A subscription business strategy allows you to sell a wide range of products or services to your consumers regularly (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly, depending on the situation), all of which caters to a specific niche. Not only is it entertaining and exciting for people to receive different things regularly, but a subscription box business can be highly profitable for business owners if done correctly.

One of the key elements in your subscription business success is choosing the right platform to create your online store and adopting the right subscription app. To help with your decision, here are a few points you need to look out for when choosing a platform.

What to Look Out for in an E-Commerce Platform

Knowing what to look out for in an e-commerce platform is one of the first stages in learning how to start a subscription box. Before you decide on which e-commerce platform to use, bear the following considerations in mind:

1. Analytics Tools 

For any business owner, having knowledge and data about how well their company works is key. The good news is, most e-commerce platforms provide analytics as part of their package, allowing you to quickly measure your sales and progress. Another key consideration is, does the platform enables analytics integrations, which can provide you with more data than the ones provided by the platform. This brings us to integration.

2. Ease of Integration

Having an e-commerce platform that integrates with other apps and websites is beneficial. When it comes to adopting a subscription app, apps like Chargezen easily integrates with other apps and allows you to generate recurring revenue through subscriptions and increasing conversion rates.

3. Marketing Tools

Digital marketing has a significant impact on the number of individuals you can eventually reach. A good e-commerce platform should ideally include SEO functions and other options to help you connect to various social media platforms where your subscription business can be promoted further.

4. Multiple Payment Alternatives

Whether you're selling subscriptions or single products, your customers must have several payment methods and processors, such as PayPal or Stripe. The fewer your payment options are, the limited the number of customers you can sell to globally.  That's why you must ensure that all of your consumers, no matter where they are in the world, are covered.

5. Shipping

If you've plans to be selling to overseas consumers, shipping is a major factor to consider. You need to use a platform that can handle the entire shipping procedure for you or use third-party software. Additional shipping fees must be considered as well.

6. Safety and Security

Make sure that the platform you use is safe for both you and your clients. Since users will be making monthly recurring transactions, the platform's security must be a primary focus.

Shopify and Chargezen

Shopify is an easy-to-use online store builder trusted by over 1,700,000 stores. Fully Hosted, Cloud-Based Solutions, and Chargezen is the most advanced vertically integrated Shopify subscription management solution powering recurring payments for innovative brands. 

Shopify and Chargezen make a powerful team that will make selling subscription boxes easier and simpler than ever. Some of Shopify's most successful subscription businesses employ this strong combo. You can effortlessly manage your business and keep track of all your subscription and sales using Chargezen. Furthermore, you have the option of converting existing one-time products into monthly subscriptions, which can be quite valuable because it allows you to test new product concepts. Both Shopify and Chargezen are fully mobile-friendly, which is especially important given that e-commerce is predicted to overtake online sales this year forward.

You'll be able to create a strong relationship with your recurring customers and provide them with a seamless experience while using Shopify with Chargezen. You can customize your store extensively and have access to incredible features like multiple payment gateways, cart abandonment integration, one-click upsells, and digital marketing that will make both you and your customers happy.

You can start a Shopify store  right away on a 14-day free trial and opt for any of the three plans listed below:

• Basic Shopify at USD29/Month - Best for new e-commerce businesses with occasional in-person sales.
• Shopify at USD79/Month - Best for growing businesses selling online or in-store
• Advanced Shopify at USD299/Month - Best for scaling businesses that require advanced reporting

You can also easily install Chargezen on your Shopify store with a free plan or reach out to the Chargezen support team for assistance. Chargezen have three plans designed to suit business all sizes:

• Starter Plan for free ($0/month) - includes 1% of each subscription transaction & covers up to USD 500K/yr recurring revenue (ARR).
• Pro ($199/Month) - includes 0.89% of each subscription transaction & covers up to USD 20M/yr recurring revenue (ARR).
• Enterprise - This plan is custom built and you need to talk to their experts to get tailored pricing for your business.

Strength of Shopify

• Easy to setup - You can build your e-commerce store in three easy steps
• Secure and reliable
• Customizable
• 24/7 Customer support
• Does not require technical expertise
• Mobile ready
• SEO and marketing tools
• There’s an App for nearly everything
• Abandoned cart recovery
• Own payment gateway

Strength of Chargezen

1. It enables you to add recurring orders to your Shopify Store
2. It gives your customers a great deal of leverage over their recurring purchases to do the following:

• Edit delivery dates
• Skip a single delivery
• View past orders
• View future delivery schedules
• Payment information
• Shipping information
• Remove products
• Add new products
• Switch products
• Change quantities
• Cancel subscription
• Change delivery frequency
  

3. Chargezen shares an extensive feature set that makes it the top option for recurring billing.

• Swap subscription for one product to another product without canceling and reordering
• Shipping and taxes are pulled from the Shopify app so they are real-time accurate
• Control over checkout and client portal appearance
• Delivery frequency control
• Create different types of subscription products- Single item, multiple items, subscription boxes, "build-your-own" subscription boxes, mystery boxes, kits, etc. For the most part, if you can imagine it, you can offer it to customers.
• Customer control through login-gated portals
• Mixed cart subscriptions/one-time purchase checkouts
• Ability to use existing customer account on your Shopify store during checkout
• Synchronizing inventory with Shopify
  

4. Dunning management to reduce churn
5. Automate actions that will allow you to offer free trials and samples, discount the first or repeat orders, or roll customers into paid subscriptions at the end of a free trial
6. It integrates with most of the app you’re using and constantly adds more
7. Uses authorize.net, PayPal express, and all Shopify payments.

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Conclusion

If you're wondering how to establish a subscription business, there are a few steps you'll need to take to make it a success.

You'll need to start with a well-thought-out concept for your subscription business. If it's a subscription box you're opting for, it could be anything from food and beverages to cosmetics and hygiene items. Then you'll need to find a good e-commerce platform where you can account for your entire budget and make payments, which I'm hopeful this article has aided you in seeing the strengths of Shopify over other e-commerce platforms.

Once you've decided what you want to sell and where you want to sell it, you can go on to the third phase, which involves setting up your store and use Chargezen to power recurring payment for your business free of charge. If you need help getting started, contact the Chargzen support team or write me at success@trychargezen.com.