Subscription Box Business 102: Curate Your Subscription Box—Types, Niches, & Procurement Ideas

In our previous article, we have given you an overview of the Subscription Box aka. Sub Box and Subscription Box Business. We learned that customer convenience and recurrence became the catalysts for the subscription box business and made it one of the most cash-rich and futuristic business models for the next years.

The following article is written in the continuity to explain the foundational components of the Subscription Box Business. It covers the most important phases of the Subscription Box Business from conceiving and designing the Sub Box to the ways of finding the suppliers for the products to be featured in the Subscription Box.

Designing the Dream Subscription Box

Conceiving a subscription box and conceptualizing the business based on the subscription model requires keen study of the market demands, customers’ habits of shopping for the products they use consistently, and the novel ways of incorporating the elements of mystery, surprise, convenience, cost-effectiveness, and personalization.

When intellectualizing the Sub Box, keep the ‘Big Picture’ in mind. Start planning by reviewing the fundamental foundations of your business. When curating your box, consider the market segment, the niche, procurement feasibility, lifecycle value, & the prospects of profit. Consider the value proposition while maintaining its feel with rich aesthetics, quality, and variety.

Types of Subscription Boxes

Designing a dream box begins either with your passion or inspiration or studying the best niches for the subscription box. Before selecting the niche for a Sub Box product, it is important to devise the vision of the subscription box by determining its type.

In our earlier article, we already have learned about a few types of subscription boxes. Let’s fuse them into two broad categories here. These are:

• The Convenience Subscription Box

The convenience subscription boxes are meant to provide everyday essentials need and used by the customers, regularly. These are the Sub Boxes that offer the same products every time. But, with each delivery, customers may get the variety in terms of style, color, pattern, design, packaging, or others.

• The Discovery Subscription Box

The convenience subscription boxes are meant to introduce customers with the new or a variant of the products that may or may not be needed or used by the customers, regularly. These are the Sub Boxes that offer different products of the same niche with each delivery. These boxes are hugely popular as they can hook their subscribers with the elements of surprise of the unknown.

50 Best Niches for Subscription Boxes

Today, there is no item that customers use in their everyday life and they can’t be accommodated into subscription boxes. Be it a young or old man and woman, a new-born, a kid, or a young adult, and even a pet, you can customize a subscription box for everyone.

Here, we have brought you an assortment of 50 of the best pocket-friendly, highly demanding, and the big market potential ideas to select the niche for your subscription business and curate the dream subscription box as per your choice, inspiration, budget, or convenience. In alphabetical order, these are:

1. Arts & Crafts Supplies Box
2. Automobile Accessories Box
3. Baby Box
4. Baking Supplies Box
5. Beauty Box
6. Beverages Box
7. Book Box
8. Cake Box
9. Cheese & Wine Tasting Box
10. Chocolates & Sweets Box
11. Cigarettes, Cigars, & Tobacco Box
12. Cleaning & Sanitation Supplies Box
13. Clothing Box (New)
14. Clothing Box (Used)
15. Collectibles Box
16. Cooking Supplies Box
17. DIY Food Box
18. Food Box for Weekends/Sunday Brunch
19. Frozen Food Box
20. Games Box
21. Gardening Box
22. Hair Care Box
23. Hobby Box
24. Home Décor Box
25. Home Brewing Box
26. Infants Food Box
27. Jams, Preserves, & Honey Box
28. Jewelry & Accessories Box
29. Knitting & Crochet Box
30. Men Hygiene Box
31. Mobile Accessories Box
32. Organic Box
33. Pasta & Noodle Box
34. Pet Supplies Box
35. Pickle Box
36. Samples or Branding Box
37. Theme or Color Box
38. Senior’s Care Box
39. Shaving or Hair Removing Box
40. Skin Care Box
41. Snack Box
42. Socks Box
43. Spa Box
44. Stationery Box
45. Summer Box
46. Toy Box
47. Underwear Box
48. Unusual Goodies Box
49. Winter Box
50. Women Hygiene Box

Procurement For Subscription Boxes

Procurement also called Product Sourcing, is the operation to gain access to the products required in a subscription box. It often determines subscriber contentment, constancy, and the prospects of referrals. Needless to say, providing the best quality product with smart assortment and intelligent pricing of the products in a subscription box highly depends on the processing and management of procurement.

Sourcing the Products

Once you’ve selected the type and niche of your business, the next phase is to find a reliable, reasonable, and resourceful supplier to source a product. So, where, when, and how you can acquire the products for your subscription box?

There are two ways you may purchase subscription products from different suppliers:

• Free Products
• Paid Products

Several suppliers cater to the purchase needs of the various subscription box companies. Some brands use these subscription box companies to market their new products’ samples at no-cost or extremely low-cost or build their brand loyalty with the collaboration of these subscription boxes or the subscription box companies procure the products for their subscription boxes as retailers, or sometimes, buy as wholesalers.

Sourcing a product needs some market research, time, money, and effort. Before making an item a part of your subscription box, take some effective actions to ensure quality, cost-effectiveness, and profit margin. We recommend the following frontline measures:

• Try the product and compare the prices to get the best deal.
• Ask for a credit line to ensure healthy cash flow.
• Request extra samples in case you purchase.
• Offer cross-marketing or affiliate marketing opportunities.
• Formulate and establish the hassle-free supply line from both ends.
• Devise the pricing strategy. We recommend a flat-pricing model.

Finding the Supplier

Finding the supplier for the products of your subscription box is no different than the other retail or wholesale business except, you have to precisely choose and pick the best to curate the subscription box, repeatedly. You may find the products from:

• Local Stores
• Search Engines
• Social Media Groups & Communities
• Niche Websites
• E-Commerce Websites such as Amazon, Etsy, Alibaba, Indiamart, etc.
• Retailers or Salespersons
• Wholesale Stores

For the prototype subscription boxes, acquiring products from the local stores, niche websites, or obtaining products through networking with retailers or salespersons or collaboration with small business vendors is highly recommended. For the bulk purchase of the products, online or in-store whole, both options work well depending on the type of the product and supply cost.

Subscription-box is a subscription business that is based on the recurring supply of the products to the best of the market potential by the merchant, so the customer continues to extend the subscription cycle month after month. The other thing that runs the subscription box business is its efficient subscription and recurring billing management.

SubscriptionFlow will help you to automate the subscription management and recurring billing of your subscription box business and stay focused to design and curate the best subscription box every time. Leave the stress of invoicing, billing, payment processing, revenue recognition monitoring, and reporting to the AI-based smart recurring billing management system.