Learning how to start a subscription box business is a way to regularly acquire new customers and cash flow while selling quality products.
A Statista survey found that consumers spent over $289 monthly on subscription boxes.
What is a subscription box anyway?
A subscription box is a boxed collection of different types of products — such as books, clothes, food, and beauty products — which customers receive on a regular basis.
Several ecommerce brands as well as beauty bloggers have successful subscription box businesses.
Once potential customers sign up or renew their monthly subscriptions, they can enjoy the thrilling unboxing experience that comes with this business model.
If you want to take part in this business model, keep reading to learn how to get started.
How To Get Your Product in a Subscription Box
- Do product research.
- Find a subscription box supplier.
- Price your subscription box products.
- Build a website.
- Implement a marketing strategy.
- Streamline customer orders and get feedback.
- Expand your customer base.
As a small business owner looking to start a subscription box, there are specific steps you must take to increase your customer lifetime value, expand your profit margin, and grow your business.
Here are the top seven actions to take to start your own subscription box company:
1. Do Product Research
Learning how to start a subscription box business requires that you first conduct product research.
You should ensure that your product research is in-depth and involves the necessary procedures to develop a great subscription box idea.
Your research should include:
- Niche finding: For a result-driven subscription model, don’t just promote anything. Be specific with your business idea. Figure out what niche is profitable and aligns with your goals.
- Product research: After choosing a niche, research the niche-specific product you want to promote. Find out its in-demand ratio, keyword factors, and where to buy it.
- Competitive analysis: Research your competitors — their numbers, strengths, weaknesses, and content marketing strategy — to gain insight into your industry and stand out.
- Customer research: Perform market research to find out who your target customers are. Research details such as their age range, income level, and favorite social media platforms.
2. Find a Reliable Supplier
Finding a supplier, which refers to product sourcing, is crucial to start a subscription box business model.
There are various supplier categories like:
- Makers: This is a great box idea you can use to deliver one-of-a-kind surprises to your subscribers. For example, you could request unique hand-made or painted items for the curation and promotion of art.
- Wholesalers: If you sell major brand products repetitively, this is a good choice. Wholesalers sell products in bulk at reasonably discounted rates.
- Retailers: They are the commonest suppliers for subscription box products. They deliver products to physical and ecommerce platforms at discounted prices.
Having a supplier is essential for customer acquisition and sustained subscription. However, we suggest choosing many reliable suppliers so nothing disrupts your supply chain.
3. Price Your Subscription Box Products
Avoid mispricing your products. To start a subscription box business, you must do product research to price your subscription box products correctly — not too low or too high.
Consider these upfront costs and factors when pricing your subscription box:
- The cost of your subscription box products
- Shipping costs
- Fulfillment costs
- Cost of packaging materials
- Advertisement costs
- Platform’s transaction fees
You can also send out questionnaires to your target audience to get their opinions about pricing, then select the one that works best for your business.
4. Build a Website
You need a well-designed website to start a subscription box. It is where you direct potential customers to, from your social media pages and ads.
While hiring a web design professional can take time, it is now easy to build a custom website in no time.
Nexcess empowers you with various design templates, plugins, and integrations to set up an intuitive subscription box website in minutes.
5. Implement a Marketing Strategy
Building a marketing strategy is essential when you choose to start a subscription box. You don’t want to set up everything a customer needs only to worry about getting clients in the first place.
Set up different promotion tactics while learning how to start a subscription box. These may include:
- Social media marketing
- Influencer marketing
- Content marketing
- Paid advertising
- Email marketing
Market your prototype box even before you start a subscription box. That way, you’ll keep prospective subscribers informed about the kind of products they will receive.
Ensure you plan your pre-launch — creating awareness for your subscription box — effectively to help you collect subscribers and generate buzz for your upcoming launch.
Use your product research and marketing strategy ideas to build a solid business plan.
6. Streamline Customer Orders and Feedback
When your online store has a subscription box model, you have to deliver items to your customers on the set schedule.
Ensure that you do the following to impress and retain your subscribers:
- Streamline your subscription box workflow
- Track customer orders
- Deliver top-quality products on time
- Ask for feedback
That will not only reduce the churn rate of your subscription box business but will increase the retention rate and help you build a loyal customer base.
7. Expand Your Subscriber Base
Customer acquisition is another important factor when learning how to start a subscription box.
To acquire new subscribers, use tactics like:
- Word-of-mouth marketing
- Adverts
- Referrals
- Customer testimonials and feedback
- Social media network
Final Thoughts: How to Start a Subscription Box In 7 Actionable Steps
There are loads of opportunities — like recurring revenue and a loyal customer base — when you decide to start a subscription box business.
To effectively launch your subscription box, follow our seven-step guide above to start a subscription box business model.
Consider fully managed WordPress hosting from Nexcess. It’s optimized for WordPress, and smart monitoring tools are built-in to help you keep it that way.
Check out our WordPress plans to get started today.
