The subscription lifestyle has been a fragment of the online market community for over a decade now. After the immense success of streaming media subscriptions, provided by various OTT platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney + Hotstar, etc., shoppers are now inclining towards the new dynamics of shopping experiences created by the subscription boxes. A subscription box is an entire package of experience in itself.
The accelerating rate of growth that the subscription box market has witnessed over the past few years, is validating enough to emphasize the possibilities of a subscription business.
Facts that Confirming the Increasing Popularity of Subscription Boxes
Let’s take a look at a few facts, which throw light on the increasing popularity of subscription boxes, both in the demand and supply market:
- An increase of 40% subscription box services has been observed in the past one year, per a recent Fast Company Article.
- A recent survey by First Insight, featured in the USA Today states that 25% of respondents, including both men and women, have currently subscribed to at least one subscription box, with the expectancy of another 32% respondents to subscribe in the following six months.
- Traditional Retailers such as Walmart and Target have also come up with subscription box services, to begin with, beauty boxes. Amazon on the other hand has established 18 subscription boxes on the direct-to-consumer models.
- The convenience and novelty provided by the subscription boxes highly appeal to online shoppers, which is proven by the fact that more than half of the online consumers (about 54%) subscribe to a subscription box service.
The robust growth rate in the subscription box industry from the year 2015-2020, the above-stated facts, and the remarkable results yielded by subscription models, both for the entrepreneurs as well as the consumers justify the booming popularity of this arena.
Benefits of Subscription Box Business
Every business aims at maximizing its profits while reducing the risk and loss factors to the minimum. Subscription Box Business fits right into this aspect, along with numerous more factors, that benefit the business organization. Let’s tackle each one of them.
Business Benefits:-
1. Predictable Revenues
The number of people who subscribe to your box in a particular month, allows you to assume and predict the revenue for that period. It, therefore, allows better and efficient planning, which in turn creates value for your business and ensures steady growth. This is an extremely significant point, especially in the current times of COVID crises, when a large number of flourishing businesses are at stake and running under the risk of a shutdown.
2. Simplified Financial Forecasting
Subscription box business allows you to accurately anticipate the inflow on the revenue stream and profits. The risk of being run down under seasonal fluctuations is extremely low as the business is backed by a loyal subscriber base. This allows one to make better business decisions and plan budgets for business expansion, growth, and marketing.
3. Higher Customer Retention
The subscription-based business naturally aims at retaining customers to achieve business goals. This may be done by offering certain upgrades, discounts, and festive offers to appeal to your customers, consequently leading to a long-term association and increased revenue opportunities.
4. Low Inventory Costs
Knowledge of your current subscriber base allows you to manage the stocks more efficiently. Better anticipation of demands results in effective and advanced planning, which in turn can be profitable for the business by enjoying certain early-bird discounts on stock orders.
5. Building Loyal Customers
Frequent engaging conversations with your customers, allow you to have a better understanding of their needs and requirements. This understanding helps you provide tailored boxes, yielding a personalized experience for the client, which ultimately fosters loyalty and long-term alliance, and better customer relationships. This factor greatly contributes to the upselling of your brand and product.
6. Magnified Brand Awareness
As discussed above, the personalized experience provided by subscription boxes, creates curiosity and the urge to look forward to receiving the boxes regularly. Happy and satisfied customers often tend to create a lot of publicity by word of mouth, a shootout on social media platforms, and faster and frequent recommendations to their friends and family, thereby cutting down a major lot of your costs on marketing and advertisements.
Consumer Benefits:
The success of any business depends upon consumer satisfaction and retention. If a customer is happy with the services provided by any firm, they would automatically want to subscribe to it. The subscription Business Model is absolutely ideal in every respect, as it not only provides countless benefits on the business front but is also extremely beneficial for the customers. Let us run over a few of them:
- The novel and the creative aspect of subscription boxes highly appeal to the customers.
- Subscription boxes save a lot of time, effort, and money for the consumers, which they spend separately looking out for each product which is in contrast provided at the ease of a subscription in a packaged form.
- The subscription concept allows the consumers to get introduced to new and unique market products.
- The unboxing experience itself is an extremely exciting aspect that the consumers look forward to every month or periodically.
Conclusion
So, these are the reasons behind the growing popularity of Subscription Box services and why one must consider subscribing to them. If you want to start subscription box services, you can take guidance from My Subscription business which is the world’s first subscription box consulting company offering subscription box website design, development, marketing, and branding solutions.
