What is a Gift Subscription?

A gift subscription is a prepaid membership, experience, or amenity purchased for someone else over a specific period of time. The receiver delights in the benefits of the product or subscription without having to purchase it themselves. It is important to note that buying a subscription gift does not follow the same process as purchasing a subscription for yourself.

Gift subscriptions can have their own separate page or be displayed as an alternative option on the same subscription page. It is a gift of a recurring service like beauty products, magazine subscriptions, or a streaming service that offers a personalized touch.

The sender can offer a subscription gift as a thoughtful gesture for the recipient’s birthday, during holidays, or for a special occasion.

For example, you want to surprise a friend for their graduation and purchase a 3-month coffee subscription through a local café’s website. The gift code is sent to your friend’s email, which can be redeemed for the next three months without them having to enter their payment details.

Gift subscriptions make a versatile and flexible gifting option, with great manageability on both the buyer’s and receiver’s ends.

Why Are Gift Subscriptions Vital in the E-commerce World?

Gift subscriptions are crucial in the e-commerce community because they add value to your business and build customer loyalty. In today’s cut-throat e-commerce market, stepping away from the ordinary acts as the linchpin of triumphant businesses. Embracing your business’s uniqueness and identifying its end goal can skyrocket your marketability, attracting more customers who resonate with your vision.

Incorporating gift subscriptions into your business strategy can close potential gaps you may have pinpointed that were hindering your action potential. They help businesses increase brand loyalty, enhance engagement, and secure repeat purchases.

Not only that, but gift subscriptions offer insights into customer preferences and behavior. This helps businesses tailor their market strategies to align with the customer data available at hand.

As a result, you’re able to target key customer pain points. This personalized approach strengthens customer relationships by offering compelling gifting solutions, placing you a mile ahead in the competition.

Not only does this boost your sales, but it also helps achieve your revenue targets over the course of time.

What are the Different Types of Gift Subscriptions?

Gift subscriptions are a unique way of giving recurring gifts to people you want to surprise, delight, and celebrate. When it comes to the types of gift subscriptions available in the market, the options are limitless.

Gift subscriptions can be tailored to meet the needs of different individuals, with multiple products and services accessible at hand. They can be organized into four broad categories. Let’s have a look at each of them.

Digital Products

Digital products are an ideal gift subscription option for several reasons. First of all, they are a convenient gift subscription option with thousands of digital products easily available in the market today.

Secondly, they can be delivered electronically, without the hassle of lengthy payment processes. This makes them perfect for last-minute gift giving.

An example of a digital product as a gift subscription is paying for an online learning MasterClass, such as marketing, business, or filmmaking. Other examples include e-book gift subscriptions, Adobe Pro, streaming services like Netflix, Spotify, etc.

Service Access

In gift subscription services, you may pay for access to a service. The service can include paid loyalty programs that offer perks such as members-only events, free shipping, or personalized curated gift boxes.

In this type of gift subscription, retailers may also offer physical gift cards to access a workspace on a monthly basis. Most services allow you to purchase the gift subscription directly through their website. They also provide the option to attach customized messages and select the delivery date.

These gift subscription services can be digital or a tangible physical product.

Customized Curated Boxes

Curated boxes are a pre-selected array of items chosen by the subscriber. They are often based on a theme and specific preferences and can be delivered on a recurring schedule.

For example, a meal kit gift subscription box that is sent and curated to your dietary preferences and meal plan. Customized curated boxes align with your interests. They can be repeatedly sent to you based on your selection of the duration and schedule as well.

Replenished Gift Subscriptions

When a gift subscription is purchased, it automatically gets renewed for another cycle upon its expiration unless cancelled by the purchaser.

We can take the example of a curated selection of snacks that is gifted to the recipient. Until the sender explicitly cancels the gift subscription, the receiver will continuously be sent a customized snack box according to the delivery schedule.

What are the Benefits of Gift Subscriptions?

The realm of subscription businesses is expansive, and gift subscriptions widen it even more.

Gift subscriptions offer many benefits to both the business and the recipient. Below are the details.

Enhanced Customer Experience

The fastest way to place your business on a positive progression is to make your customers’ lives more convenient. Having a separate gift option compels the customer to want to place an order.

To understand why gift subscriptions are a successful marketing strategy for your business, you need to understand the psychology behind them. Buying something for yourself and buying a gift for somebody else emerge from two different needs. They are also two entirely different experiences.

When customers purchase a product or a service for themselves, they usually want it to be fast, direct, and easy. When purchasing a subscription for someone else, there are additional boxes that need to be checked off.

For example, when purchasing for someone else, customers want options for delivery, scheduling, and personalization. If they don’t find this on your website, they’ll look for these options on your competitor’s website.

For this reason, providing a variety of options in the gift subscription experience elevates customer satisfaction. When you give customers exactly what they’re looking for, the engagement is more likely to turn into conversion rates. This serves as a win-win situation for you and your customers.

Brand Recognition

Gift subscriptions are an upgrade to gift cards. With the widespread availability of these gift-giving options, customers actively search for them online. A consumer will likely purchase a gift subscription if they’re already subscribed to a service on your website. This makes them want to share and enjoy the experience with friends and family.

As a result, your brand gains exposure while you loop in the customers through features such as sending regular emails, personalized account setup, and subscription options.

Customer Retention

Customer retention is a challenge faced by businesses across industries.  However, it’s especially difficult for subscription-based businesses that depend on recurring revenue.

In this case, gift subscription adds value to businesses by creating a unique retention opportunity.

When the recipient is gifted a subscription service, for them, it’s a cost-free chance to interact with your services. This creates the perfect moment to offer them a stellar experience that will compel them to keep coming back for more.

To take it a step further, you can provide them the option to activate a separate gift subscription account. You can allow them to interact with the entire onboarding experience firsthand. They’ll explore all the utilities, such as subscription customization, adding payment details, and managing their account.

Offering customers a personal gift subscription experience makes them more likely to keep the subscription going. As a business, you benefit from higher retention rates, hitting your monthly recurring revenue targets, and sustaining customer loyalty.

How to Sell Gift Subscriptions Using Shopify?

Selling gift subscriptions on Shopify is a lucrative approach to increasing recurring revenue. It is a relatively simple process, more so when integrated with SubscriptionFlow. It powers various Shopify store subscription strategies.

Integrate a Potent Subscription Management Tool

Although Shopify administers built-in subscription management functionality, it offers a limited scope for subscription products operating on their own. Hence, for more advanced features, you need a separate app like SubscriptionFlow that manages the subscriptions effectively.

Next, design your Shopify store to match your subscription products. Go for a theme that is not throw-offish and is pleasing to the eye.

After that, you’re ready to leverage your Shopify store with your subscription management tool. Define the subscription tiers, pricing, payment methods, and discounts if applicable. With SubscriptionFlow, you can ensure increased flexibility in the pricing plans and customize billing frequencies.

Now you’re ready to manage your subscriptions using SubscriptionFlow’s integration capabilities and retention tools. It utilizes marketing software such as UpPromote and OmniSend. You can also track key metrics to keep moving in a positive revenue direction.

Step-by-Step Gift Subscription Purchasing Process on Shopify

Below is the step-by-step process of purchasing a gift subscription on Shopify:

1. Select the subscription service or product you want to purchase as a gift.
2. Enter the recipient’s details, such as name, contact number, and email address.
3. Select the date you want the subscription gift to be delivered on. Additionally, you have the option to add a personalized message or gift note.
4. The purchase is completed as normal.

Around the time of delivery, the recipient is sent an email inclusive of their subscription gift details. The subscription can be activated at the time of the recipient’s choosing. Furthermore, the recipient can create their own separate gift subscription account. They’re free to add their personal payment information should they wish to continue with their subscription experience.

How to Maximize Revenue by Selling Gift Subscriptions Using SubscriptionFlow?

SubscriptionFlow enables you to grow your customer base by enabling gift subscriptions. As the concept of gift subscription gains traction, SubscriptionFlow stands at the forefront of offering businesses state-of-the-art gift subscription tools. This allows them to enhance customer experience and retention.

Flexible Features

Marketing your business to reach a larger populace is a strategy used by many businesses these days. The difference lies in whether the execution is done correctly or not.

With SubscriptionFlow’s gift subscription features, you’re more than likely to raise your brand awareness. It offers increased automation, discounts, and coupons; an intuitive user interface; and a customizable customer portal.

Other than that, you have the option to create birthday and anniversary subscriptions with ease. You can allow your customers to enjoy these perks while they make their loved ones happy.

Easy Payment Tracking

Time is money. Today’s subscription market is advancing at a rapid pace. With such quickness, the need for agile payment collection methods increases as well.

SubscriptionFlow offers integration with third-party recurring payment software like QuickBooks Online and Xero to expedite the payment process. Customers benefit from payment forecasts and predictions, and easy tax calculations.

Multiple Payment Methods

SubscriptionFlow accommodates local as well as international audiences. It seamlessly integrates with multiple payment gateways and the chosen currency of the customer.

It makes payment processing simple by securely saving transaction details and accepting international payments at any time.

Personalization

Nowadays, customers have varying preferences. SubscriptionFlow caters to the unique needs of customers by offering multiple gift subscription plans.

Moreover, customers also have the option of creating their schedule to send the gift order and setting their terms and conditions.

Insightful Reports and Analytics

For a business to prosper, it needs to analyze and understand consumer data and behavior. With the advanced analytical tools provided by SubscriptionFlow, businesses can stay updated with customer activity.

Furthermore, SubscriptionFlow enables firms to make data-driven decisions based on insightful financial reports.

With these comprehensive gift subscription features, SubscriptionFlow empowers you to scale your business effortlessly.