How to Manage Shopify Subscriptions in South Africa

It is already tricky to manage subscriptions in Shopify. That’s due to the platform’s lack of native subscription management support. But to manage your Shopify store based in South Africa? Even trickier. To sell effectively in South Africa, merchants need to power their stores with the region’s local gateways: Paystack and PayFast.

And Shopify doesn’t really support recurring billing through either of them. But don’t worry because SubscriptionFlow does. It integrates with Shopify, as well as these two major Payment gateways in South Africa to make subscription operations there a breeze.

So let’s discover all the necessary steps for building a successful subscription store in this region.

The Challenge of Managing Shopify Subscriptions in South Africa

Shopify provides stores with its own Subscriptions API. This helps in basic subscription management and recurring billing. However, merchants using Shopify’s native subscription functionality have to rely on its native gateway too.

Shopify only allows recurring payments through its gateway Shopify Payments. The gateway is powered by Stripe, but it isn’t the same as the actual Stripe integration. This is a noteworthy limitation for South African merchants, as they can’t access the payment methods that are popular among the locals.

South African customers prefer localized payment options like Instant EFT and Mobicred. These methods are popularly used for online transactions, making them more trustworthy and convenient for the locals. And the only way to offer these methods in your store is by connecting with Paystack or PayFast, or better yet—both.

But wait, it doesn’t end at connecting with gateways. In fact, businesses have to make sure that they can accept subscription payments through them. In other words, they have to find ways to link these local payment methods to automated recurring billing.

The gist of it all is this: South African customers need a localized billing experience and merchants need the help of regional gateways for that. After all, localized payment experiences are one of the greatest conversion drivers. They blend personalization and automation, making billing trustworthy.

Level Up with Paystack Integration

Paystack is widely popular in South Africa because of its support for the local payment methods. Methods such as EFT (bank transfers) and mobile payments are more common among locals, and more widely used as compared to international methods offered by PayPal or Stripe.

It’s important for merchants to configure their gateways for tapping into any market. To really sell in a market, understanding the needs of its customers is necessary. One need that is common to many subscribers is the localization of payments.

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Imagine a store selling in South Africa but accepting payments in USD, and through PayPal only. For local customers, purchasing from this store would be an alienating experience. Even for one-time payments, let alone subscriptions.

That’s precisely why merchants should meet subscribers where they are…instead of expecting them to warm up to the payment options of the merchants’ choice.

Now the question: how to get Paystack with Shopify? The answer is, via SubscriptionFlow. SubscriptionFlow is a Shopify app, easy to connect and use. The app links merchants with gateways like Paystack, lending them tools to thrive in the South African economy. It allows subscription-based stores to use Paystack as their default gateway for recurring payments.

They can enable all methods supported by Paystack, like cards, EFT and mobile wallets. No matter which method the customer chooses, their billing is automated by SubscriptionFlow.

Add PayFast to Your Gateway-Stack

To offer even more payment choices to your South African customers, integrate with PayFast as well. Adding PayFast to your tech stack unlocks options like Instant EFT and Mobicred (BNPL service), that are loved by locals.

Both PayFast and Paystack accept payments in ZAR (South African Rand). While Paystack accepts other currencies used throughout the African continent too, PayFast supports billing in ZAR only. And that says a lot about why PayFast is so well-suited to the South African market.

What’s more, this payment gateway is fully compliant with the country’s financial regulations, and 3D Secure. It ensures that payment data is encrypted before it is stored by the merchant’s billing software. This feature also makes it a trusted choice for online transactions.

How to get PayFast for your store? PayFast is also available in SubscriptionFlow, and can be integrated with your payment flows with ease. Both PayFast and Paystack do not allow recurring payment automation if used independently with Shopify. SubscriptionFlow acts as the intermediary, letting recurring payments flow through these gateways automatically.

Additional benefit: PayFast and Paystack incur lesser processing fees as compared to international services like PayPal. They are especially cost-effective for domestic payment processing. Additional fees have to be paid for international cards, but they’re still pretty competitive across Africa.

Use SubscriptionFlow for Shopify Subscription Management & Automated Billing

Connecting your Shopify store to SubscriptionFlow relieves all your recurring billing worries. Shopify’s own tool Shopify Subscriptions isn’t optimized for the needs of your South African audience. Nor does it provide merchants with advanced subscription billing features.

But SubscriptionFlow unlocks it all—from automatic billing, to multi-gateway functionality, to localized checkout experiences, and more. Merchants get to integrate with both Paystack and PayFast, and enable them at the same time. Then they can use these gateways with the billing platform to:

Activate recurring payments

South African customers sign up using SubscriptionFlow’s checkout that is localized for them. They choose their preferred payment method, and complete initial payment. The billing software saves this payment data in its encrypted form for future recurring payments.

With Paystack and PayFast enabled, all recurring payments flow through them into the merchant’s account. Moreover, customers can have diverse payment intervals, and invoice amounts. It’s SubscriptionFlow’s job to ensure that each customer is charged according to their plan and billing cycle, without causing overlaps.

Retry failed payments

Just like payments are collected through the enabled gateways, they can be retried through them too. The billing platform comes equipped with powerful dunning logic. It lets merchants retry failed payments as many times as needed. In fact, merchants can set up their own retry rules for the software to execute automatically.

Leverage advanced subscription logic

SubscriptionFlow addresses your advanced subscription management needs. You get to have features like proration, multiple billing models, subscription bundle functionality, and many others. These features help you establish a high-performing subscription store. One that doesn’t only sell subscriptions, but also delivers flexible and personalized purchase journeys.

Automate workflows from start to finish

There’s a lot of work that’s automated with this setup. Invoices are generated and delivered without manual input, and customers are billed instantly. Payment reminders are automatically sent a few days prior to the billing dates. And payment confirmation emails are sent after the billing is successful.

Similarly, proration and billing for dynamic subscription bundles is also handled by the system on its own. Renewals are automatically made effective for customers with successful payments. So essentially, your Shopify customers’ entire billing cycles run on their own, seamlessly.

Why This Setup Works for South African Merchants?

With the Shopify + SubscriptionFlow setup, South African merchants are freed from manual work and gateway limitations. Here’s some benefits they receive:

Localized checkout

They get SubscriptionFlow’s highly customizable checkout that can be fully localized for South African audience. And true localization means offering local payment methods that the customers find familiar, and trust. So merchants can enable Paystack and PayFast and offer the popular payment options supported by both.

Automatic recurring revenue

Shopify stores establish strong and predictable cash flows due to automatic recurring billing. They get to monitor their recurring revenue in real-time, and view all their key analytics for measuring performance. Plus, they get dunning management tools and gateway fallback logic for preventing revenue leakage.

Self-service portals

Each customer gets access to a self-service portal that becomes their very own subscription control room. Through the portal, they can switch their payment method and subscription plan. They can also cancel, pause and resume subscription freely, without requiring any help from the support team.

Integration with fulfillment software

SubscriptionFlow also helps merchants integrate with South Africa-based fulfillment software. The integration makes order delivery within the country easy, and guarantees that the billing and fulfillment cycles are highly synchronized.

Ready to launch your Shopify business in South Africa? Connect your store to SubscriptionFlow, and deliver billing that resonates with local buyers.