Subscription product service – are we ready to make our life easier? Subscription products: how they increase profits and store LTV Subscription services.

The practice of signing up for monthly mailings of themed boxes filled with cool gifts was started by Birchbox in 2010. When the company developed a similar offer for men, they gained more than 800,000 subscribers worldwide, and their annual income exceeded $96,000,000.

There are now more than 600 similar Birchbox services in the United States. Even such retail giants as Walmart, CVS Pharmacy, Amazon Lancome are exploring the market of mailing gift sets. It's very simple: the client pays a monthly subscription cost (which varies depending on the service from a couple of dollars to several hundred) and fills out a questionnaire about his preferences. After this, he regularly receives packages of goods directly to his doorstep.

In Russia and the CIS you can also find similar services, and one of the representatives is LootBox, Kinobox, L'Etoile Box and others. And although this practice is not very widespread here yet, why not take it as an idea for lead generation, increasing sales or increasing brand loyalty?

Today we will look at 21 examples of the most interesting gift sets, but first, a little about why it works:

1. Targeting

Whether you're a chocolate lover, a wine connoisseur, or a comic book fan, there's a subscription you're looking for. Most offers are designed for narrow interests.

2. Curiosity

The subscriber provides information about his tastes and preferences, but he never fully knows what products he will receive in the box. Thus, each package is a secret. Through anticipation and curiosity, the satisfaction of receiving monthly gifts increases significantly.

3. Price and convenience

This is perhaps the main factor for most brands. In addition to the fact that subscribers receive gift boxes directly to their homes, they pay very little money for it. For example, Birchbox offers 5 samples of the latest products for just $10 for women and $20 for men.

4. Delight

The consumer's delight when opening the box is, of course, the secret to the success of this business. If you can turn something ordinary, routine (like going to the store) into an unforgettable, unique experience, people will not only pay for it, but also recommend your services to their friends.

So, we offer you 21 examples of bright subscription offers that are difficult to refuse.

1.

“Received a wonderful gift in the mail from @trytheworld. I found a note in which the creators expressed the hope that I would like their box. I really like it, but even more is the fact that all the products are from Portugal. My friends and I celebrated my birthday in Portugal a few years ago, so I felt nostalgic.”

If you're looking for a culinary gift, Try The World is perfect. The newsletter delivers gourmet snacks, drinks, and ingredients straight to your doorstep at a relatively low cost: Snack Boxes for $19 per month; buffets - for $29.99; designer sets for $39.99.

2.

The Club W set includes three bottles of wine starting at $13 per bottle ($39 total). Delivery costs $6. The company works directly with wine producers, which allows us to significantly reduce the price.

Through its App Store app, Club W allows customers to specify which wines they don't like.

3.

"April Delivery NicelyNoted."

NicelyNoted is perfect for philatelists and postal stationery lovers. For $20 a month, the company sends customers three unique postcards and stamps.

4.

“I love everything I received in the winter gift box! The body butter and candles smell divine. If you're also thinking about signing up, use the code "GETTINFIT" for a $10 discount."

Unlike other mailings, FabFitFun sends kits 4 times a year. For $50 (or $180 for the whole year), the company sends everything you need to preserve your beauty and maintain your figure!

5.

“My sister spoiled me with a gift from Blue Apron. So simple, tasty and fast...”

The Blue Apron kit contains interesting recipes and ingredients that make enough for four servings. The company already has more than 100,000 subscribers.

6.

“Last year, BirchBox services became available in Canada. Say hello to Canadian followers who will be joining us with our new Instagram account...”

It all started with BirchBox. As we noted earlier, the company offers 5 samples for women and 4 samples for men in its beauty box for $10 and $20, respectively.

7.

Representative of the Russian gift packaging market. True Coffee Roasters roasts different types of coffee beans three times a week and delivers them to customers. You can choose your favorite varieties.

8.

“Poppy received his first BarkBox. It contains chewable snacks and toys, including a cute apron. You can get a free month when you pay for an annual or semi-annual newsletter.”

BarkBox will give your little friend a gift of healthy items and toys for just $19 per month.

9. Graze

“Happy National Mix Day, friends! Celebrate with us by sharing your photos with #graze.”

For $11.99 (first shipment free) you get 8 healthy snacks like nuts, dried fruit, chips and candy bars.

The packaging is secure and fully recyclable. When you use a special code, a portion of the proceeds goes to a farming school in Uganda where people learn how to grow plants.

10.

“Luxurious gift wrapping from CohocoCurb is the perfect gift! The products in it are simply magical!”

ChocoCurb will delight all chocolate lovers with three subscription options. Depending on the size, boxes can cost $10, $20, $35 dollars per month.

11.

“Mmm... Cookies from Cravory, my favorite! The most delicious birthday gift."

The company sends out new types of cookies once a month. There are 3 subscription options: 6, 13 or 23 pieces per box. Starting price: $6.

12.

"This month's Taste Trunk is amazing."

Depending on the category you choose (gourmet, sweet, healthy, BBQ, or sample), Taste Trunk will send you matching treats once a month ranging in price from $39.99 to $99.99. If it's expensive, you can order a single package for $49.99.

13.

Service for the delivery of vaping liquids in Russia. Depending on the number of bottles, the price varies from 1600 to 3600 rubles. You can sign up to receive packages every two weeks or once monthly.

14.

“The triumph of quality over quantity. The Joker figure is my favorite!”

For just $19.95 a month, Loot Crate will provide you with an epic selection of pop culture paraphernalia: clothes, gadgets, toys and more. According to the creators, "it's Comic-Con in a box."

15.

“Use three emojis to describe how much you love candy!”

As the name suggests, Candy Club offers sweet treats from famous brands like Haribo and Sour Power. Price – from $19.99 per month.

16.

Dana's Bakery offers a package of pasta flavors for $30.00 per month. French treats are always delivered fresh and gluten-free.

Vladimir MOKHTE, founder:

There are four major players in the wet shaving market: Gillette, Bic, Dorco and Schick. The pricing policy of the most popular of them, Gillette, is that the machine is inexpensive, but you have to pay more and more each time for replacement cartridges.

In January 2013, the idea arose to enter into a contract with Dorco, where I work, for the supply of no-brand machines and blades for a new service. This is how “Simply Razor Club” appeared. We sell the same Dorco razors made in South Korea, but much cheaper - due to the fact that they do not have a brand.

A two-month subscription to our most expensive kit will cost 380 rubles. For this money, the courier will deliver the machine and four replacement cartridges to your home (a man who shaves every other day needs to change the cartridge twice a month). Buying Gillette Fusion blades of similar quality will cost approximately 600 rubles.

The project launched in mid-June. Today we have 300 regular subscribers and another 100 people who signed up for a one-time subscription to test the product. The plan is to send SMS reminders to members of our community every two weeks: “Dear Igor, your cartridge is probably dull, replace it, or you risk going to work with a swollen face.”

Price

from 150 to 190 rubles
per month

My team and I spent four months launching the project and invested more than 500,000 rubles from our own funds. On October 1, the selection of projects for the accelerator of the Internet Initiatives Development Fund was completed. Based on its results
50 projects, including “Simply Razor Club”, will receive investments in the amount of one million rubles, mentoring support and premises. Each company was given a goal. If it is achieved within three months, the investment will continue. According to the terms of our agreement with IIDF, during the program we must increase the number of active participants in our Club several times (under the terms of the agreement, the KPI value is not subject to disclosure. - Note H&F).

For now, the only way to monetize the project is to subscribe to razors. The plans include the delivery, along with machines, of bonuses from our advertising partners. These will be samples of products necessary for shaving: gels, foams, lotions.

According to the business plan, we will reach self-sufficiency in six months, and profit in 10-12 months. After the New Year we plan to add women's razors. In the next round of investment we will add gels and shaving foams - also no brand.

Subscription assumes high customer loyalty, that is, you don’t have to worry about seasonality in demand. This means that revenue and sales growth can be easily predicted. 90% of customers who subscribe to our razors renew it.

"Pet without hassle"

Alexey ALEXANDROV, Founder

I am the owner of a Chihuahua puppy. Due to my busy work schedule, I did not always have time, and sometimes even forgot, to buy food for my pet. My dog ​​eats the same food. It is not sold at Perekrestok or Auchan. It is only available in a specialized store, and you are often too lazy or don’t have time to go there. Understanding that I am not the only one facing this problem prompted me to create the “Hassle-Free Pet” service. I gathered a team of like-minded people, and at the end of spring of this year we launched. 60,000 rubles were enough to create a website and purchase the first batch of feed.

First, we tested the idea on friends. We looked at how often they would order food. We started with a fixed delivery once a month, but realized that such a strict framework is not suitable for everyone. Even for the same buyer, the frequency of orders is not always the same. This forced us to create a special calculator on the website, which, taking into account all the data, will calculate how often you need to buy food. This technology is currently being refined. Ideally, we want to have a tool that will allow us to send reminders to subscribers just when the food is about to run out.

Price

from 1,000 rubles
per month
+ delivery

We hope that online sellers understand that food is a product that pet owners constantly need. Every month a person is forced to buy it. The question is, will he do it in your store?
or go to another

So far we are not working directly with feed suppliers: there are not many orders. We have agreed with several large pet stores. They sell us part of their goods at a price slightly higher than the purchase price.

Delivery is currently only available within the Moscow Ring Road. The cost is fixed - 150 rubles. We deliver food to our subscribers ourselves. We want to personally ask everyone what they like and what they don’t. We have 27 regular customers. About 50 more make trial orders every month, come and go.

You can continue to develop this project, or you can optimize the subscription process, set up the calculator and sell this service to large online stores as a finished product. We hope that online sellers understand that food is a product that pet owners constantly need. Every month a person is forced to buy it. The question is whether he will do it in your store or go to another. Subscription allows you to retain the client. We can provide a service that will help establish long-term relationships with customers.

"Two palms"

Natalya REVIAKINA, Founder:

“Two Palms” is a box of educational materials for children that comes to your home every month. The creation of the project was inspired by a similar subscription service in America - BabbaBox. We adapted the box to Russian realities and sent the product to the first subscribers in September 2012. Investments in the project since its launch amounted to a million rubles. Each “Two Palms” box contains four directions: study (methodological, developmental material), read (a book), create (three projects that the child must do with his own hands) and play. Each month the box has a different theme. In October there were dinosaurs, before that there were sports and insects.

The things we send to our subscribers can't just go out and buy in a store. For the very first box, we came up with such a thing as an ocean of jelly. We bought jelly, semolina, shells, small figurines of sea creatures, a special container, packaged it in boxes, included instructions on how to make a toy ocean, and sent it to the children.

Price

1,399 rubles per month

For each box there is a manual written by psychologists. You can just get a deck of cards
with fish - and what next? our Instructions offer about six games for development

For each box, taking into account the material presented in it, a training manual is prepared, which is written by our psychologists. You can just get a deck of cards with fish - and then what? The instructions offer about six educational games. In principle, these are well-known techniques. But you have to spend a lot of time to find them. Subscription commerce works in our case because everything was collected for you and the product was delivered on a turnkey basis.

At the moment, the main problem for us is the lack of a payment system that would allow us to withdraw from the subscriber not the entire amount for the subscription at once, but equal shares every month. Agree, there is a difference: shell out 4,000 rubles for three months or pay 1,399 rubles every month.

In 2013 we plan to sell 2,000 boxes. For now, the project is monetized only through subscriptions. In the future, we could be a good channel for toy suppliers and book publishers. This month we received investments in the amount of a million rubles from the IIDF. In the next three months we will work with a mentor -.

GLAMBOX

Nikolay POTYLITSYN, Founder:

I visit friends in America very often. One day I saw a BirchBox with cosmetic samples. I immediately realized that the idea could be in demand in Russia. Returning home, I quit my job at the bank, found a partner who invested $200,000 in the project, and while the programmers were creating the GlamBox website, I began negotiations with brand managers of the largest cosmetic distributors. The hardest part was convincing them to give me promotional materials for free. A small bottle of perfume on the way from Europe to Russia rises in price from 1 to 5 euros. Giving away even a few hundred, still unclear what the return will be, is a dubious undertaking. Over time, I figured out how to persuade brand managers to meet by phone: you need to call, quickly, in one breath, talk about the project and, without giving the interlocutor time to come to his senses and ask questions, schedule a meeting.

It was important to conclude an agreement with one distributor. The rest began to join in as soon as they found out what their competitors were doing. Some managers, mostly young girls interested in everything that happens in the field of cosmetics abroad, knew about the existence of similar box services, and it was easier to negotiate with them.

A year after the launch, our business was neither shaky nor slow. 3,000 boxes per month did not even allow us to break even. In August 2012, friends from Condé Nast told me that a beauty magazine, Allure, was being launched in Russia. I understood how mutually beneficial our cooperation could be: by that time we had formed around us a certain audience that the new publication needed. They, in turn, could provide us with free advertising. In February 2013, our boxes changed their design and were announced for the first time as Allure sample society boxes. After that, many brands came to us interested in free advertising in the glossy magazine.

Price

599 rubles
per month

The standard set consists of six miniatures: hand, face, body, hair, decorative cosmetics and fragrance. This way, brand products do not compete with each other within the same box

After receiving samples from cosmetic chains, 7-10% of customers make a purchase. At the same time, more than 20% of recipients of samples in a box buy tested cosmetics. We know about this thanks to discount coupons with special barcodes that we attach to a particular product. This is how brands see the impact of the project.

We now have 8,000 regular subscribers to standard Allure sample society boxes. Additionally, every month we release limited editions: ManBox for men, SlimBox for weight loss, TravelBox for travel, Greenbox eco-cosmetics, and every three months we present mono-brand boxes. As a result, about 10,000 boxes are produced per month.

The standard set always consists of six miniatures: fragrance, hand, face, body, hair, and decorative cosmetics. This way, products from different brands do not compete with each other within the same box. We work only with samples of luxury cosmetics (the average price per product is above 1,200 rubles). Mass product brands are actively trying to establish relationships with us, but for now my plans do not include investing their products in GlamBox.

In April 2013, a year and nine months later, we recouped the investment and became profitable. Already now I can say in advance what will be in my boxes in 2014. Companies include a separate expense item in their annual budget for samples for GlamBox. There are currently 10 people working on the project with me. However, I alone negotiate with all 96 brands that we represent. I can't trust anyone with this.

"Local food"

Anastasia Kolesnikova, Founder:

At the end of 2012, my friends and I wanted to create a “Local Food” festival for local producers - something like a show twice a year. Even then we began to look for sponsors and partners for this project. The idea of ​​the festival remained an idea. But our connections with local producers grew into a project to subscribe to the “Local Food” box. We differ from the farmer's basket under the LavkaLavka subscription in that our client never knows in advance what will be in the box. From the 1st to the 20th of each month we accept applications, and deliver the boxes the following week. This is a great promotion for producers.

Each box contains eight products from different suppliers. We do not put foreign products in a box and try not to repeat ourselves.

Price

2,500 rubles
per month

Checks all box components
sanitary service. Participation in our project is free for suppliers,
Moreover, our manufacturers
we give money for products

All components of the box are checked by the sanitary service. In addition to the quality of the product, its packaging is very important to us. Participation in our project is free for suppliers. Moreover, we give money to our manufacturers for products (at least their cost).

At the moment we have about 50 regular subscribers, one box costs 2,500 rubles. To reach a new level of income, we need to refocus on corporate orders, since the increase in private subscribers proportionally increases the cost of logistics.

Text: Regina Ader

-> Trade, services, transport

Subscription products - how to start a million-dollar business

Has it ever occurred to you that you can subscribe to more than just newspapers and magazines?

What can you say about product subscription everyday demand as a business idea? They, these simplest, daily used goods, are no less necessary than spiritual food and we need them constantly.

There has been such a project on the bourgeois Internet for several years now - BlackSocks.com (literally: “Black Socks”), which sells and delivers black socks for men by subscription.

What's the salt in this? Everything is very simple and practical. Men always wear socks, that's a fact. And they, of course, regularly fail. It is inevitable that you have to periodically go to the store for new socks. This, of course, takes time. And the Black Socks website positions its services as time-saving (according to the creators, their service helps save 12 hours a year on buying socks).

He accepts annual payment from subscriber customers for a shipment of 9 pairs of socks and delivers these socks to them 3 times, 3 pairs each, throughout the year. Moreover, interestingly, it is delivered by regular mail (fortunately, the socks fit into a regular envelope) and the recipient does not even need to go to the post office to get them - the socks will be in his mailbox.

Funny, original and very practical!

2 years after entering the market in the United States (initially, black socks were distributed by subscription only in Europe), the guys from BlackSocks.com began sell by subscription and other goods - panties, T-shirts, tank tops and toiletries for shaving and washing.

In 2009, the company sold $5 million worth of socks and related products this way! Today she has 60,000 socks followers in 74 countries.

What is the secret of success and why are men's products chosen for this type of business?

Firstly, men, as a rule, are not picky about their underwear (color, style, pattern do not matter much here, and the traditional black color for men's socks is an eternal classic).

Secondly, for single men, such a service is a real salvation (men do not like to go shopping, especially for socks; however, one should not allow a situation where one day it turns out that all the socks are worn out and one has to go to work in socks with holes !).

Thirdly, business men, of course, are pleased to know that they are saving their time.

This method of selling is also good because once an attracted buyer can become a regular customer (after all, he will need socks the next year), to whom, in addition to socks, you can offer a wide range of other “men’s” products.

I can’t say whether such a business in its pure form is capable of taking root in Russia. But considering that we have no less men, and among them there are a lot of busy people who clearly don’t have time to go to the store to buy socks, we can offer such a service. I know some men who don't wash their socks at all. They wear them until they become unbearable, and then simply buy new ones - so as not to wash them. This is how you can send a new pair every week.

And now the actual idea for a small business.

By and large, similar delivery subscription products You can organize not only via the Internet, but also in your city. After all, every family regularly buys soap, toothpaste, washing powder, toilet paper, dishwashing detergent, etc. in stores. etc.

You can simply enter into agreements with wholesale stores. Collect orders from clients for a year in advance, purchase goods in bulk at a discount - and once a week (for example, on Saturdays) deliver the goods to the homes of subscriber clients yourself or using the services of a courier service.

Costs are minimal, no office required. And people get used to comfort very quickly (in other words, it’s enough to simply tie a client to you).

In a similar way, it is possible to organize, for example, the delivery of stationery, paper, and printer cartridges, not only to ordinary citizens, but also to small companies. After all, the expression “time is money” is true for everyone. Especially for busy and business people.

Subscription business: how to make money with subscription commerce in Russia

Classmates

Are Russians ready to buy in boxes instead of carts?

In the summer, trading giant Unilever sold the American subscription service for disposable razors, Dollar Shave Club, for $1 billion. This became one of the most high-profile deals of the year. Many were perplexed by the amount of the deal and how a startup without breakthrough technology managed to become a unicorn.

In developed markets, shopping quickly becomes an annoying chore. It's especially difficult to enjoy shopping in the midst of New Year's hysteria. It is becoming increasingly difficult to choose from a growing selection. It’s not for nothing that psychologists say that a person’s ability to make decisions is limited. Mark Zuckerberg wears matching gray T-shirts with blue jeans to free up his time and brain power for business.

In the West, business on lazy and tired customers is growing rapidly. They have long been accustomed to subscribing to everyday goods - razors, socks, cosmetics. Subscription retailers do not offer anything new and at the same time reinvent familiar things, because the main product of the future is saving time.

There are two types of subscription services:

1) subscription to so-called “consumables” - everyday goods, the need for which appears regularly (food, animal feed, hygiene products);

2) regular deliveries of new products to try, which help you stay on trend without spending your weekend in shopping centers (for example, beauty boxes - sets with samples of new cosmetic products).

The attractiveness of the subscription model lies in the low entry threshold and predictable regular demand. “A subscriber to American BirchBox beauty boxes brings in three times more money than an ordinary buyer,” argues Andrey Lapin, founder of the subscription sales service Fixti.me.

How the subscription model is developing in Russia

The Russian average person associates the subscription model with Soviet paper newspapers and magazines. Young people are no longer familiar with this practice. Domestic startups are persistently trying to transfer successful Western projects to Russian soil. In Russia, subscription startups began to appear en masse in 2012-2013. Then the old-timers of subscription retail launched. Subscription services for razors “Simply Razor Club” and subscriptions for toys “Two Palms” participated in the first set of the IIDF accelerator and received $25 thousand in pre-seed investments.

“We have only recently come to consumption with economies of scale: you go to Auchan and immediately buy a box of milk cartons, which is cheaper per piece,” says Vladimir Mokhte, founder of the Simply Razor Club. - Subscription purchases are the next stage in the development of consumer thinking. Convenience and brand savings come to the fore.”

A fairly low entry threshold has served domestic startups a disservice. Many subscription startups have closed. Sock services (RIP Moinoski.ru, Luxurysocks.ru, “2 socks”, Dostavkanoskov.ru, men’s sets MuzhchineNado.rf) and services for dog lovers (RIP “GavBox”, BroBox) are especially unlucky. Selective perfumery service closed The Parfumist, fruit delivery service Fruktier, grocery delivery service Kumin and others.

“Before my eyes, several projects opened and closed that offered a subscription to a surprise box without a clear description of the product, counting on people’s love for surprises,” recalls Anna Gorodetskaya, co-founder of the Trusbox lingerie subscription service. - We also wanted to try this model. Then they carefully calculated everything and did not start. As we can see, it’s not in vain.” Consumers are afraid that they will not like all the products in the set. And sellers need to constantly look for new suppliers to diversify the range of their boxes.

“There are about a hundred Russian subscription projects on my monitoring list, twenty of which were closed in a year,” states Andrey Lapin from Fixti.me. “Mostly socks, cosmetics, coffee.”

Despite the crisis, every year there are new subscription startups in Russia. Many companies are developing subscriptions in addition to traditional sales. For example, the farmer's cooperative LavkaLavka offers to subscribe to baskets with farm products, and the online store "Planet of Tights" offers regular delivery of tights.

Other projects that were initially launched as subscriptions are experimenting with the business model. For example, the Trusbox service launched its own collection of underwear and the possibility of one-time delivery. Startup Bimbasket, which sells educational kits for children, has moved from the classic card-linked model to limited-term subscriptions (three, six and 12 months).

There are no public assessments of the Russian subscription segment. Rusbase’s interlocutors agree that all subscription services make less than five percent of total online sales. This is several hundred million rubles out of the trillion that Data Insight analysts recently estimated domestic e-commerce at.

And yet, the box segment in Russia has grown to the emergence of a marketplace for subscription services - Allboxes. There are currently 171 projects presented on the aggregator site, although there are clearly more offers on the market.

What subscription services are there in Russia?

Educational sets for children (Bimbasket, AistBox, sets for chemical experiments MEL Science);
- food and products for pets ( "Pet without hassle", “Feed the Beast”);
- razors (“Just a razor club”);
- underwear (Trusbox);
- coffee (“Roasting coffee”, Coffeetrue, cooperative “Black”);
- sets of cosmetics and perfumes - so-called beauty boxes (Sample Society, Ellebox, Expert Box);
- probe sets (Proberry);
- kits for cooking according to recipes (“Chefmarket”, Elementary, “Tastier at Home”, “Food Party”, “Cook at Home”);
- sets of farm products (“Local food”, LavkaLavka);
- women's clothing (DressBook, Warderobe);
- honey (Hello, Honey);
- chocolate (Chocolo);
- fruits (“Fruit mail”, Soyuzfrukttorg, Fruitkultur, GetFruit.me);
- flowers (Germen);
- wine (Invisible);
- socks (Sockster);
- jams (Zaklan);
and others.

What products can be sold by subscription?

According to entrepreneurs who have already built their businesses on subscriptions, this model works best for products that:

1) they are purchased regularly and run out quickly, so the consumer wants to shift the routine onto the shoulders of the store;

2) are monotonous and familiar to people, so they don’t need to run to the store to check whether the purchase is suitable or not;

3) they are not too expensive so that the buyer is not afraid to try new things.

“An excellent example of what products may be in demand is a subscription to food and consumables for animals,” Anna Gorodetskaya from Trusbox gives an example. “Your cat doesn’t need variety, and the food and litter are too heavy to go to the store yourself.” Bimbasket CEO Victoria Pavlova adds that services with an average bill of less than three thousand rubles will do best.

“Half of the goods and services we consume fall under these criteria,” notes Andrey Lapin from Fixti.me. - Over time, people will massively subscribe to water, household chemicals, animal feed, etc. The founder of the service for organizing subscription sales Zuora Tian Tsuo said that a subscription is suitable for absolutely any business, the question is to adapt it to specific conditions.”

Famous beauty blogger Elena Krygina successfully sells cosmetics sample sets to her subscribers

Problems of subscription commerce in Russia

So far, Russian subscription projects are far from the success of their Western counterparts. The biggest hindrance is the different mentality of buyers and logistics problems. Russians are less inclined to plan a budget and are reluctant to agree to a long-term subscription, explains Rodion Repin, CEO of the Feed the Beast food delivery service for cats and dogs.

American consumers are accustomed to linking a bank card to services so that money is debited automatically. Russians view this practice with distrust. Domestic entrepreneurs are forced to come up with compromise schemes that give clients more freedom. For example, the supplier of food packages “Party of Food” pays in cash through a courier. “We often have to use hybrid models, when the client confirms each subsequent order,” says Rodion Repin.

Delivery for a subscription service is the cornerstone. Problems with it can negate the convenience of the subscription. Of course, Russian logistics is much inferior to Western ones - both in quality and in price. This makes subscription businesses difficult to scale. Now subscriptions work mainly in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Delivery to the regions is significantly more expensive, although purchasing power there is lower.

If in the USA boxes can simply be left at the door, then our entrepreneurs have to rack their brains over the “last mile”. According to Anna Gorodetskaya, Western customers are less demanding when it comes to delivery: they are willing to accept the lack of choice so as not to overpay for the opportunity to touch the product in an offline store. Russian consumers expect high quality delivery and choice at home.

Confirmation that everything ingenious is simple will be the business organization scheme for online stores discussed in this article. However, sites offering products according to a similar scheme can not even be called online stores, but rather services.

“Subscription commerce” or “subscription products” is the name in the West for a work model based on recurring sales and the formation of a permanent audience of buyers. This is beneficial both for the buyer, who saves time and money, and for the seller, who can be confident in advance of a certain volume of orders.

It is too early to talk about the success of this type of project on the RuNet, but the model itself looks very attractive. Now that you understand that the subscription business is not just newspapers and magazines, let's look at some interesting services that work according to this scheme.

"Just a razor club"

Website: shaveclub.ru

The service specializes exclusively in offering razor sets via subscription, the cost of which is 150, 180 and 210 rubles for razors with three, four and six blades, respectively. What’s interesting is that a club member receives no-brand machines, but their quality is at the level of the same famous brands. It’s just that the creators of the service managed to negotiate with manufacturers to supply their own products, but without the brand logo.

GlamBox

Website: glambox.ru

The creator of the service saw the idea of ​​boxed delivery of cosmetics sets in the USA and decided to try to implement it in Russia. The most difficult thing, he said, was reaching an agreement with the managers of large cosmetic distributors. But as soon as we managed to establish cooperation with several of them, the rest followed suit.

A year after its launch, GlamBox began collaborating with women's magazine Allure, allowing both startups to grow through mutually beneficial growth. The standard set consists of samples for different purposes, which allows brands not to compete with each other.

Coffetrue

Website: coffeetrue.ru

One of the products that is in constant demand is coffee, familiar to everyone and loved by millions. Selling coffee beans by subscription is a promising topic, which the creators of Coffetrue apparently understood. The peculiarity of their approach is to offer a limited number of varieties, but at significantly reduced prices for customers and with a guarantee of quality.

Subscription products are clearly a promising area of ​​business, so the services we have listed are only a part of those that are currently on the market. In addition to these, there are examples of selling food, socks, underwear, pet food and other products.

An interesting point is that in Russia, business using this model is just beginning to develop, which means the entry threshold for new participants is relatively low. Such services have a great future, so think about it: perhaps this is exactly the type of business that you yourself would like to do.