure that scenario never happens to you. The last thing you need is bad reviews and bad customer experiences.
Reaching Out To Influencers
One of the fastest ways to grow your subscription box business is by finding already established audiences. One way to do that is by partnering with influencers.
If you look hard enough, you’re likely to find a few influencers that have a similar audience to your own. If you’re fortunate enough to find one that has a lot of followers and influence, one shoutout for your brand can send a wave of sales your way.
Once again, you want to be mindful of your fulfillment because a influencer’s shoutout could bring your fulfillment to its knees if you’re not ready for it.
Strategic Planning
When business owners begin thinking about growing their subscription box company, many of them don’t think about order fulfillment. Here’s why that would be a big mistake.
For all growing subscription box businesses, fulfillment plays a big role in your business. While some of you have a warehouse for storing inventory, room for growing fulfillment and the funds to ship at will, many ecommerce business owners don’t have those assets. If you don’t, you need to start planning your fulfillment now.
Adding new customers, new sales and growth is going to lead to more subscription boxes needing to be shipped. If you’re not planning now, you’re going to run into problems that can harm your business for years to come.
Take care of your subscription box fulfillment now.
Order Management Software
A big benefit for outsourcing fulfillment to a 3PL company (Third-Party-Logistics) is the fact that many of them have order management software. With OMS, you’ll be able to track all of your orders and inventory in real-time.
Without accurate data and analytics, you’re going to find it difficult to grow your subscription business. You’re going to find it difficult to track inventory, re-order inventory and see what sales channels are the most profitable.
Equally important, it would be nice if you can partner with a fulfillment company that has order management software that integrates with your ecommerce store. Here at Thill, our OMS integrates with several popular ecommerce solutions, such as;
- Magento Integration
- Amazon Integration
- Ebay Integration
- Shopify Integration
- WooCommerce Integration
- KickStarter Integration
It’s great to know you’re seeing success with your subscription box company. Getting to that next level, it’s a challenge. However, there’s no reason you can’t continue your growth. Follow the tips we’ve mentioned here and keep the pedal to the floor.
If you’d like to talk with one of our subscription box experts, you can reach us during regular business hours at 1-920-967-9201 or reach out using our contact form.
