How Shopify Stores Ship in South Africa with Bobgo

Subscription stores on Shopify can now enjoy frictionless order shipping across South Africa. They can do that by integrating with Bobgo and SubscriptionFlow. Bobgo is an expert shipping management software, while SubscriptionFlow excels in subscription management and billing.

Both these apps come together to offer smart shipping workflows that are tailored to the needs of subscription businesses. With this integration, businesses are not just able to bill their subscribers automatically, but can also send out their orders in time for speedy delivery.

In this article, we’ll explore in detail how Bobgo and SubscriptionFlow help Shopify merchants fast track their shipping operations.

Why South African Shopify Businesses Need a Specialized Subscription Shipping Solution?

Like other subscription ecommerce businesses, Shopify merchants also know the value of timely deliveries. They are important to establish trustworthy relationships with customers, and motivate customers to keep their subscription active.

However, delivering on time is easier said than done. Behind efficient delivery, there runs an entire subscription fulfillment system. This system entails taking orders, billing customers, preparing packages for shipping, managing inventory, tracking delivery, handling returns, and so on.

For smooth fulfillment processes, Shopify stores require an advanced billing and shipping platform in place. Keeping billing flawless is important, as billing marks one of the first interactions between a new customer and the business.

When customers sign up for a subscription in the Shopify store, they are redirected to the checkout. At checkout, customers are required to fill in their personal details, and choose a payment method. Then, their selected payment method is charged, and their subscription is triggered.

Advanced subscription billing software makes the checkout process user-friendly, and seamless. And after that, it takes over the customers’ recurring billing cycles, and automates payments. Alongside the billing software, Shopify merchants also require a smart shipping platform.

The shipping platform assists in managing inventory, packing and dispatching orders, and tracking order status. Together, the billing and shipping systems work in harmony to make order deliveries hassle-free. Therefore, subscription stores on Shopify must have access to an advanced billing and shipping integration that makes their operations easier.

Bobgo and SubscriptionFlow Offer the Best Billing and Shipping Integration

Bobgo and SubscriptionFlow are available in Shopify as apps. Merchants can easily connect with them from within Shopify. Or, they can integrate with SubscriptionFlow first, and then connect with Bobgo via SubscriptionFlow for unified workflows.

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This is how this integration works:

SubscriptionFlow creates subscriptions for Shopify orders

When SubscriptionFlow connects with Shopify, merchants can enable data sharing between the two platforms. This results in a flow where Shopify orders are synced with SubscriptionFlow automatically, and then the system creates a subscription for each new order.

Due to this, Shopify businesses don’t have to create and activate subscriptions themselves. Moreover, they can customize their subscription cycles as they like, and offer the payment methods of their choice. This is something that they cannot do with Shopify alone.

That is because Shopify isn’t designed to handle subscription workflows, and doesn’t cater to recurring billing. Therefore, specialized software like SubscriptionFlow become a necessity for managing subscriptions.

SubscriptionFlow shares order data with Bobgo

Bobgo is an excellent shipping service, but it has not been designed to deal with recurring orders. That’s where SubscriptionFlow steps in. When it activates a customer’s subscription based on their order, it sync the order with Bobgo.

When an order is created in Bobgo, the platform proceeds with its fulfillment process. This workflow ensures that merchants don’t have to create orders in two separate platforms. Everything proceeds automatically.

So SubscriptionFlow is in charge of subscription management and billing, and Bobgo takes care of shipping. As soon as an invoice is marked paid in SubscriptionFlow, the software pushes the order in Bobgo for fulfillment.

Moreover, since SubscriptionFlow syncs all order and payment details in Bobgo itself, this leaves no room for error.

Bobgo generates shipping labels

Bobgo is responsible for generating the shipping labels that have to be attached to the packages before they are dispatched. These labels contain the customers’ information, such as their names and addresses. They also contain additional data, such as the name of the carrier service, special instructions, etc.

The best part is that merchants don’t have to feed in customer data in Bobgo themselves for the creation of these labels. Instead, this data flows into the platform from SubscriptionFlow’s database directly. This reduces the margin for errors as manual data input is not involved.

This workflow also speeds up the creation of shipping labels, and dispatch of orders.

Orders are shipped on a recurring basis

With this integration, SubscriptionFlow pushes the subscription orders in Bobgo on a recurring basis. This sets up recurring shipping of orders which doesn’t require manual intervention from businesses.

So when SubscriptionFlow renews subscriptions automatically, it triggers Bobgo to create a new batch of orders for shipping too. This process repeats itself for each renewal cycle. It helps businesses establish stable cash flows.

Advantages of SubscriptionFlow-Bobgo Integration for Shopify Merchants

Smart Carrier Selection

At the time of shipping, Bobgo gives businesses a range of carriers to choose from. It displays all the carrier services available for a region, and shows their charges for each order.

These charges are calculated in real-time, so that businesses don’t have to contact each carrier themselves to confirm charges. This facilitates faster carrier selection, and merchants can make the most-cost effective choices.

Automatic Order Adjustments

If customers make any modifications to their orders, SubscriptionFlow sees to it. For example, customers can change their plans, cancel subscription and demand a refund, change their delivery address, etc.

If customers change their subscription plan, their order is updated by SubscriptionFlow, and this updated order is shared with Bobgo. The customers’ billing cycles, and total payable amounts are adjusted based on the changes.

Meanwhile if a customer cancels their plan, SubscriptionFlow helps cancel it in Bobgo too. Moreover, SubscriptionFlow ensures that it only syncs those customer and address details with Bobgo that are up-to-date. This prevents inaccuracies on shipping labels.

Real-Time Order Updates

With this integration, Shopify sellers can constantly keep their customers informed about their orders. They have the capability to send order status update notifications to customers via email or customer portals.

Customers can be informed of their order progress. For instance, whether it has been dispatched yet or not, and if the courier has picked their package for delivery, etc. These updates can be transferred automatically, and in real-time to enhance customer satisfaction.

It also makes sure that customers don’t have to ask for updates from the business manually. Order-tracking allows businesses to have visibility in their shipping process as well. They can be alerted of any shipping problems on time, and they can also notify their customers about delayed deliveries accordingly.

Local Payment Options

SubscriptionFlow facilitates smooth ecommerce activity in South Africa, as it allows merchants to onboard local customers. It makes payment acceptance possible via South African payment gateways like Paystack, Walletdoc, Peach Payments, and more.

SubscriptionFlow accommodates local payment options that are easily accessible by customers for recurring payments. In addition, merchants are able to charge South African customers in their own currency, thus making payments even more convenient.

If you are looking for a good fulfillment platform for your Shopify business in South Africa, consider integrating with SubscriptionFlow and Bobgo. This integration fine-tunes your billing cycles, and accelerates order shipping.