Payment Processing for Supplement Subscription Businesses

Consumers today are paying more attention to health and wellness, thanks to which the supplement industry is also booming. Most supplement businesses have turned subscription-based so that customers can enjoy recurring product shipments. After all, since supplements are replenishable goods, consumers naturally have to re-buy them regularly.

However, despite high demand, supplement subscription businesses are struggling with managing payments at scale. That’s because these businesses have some special payment requirements that every payment processor doesn’t fulfill.

They need a specialized infrastructure that can handle their repeat and high-risk payments. SubscriptionFlow provides supplement businesses with this very infrastructure, so that they can combat transaction declines and master compliance. Read on to find out how SubscriptionFlow offers the supplement payment processing solution which is the need of many businesses today.

Why Supplement Subscription Business Has Unique Payment Processing Challenges

Supplement payment processing is considered high-risk. This is usually due to higher regulatory scrutiny, chargeback rates, compliance issues and recurring billing complications. These factors become the reason why payment processing becomes challenging for these businesses.

Recurring revenue depends on payment reliability

Supplement businesses need reliable payment trails. That’s only possible through a system that can manage their subscriptions and collect payments on time. If payments aren’t automatic, they can’t be reliable. Because customers and businesses can forget to pay and collect charges manually.

If payments are sometimes missed, that not only eats away at your revenue, but also impacts supplement deliveries. Unreliable payments disrupt delivery schedules, making customers unhappy. For customer lifetime value to be long, their payments need to be automatic and smooth. And a good subscription management software can do this job for you.

Supplements face higher payment risks

Recurring billing for supplements is considered high-risk. This means that there are more chances of transaction declines because these payments aren’t supported by all payment gateways. Payment declines cause failed renewals and disrupt subscription cycles.

Wellness subscription payments also face higher chargebacks because customers can demand payment back if their product isn’t giving them the results they wanted. Additionally, these businesses experience stricter compliance requirements because they need to protect their customer’s sensitive personal, order and payment data.

And if a supplement business operates internationally, it adds to its payment processing complexity. Because international subscription payments require robust tools to work smoothly. Manually processing recurring global payments doesn’t work for long.

Traditional checkouts don’t help with subscriptions

Traditional checkout facilitates only one-time client relationships, not recurring. It marks the transaction as fulfilled and closed as soon as a customer completes the payment page and pays. But if customers want to buy a supplement subscription, they don’t have any option to do that.

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They can’t choose any plan or billing frequency as it’s not supported by a common payment page. This means that if a business wants to offer subscriptions, it’d need to do so manually, or via a specialized platform like SubscriptionFlow.

What Supplement Brands Should Look for in a Payment Processing Solution

Every supplement brand that wants to offer subscriptions should look for these features in their payment processing solution:

Recurring billing automation

Subscription payment processing needs to be automatic. It becomes simply too complicated and error-prone if controlled manually. For sending timely supplement deliveries, businesses need software that renews their customers’ plans and then issues their fulfillment orders.

Oftentimes there is more than one subscription plan being offered by a vendor. For example, a monthly and a bi-monthly plan. Vendors need a system to automate payments according to each plan’s billing frequency and create invoices before or after payments.

Failed payment recovery tools

In subscriptions, payment failures are common. They can happen when transactions get declined by gateways, customers don’t have enough money in their accounts or when cards expire. To deal with these, businesses need payment retries, dunning emails and account updater support. Using these tools together makes funds recovery faster.

Flexible subscription management

Subscriptions can become flexible when customers are given more control over them. For instance, customers can choose exactly what products they want in their supplement subscription bundle, and can pause plans whenever they don’t need new deliveries.

Businesses must be capable of implementing all these changes requested by the customer. And they must be able to make these changes instantly, upgrade bills and charge customers for quick access to their desired feature.

Secure and compliant payment setup

PCI compliance is very important for supplement businesses as they handle sensitive customer information. They need a payment processing platform that helps with PCI compliance easily. It can do it by supporting tokenized payments that don’t let card data to be accessed by any third-party.

It can also support gateways that offer fraud protection so that there are no unauthorized transactions made using stolen cards.

Why Failed Payments Hurt Supplement Subscriptions

Failed payments become a source of revenue leakage and an operational burden if not dealt with the right way.

Revenue leakage from passive churn

Passive churn is when the customers don’t opt for cancellation themselves, but their plans are suspended due to failed payments. Sometimes subscribers don’t even realize when that happens, churning quietly. This prevents businesses from forming long relationships with clients, making them a lose a lot of revenue.

Customer experience impact

When a payment fails, the customer’s plan isn’t renewed. This means their supplement delivery also doesn’t progress. Missed deliveries frustrate customers and lead to subscription cancellations.

Operational burden on teams

Every time a payment fails, a support ticket gets created for the managing team. In order to recover payment, they have to manually follow-up on the issue and contact the concerned customer via emails, messages or calls. This process is as slow and ineffective as it sounds as it doesn’t guarantee fast recovery.

How Smart Payment Recovery Improves This

If supplement businesses have access to smart payment recovery tools, combating transaction failures becomes easier and more effective.

Automated retry logic

Oftentimes failed payments can be easily restored, as they just need some automatic retry magic. If your payment processing platform supports this feature, you don’t have to worry about failures much.

That’s because you can set up a payment retry schedule and let your system re-attempt payment collection accordingly. As soon as the required funds land in your customer’s account, the system fetches them for you.

Customer notifications

In the case of payment failures, it’s important to keep your customers in the know. So that they also try their best to resolve their payment issues. With a good subscription management software, you can also automate these notifications so they are sent to customers on set intervals.

Self-service portals for card updates

A failed transaction shouldn’t mean the end of subscription. Especially when it’s caused by card expiration. Platforms like SubscriptionFlow give your customers self-service portals where they can update their expired cards. In case their card issues persist, they can also easily switch to alternative payment methods.

Multiple payment methods

Offer many payment methods at checkout so customers can choose one that works the most smoothly for them. It’s a good strategy to minimize chances of payment failure early on.

Flexible Billing Models Supplement Brands Need

Recurring billing for supplements requires multiple models as customers have varying demands. Successful businesses offer a variety of billing models so that they have something for each consumer.

Monthly and quarterly subscription plans

Not all customers need supplements on a monthly basis. Some may prefer quarterly cycles if their consumption is lesser. Therefore, it’s a good practice to offer both types of subscriptions and then bill each customer on a monthly or quarterly basis. Subscription billing platforms segment customers based on their plan and then assign accurate charges to each of them.

Prepaid wellness programs

Customers sometimes like to opt for prepaid plans where they pay in advance for a quarter, six months or an entire year. By doing this, they don’t have to worry about repeat payments and smoothly receive deliveries on a monthly basis.

Businesses often offer prepaid plans on discounted prices to lock in customer commitment early. It also helps them secure revenue early so they don’t need to worry about payment failures later on.

Build-a-box supplement bundles

You can also let customers build their own supplement boxes. They then subscribe to the box they create, and receive the exact same items in it every month. This improves subscription flexibility, letting customers have everything they want together.

Add-ons and upsells

It’s also a good practice to allow add-on purchases. For example, if a customer is subscribed to a certain supplement, they can purchase wellness kits or vitamin gummies as add-ons once in a while too. This gives them the freedom to buy products other than their subscription without having to subscribe to them as well.

If they try a product and like it, they’re likely to subscribe to it too, or include it in their bundle, aiding upsells.

The Role of Checkout Experience in Subscription Conversion

Your checkout process plays a major role in determining whether a consumer would subscribe to your supplements or not.

Frictionless checkout for higher conversions

Checkouts or payment pages need to be frictionless because even small inefficiencies here can lead to abandoned carts and failed signups. To make checkout easier to complete, businesses need to make it concise so that customers don’t have to fill in lengthy forms or give unnecessary information.

Checkouts must also be mobile optimized as most customers use their mobile phones for convenient purchases. Opt for a good subscription billing platform for optimized checkout processes.

Embedded vs hosted checkout

Embedded checkouts are those that are built in your website or online store. When customers opt for payment on an embedded checkout, they aren’t redirected to an external payment page. They remain within your branded zone and make payments on a trusted website.

On the contrary, hosted payment pages compel customers to redirect to external websites that may create trust issues. Hosted checkouts also have their own benefits, such as higher customizability, so their use depends upon your business strategy and choice of payment gateway.

Multiple currency and payment options

Global wellness subscription payments need multiple currency and payment options. These options are necessary to localize payments for international consumers, so that they can pay using the method they trust, and in the currency they’re familiar with. So equipping checkout with these options is a must for increasing supplement sales globally.

Why Supplement Businesses Need Both Payment Processing & Subscription Management

When subscriptions enter the picture, payment processing alone doesn’t help businesses. You need a payment processing system that also offers subscription management, so that you get both these capabilities in one platform.

Subscription lifecycle automation

Only a subscription management software can truly look after subscriptions effectively. Otherwise, it’s not possible for you to give each subscription cycle the same attention manually, especially when you’re handling many at once.

A dedicated system automatically renews plans, adjusts plan changes and charges, handles pauses and cancellations and manages reactivations. Your subscribers’ requests get fulfilled without delay.

Customer self-service reduces churn

A subscription management platform also gives your subscribers self-service portals. From these portals, they can control their subscription settings. An important setting is the subscription pause button. Whenever your customers don’t want new supplement deliveries, they can simply pause their plan. So this gives them an alternative route to cancellation, reducing churn.

Real-time billing visibility

Through this platform, you also get real-time visibility into your subscription payment processing. You can see which charges are successful and which have been declined, the overall payment success and failure rate, each customer’s lifetime value and subscription status, billing histories and upcoming renewal dates. So you get a holistic overview of your payment performance and revenue growth.

How SubscriptionFlow Supports Smooth Supplement Payment Processing

SubscriptionFlow is the answer to many of your subscription payment processing woes. It not only supports high-risk payment processing that is a requirement for your business, but also helps with subscription management, offering you a truly all-in-one solution.

Support for high-risk payments & multiple gateways

SubscriptionFlow connects you with gateways that are known for supporting high-risk payments. Examples include NMI and Authorize.Net. You can integrate your payment pages with more than one gateway at once so that payments are redirected to backup gateways if they fail through your primary. It also improves your overall payment success rate, making your supplement deliveries much smoother.

Payment automation and recovery

Recurring supplement payments are not only automatic, but also get retried automatically. There’s no need for you to worry about failures.

Flexible subscription plans and bundles

You can offer as many plans as you like, and assign custom billing frequencies to them. SubscriptionFlow also supports supplement bundling, letting customers create custom supplement boxes at checkout and calculating their charges in real-time.

Scalable payment infrastructure for wellness brands

Wellness brands can rely on this software to grow across countries, as they get full international payment support.

So what are you waiting for? Turn your one-time supplement payments into healthy recurring revenue rails with SubscriptionFlow. Book a demo to get started today.