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What is scale? In computing, scale is the ability of a system to handle an increasing amount of work without a decline in performance. In the context of your businesses, scale refers to the ability to grow revenue and customer base without a corresponding increase in costs. But what does...
Successful subscriber acquisition means you have figured out which acquisition channels produce the most high-value subscribers for your business–an accomplishment that every recurring revenue business strives to achieve. To reach this state, a subscription brand must understand what attracts consumers to their business–is it the promotional offers? The free trial?...
The subscription economy continues to bloom–and as the industry thrives, the competition becomes more challenging every day. Understanding what it takes to sustainably accelerate subscriber and business growth is key to setting your business apart. How can your brand stand out and become an industry leader? At Recurly, we are...
Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to transform the ecommerce industry, and subscriptions aren’t an exception. With new technologies come new challenges, and business owners must understand how to incorporate AI into their current strategy and product offerings. In this article, we’ll share everything you need to know about artificial intelligence and...
According to Checkout.com, 56% of consumers would be “permanently put off shopping on a site” if they couldn’t use their preferred payment method. Without a doubt, payments play a large role in conversions of new subscriptions and renewals alike. The payment methods and currencies available at checkout help consumers...
Now more than ever, consumers crave experiences and products that are catered to their preferences. They want to be able to customize everything from the product or service to payment methods to the frequency at which they receive their goods. In the subscription industry, there are innumerable opportunities to allow...
The subscription-based business model continues to rise in popularity, helping companies to find new revenue streams and cultivate long-term customer relationships. While economic pressures usually drive purchase decisions and customer behaviors, the demand for recurring products and services proves that subscriptions are the future of consumerism. In fact, the subscription...
Imagine this: A shopper wants to purchase your subscription, but it doesn’t happen because their preferred payment method isn’t available at checkout. Repeated instances of shopping cart abandonment can lead to significant revenue losses. For subscription businesses, this situation is compounded by the loss of the potential lifetime revenue that...
One of the most underrated but important aspects of the subscriber experience is the relationship you create with your subscribers. This year, an expertly-crafted subscriber experience maintains its position at the center of high customer satisfaction (which translates to high customer lifetime value), loyalty, and improved retention rates. If you’re...
From a product perspective, consumer preferences mean everything. With this kind of knowledge, you create a product or service that your ideal consumers truly want–and keep them loyal to your brand. And every year, consumer preferences change, and that is a weighty consideration for subscription businesses especially, whose goals include...
From the beginning, Recurly has helped its customers make sound strategy decisions, forecast financial performance, close books on time, and ensure financial accuracy. For more than a decade, we have worked with category-defining brands like Paramount+, BARK, Sprout Social, and Sling TV to grow their businesses successfully. As a...
The subscription industry has changed, and it will continue to evolve in response to the changing climate of the economy and subscriber preferences: Complexity in maturity: As the industry matures, competition, commoditization, and more factors arise that complicate the existing subscription infrastructure. Simple subscription plans have transformed into variable plans...
As we embark on another year of subscriptions, a fresh outlook on marketing is mandatory. Consumers are conducting their annual evaluations of their subscriptions, and they are deciding if your subscription service is still worth the money. Whether you’re a streaming media subscription business or a SaaS recurring revenue service,...
General Manager of EMEA at Recurly Oscar Wall and Recuro Founder and CEO Jonas Åström sat down to share the latest in subscriber growth and revenue trends in 2023. Based in Stockholm, Recuro is a strategy consulting and growth marketing firm, focused exclusively on subscription-based companies. In the webinar,...
2023 is off to a great start in the land of subscriptions, especially with the announcement of our new partnership with Recuro, a Stockholm-based leading subscription business models consultancy. Combined with the technology and professional services of Recuro, Recurly will now be able to provide subscription businesses with the...
Customer insights are a powerful way to ensure a data-driven, subscriber-centric approach across your business. These insights result from thorough analysis and interpretation of valuable information in consumer interactions and channels. Download now: The State of Subscriptions report provides the acquisition, growth, churn, and payments insights you need to...
Led by Recurly’s CEO Dan Burkhart, CMO Theresa McEndree, and Director of Business Intelligence Brian Grier, the 2023 State of Subscriptions webinar unveils the biggest, most impactful findings in the subscription industry from the past year. With these discoveries, our in-house subscription experts have predicted the year to come:...
The subscription business model continues to experience major shifts in subscriber expectations and demands, the value of subscription services, and consumer experiences. Amid challenging times of macroeconomic uncertainty and the revaluation of subscriptions, brands must get ready to grow at the same pace as the industry–expected to top $1.5 trillion...
G2, a peer-to-peer review site for business software and services, has given accolades to Recurly in its Mid-Market Implementation and Usability Indexes for subscription revenue management for the winter 2023 period. Every quarter, G2 highlights top-rated industry solutions from customers themselves. Recurly has been ranked as the top-rated subscription...
Anticipating consumers’ needs has become the main goal for most subscription businesses, especially in challenging economic times. Quality, actionable subscriber insights are the most effective way to achieve it. The importance of subscriber insights analysis Consumer insights give you a deeper understanding of how your audience behaves and why–helping you...
The evolution of subscriptions leads us to a web of advancements. From digital wallets to omnichannel experiences, subscriptions are a sign of the changing times and consumer demands. Mobile apps are just one of the many avenues subscription businesses explore to sell their products and services. While having your subscription...
While Black Friday kicks off one of the biggest shopping holidays of the year, Cyber Monday is giving it a run for its money. The pandemic has given shoppers more reasons to stay home, and the fruits of this isolation are heavily evident in online shopping. Shoppers spent $10.7...
A genealogy website based in London, Findmypast is dedicated to finding family stories and bringing them to life. When it first started 65 years ago, Findmypast was solely dedicated to helping its customers locate records–a one-time, direct sales transaction. But as Findmypast grows and records have become digitized, the...
Every subscription business aims to build a strong subscriber base and turn their customers into brand ambassadors. Valuable subscribers aren’t necessarily the customers who spend the most. Profitable customers advocate on your behalf, share valuable feedback, and actively interact with your brand. When identifying your most profitable subscribers, apply the...
Acquisition is one of the most challenging strategies in subscriptions. How can businesses reinvent their offerings to beat the competition, subscriber demand shifts, and new buying behaviors? Many components create the ideal customer acquisition promotional toolkit. Free trials are one of them. This article will answer all your questions about...
When it comes to optimizing subscriber experience, your work is never really done. Subscription motivations and priorities are constantly changing; however, customer experience remains a top driver for revenue. Over 90% of consumers said they’d spend more money with businesses that offer streamlined experiences. Given the importance of customer...
Subscriber acquisition impacts your business and revenue growth, and it’s one of the most important and challenging strategies in subscriptions. Acquisition requires a deep understanding of your product, subscriber preferences and behavior, and consumer loyalty. This article will teach you the ideal subscriber acquisition strategy and how to optimize yours...
What started as standard royal entertainment via tapes and documentaries blossomed into a full-blown on-demand streaming service devoted to Royalty worldwide. In 2018, True Royalty TV started a direct-to-consumer play, eventually growing globally into six markets, with a major portion of its customer base in the U.S. The transition...
Subscriptions are a top driver of loyalty and revenue growth for brands looking to grow. However, there comes a time when consumers may consider canceling their subscriptions. In fact, 31% of U.S. consumers say they plan to cancel some subscription services this year–after 46% canceled a subscription due to...
In a recent survey about the impacts of the pandemic and the overall sentiment of U.S. subscribers, Recurly found that 87% of respondents have a subscription to at least one streaming video service and 46% have a subscription to at least one streaming audio service. The increasing ubiquity of...
Scentbird is a U.S.-based subscription service for perfumes and colognes. This niche box-of-the-month offers subscribers eight different scents of their choice every month, and as Andrei Rebrov, CTO of Scentbird, puts it: “Everything is very simple, but the devil is in the details. What are the special payment-related features of...
Customers canceling subscriptions are among the lesser desired situations for any subscription business. Contrary to what it may sound, providing an excellent cancellation experience fuels strong subscriber retention outcomes. This article covers why cancellation journeys are crucial in subscription models, along with some best practices for a stellar cancellation...
The pandemic has paved the way for consumer re-evaluation, leading us to the direct-to-consumer (DTC) shift. Emerging consumer models continue to grow, bringing new consumer values, new buying behaviors, and new demands. As a result of this shift to a DTC, subscription-run commerce landscape, businesses must focus on their brand,...
The creator economy is growing steeply, imposing stiff competition on the few well-known journalists and media companies that once enjoyed monopoly control. While promoting decentralized creation and distribution of content, the creator economy empowers individuals to leverage their skills and creativity, directly reach their audience, and encash their talent. As...
The growing popularity of cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and micropayments is quickly changing the way consumers spend and save. In 2021, a study found that 16% of U.S. adults had invested in, traded, or used cryptocurrency — up from just 1% in 2015. For Americans between the ages of 18 and...
The impact of COVID-19 on subscriber behavior has been drastic. Lockdowns and restrictions expedited the shift from purchases in brick-and-mortar stores to ecommerce–changing every aspect of the customer experience, especially in the subscription business. While some have seen a positive impact, others have faced more challenges than opportunities, forcing...
With the deep-rooted penetration of smartphones and the Internet into mainstream life, the marketplace for goods and services has pivoted sharply over the last few years. Moreover, with the pandemic impacting the world in unprecedented ways, standard industry purchasing trends have further undergone a steeper pace of change. Unsurprisingly,
When running a subscription-based business, fighting against churn is one of your everyday battles. Even though customer acquisition is a major need to scale a business, the ability to retain existing ones is easier and less costly. Here is where tracking revenue retention comes in handy. What is net...
In this blog post, our Chief Technology Officer Tony Allen discusses the importance of scalable technology and how Recurly ensures every customer is set up for success with our cutting-edge technology. Technology is evolving, and it evolves rapidly. In today’s day and age, companies need to continually invest in scalable...
In this blog post, our Chief Technology Officer, Tony Allen, shares how Recurly helps companies scale for large digital events like the big game, shopping holidays, and more. Digital events have dominated our screens. Behind the scenes, companies are responsible for creating the capacity to power these occurrences, but as...
In the business of subscriptions, one thing is guaranteed: Business growth is at the center of all our goals. To gather insights on how some of the biggest names in subscription are achieving this, Recurly’s CMO Theresa Mcendree sat down with a few of our top customers for a...
Each year, the end of November marks the beginning of a slew of deals as consumers gear up to shop for the holiday season. Cyber Monday is particularly notable and has become the dominant day for eCommerce purchases and activity. Shoppers spent $10.8 billion online on 2020’s Cyber Monday,...
It seems like every industry, from fitness and fashion to entertainment and education, has embraced the subscription business model in one way or another. With recurring payments everywhere you look, you might feel tempted to think there’s no more room for innovation in the subscription space. Ask companies like Wyze,...
There are certain well-worn areas businesses focus on to accelerate growth. You know that to drive acquisition, you need to learn more about your customers, run hard-hitting marketing campaigns, and come up with offerings so great that your customers will spread the word about them. But one strategic lever many...
The global Software as a Service (SaaS) market size is projected to reach USD $307B by 2026, from $159B in 2020. To learn more about how the SaaS industry has evolved, we virtually sat down with Joe Hyrkin, CEO of Issuu - a Recurly customer since 2014 and...
Digital marketing agencies may not think of themselves as an ideal use case for a subscription management and billing platform, but Black Propeller, an award-winning digital marketing agency based out of Bel Air, Maryland, doesn’t like to do things the traditional way. “Being able to easily keep an eye...
A year ago, COVID-19 hit the US in full force—and MarketMuse, a SaaS company that helps marketing teams build smart content strategies—saw an opportunity to boost subscriber acquisition by leveraging coupons and promotions. “We've experimented a lot in the past year after launching our self-serve product. When the pandemic...
Subscription merchants remain well-positioned for pandemic lockdown living, and 2020 subscription rates are a testament to that fact. As we head into 2021, subscription businesses now face the task of retaining COVID-era subscribers as people separate needs from wants in the aftermath. In PYMNTS’ Subscription Commerce Tracker®, done in...
Before we relegate 2020 to the past, I’d be remiss if I didn’t highlight one of the major economic trends we saw this year: an explosion in subscription commerce. This time last year, we accurately predicted that subscription commerce would continue to grow and evolve, but certainly none of...
Userlike, based in Cologne, Germany, offers professional live chat software to help its customers raise conversion rates, promote customer loyalty, reduce churn, and pinpoint areas for improvement. Userlike wanted to maintain its lean business model, but at the same time, recognized the importance of partnering with a reliable subscription...
The subscription race is rapidly accelerating, fueled by more and more players entering the subscription market. In an effort to scale growth, savvy subscription model businesses are looking to expand across borders in new regions, such as EMEA, LATAM, and APAC. But global expansion brings with it a plethora of...
Recurly’s Item Catalog has come a long way since we introduced it in earlier this year. Just a few months later, we made it possible to sell add-on recurring items in addition to selling items in a one-off fashion, and a few months after that, we made...
Consumers are spending differently due to a myriad of effects stemming from the ongoing global pandemic. This year’s holiday shopping and gift-giving season is sure to feel the impact of these changes in consumer behavior. Is this the year that Black Friday loses its importance and Cyber Monday takes its place as...
In 2020, we’ve seen a remarkable period of transition. According to some estimates, the COVID-19 pandemic will mean “most major economies will lose at least 2.4% of the value of their gross domestic product) throughout 2020.” In the U.S. alone, that equates to some $3.5 trillion dollars lost—just like that....
COVID-19 has taken the world by storm, changing our day-to-day existence in ways we could have never imagined. Back in March, when the pandemic hit the U.S. in full force, many consumers reacted by emptying store shelves of basic necessities including canned goods and toilet paper. Many people, not knowing...
Recently, Recurly Chief of Staff, Emma Clark joined Subscription Insider’s Kathy Greenler Sexton to discuss the impacts — both positive and negative — that COVID-19 has had on subscription-based businesses. If you missed out on the webinar, here’s the gist. COVID-19 has entirely reshaped the subscription landscape, as well as increased the economic uncertainty...
“Doers drive change. We empower them.” -- Pipefy video These six words succinctly describe Pipefy’s mission: to make work easier and faster through workflow automation and organization. Since Pipefy launched in 2015, companies like Volvo, Wipro, Capgemini, and IBM have embraced Pipefy’s powerful platform. Today, Pipefy is used by...
We’ve all seen those little chat icons that pop up at the bottom of countless web pages, asking if you need any help or want to chat with customer support. As it turns out, there’s more to chat support than meets the eye. LiveChat, one of the pioneering providers of...
In a recent blog post, we discussed why it's important for subscription businesses to offer alternative payment methods like PayPal and Amazon Pay. Today, we’ll share aggregated data insights to show why merchants should consider using multiple payment gateways to grow their business. In this post, we’ll discuss payment gateway usage...
In the past, we’ve shared how gift cards and plans can help you acquire new subscribers. Today, in the midst of COVID-19, gift cards and plans are as important as ever to help you acquire subscribers and retain the ones you already have. According to a report by NBC, one analyst...
Freemium has become a massively popular business model in SaaS in the last few years. While it can look like the secret ingredient to success for many businesses, it doesn’t work for everyone. In this post, we’ll share how the team at Qwilr tried freemium, what happened, and what they...
As businesses grow, moving beyond their home locale is often one of the milestones of expansion. Global expansion often requires a considerable amount of planning including research into regions and payment methods best suited for a business’s needs as well as evaluating and choosing the right partners to help them achieve...
The subscription model has proven to be ideal for our digital, customer-centric economy, offering sustainable recurring revenue, improved customer loyalty, plus a wealth of data to enable data-driven insights. But, as consumer preferences and buying behaviors continue to shift, subscription businesses must evolve to remain competitive or risk losing significant...
In addition to being highly successful, innovative subscription businesses, what is another thing that BarkBox, FabFitFun, and Speedo all have in common? Answer: they all combine subscriptions with one-time offerings. This is called “hybrid commerce,” and it refers to businesses that have both a recurring line-of-business and sell one-time items. Regardless of whether...
One key to converting prospects and increasing cross-border sales is to provide your potential subscribers with the option to use the payment method they most prefer. For many merchants, the ability to offer additional payment methods is not always an easy or straightforward endeavor. Which countries to expand into first? Which...
Subscription commerce has been undergoing epic growth year after year and shows no sign of slowing down. Subscription commerce is clearly here to stay. As the industry continues to mature, the space continues to get more evolved and sophisticated. To help you stay ahead of the trends, the team at...
Subscriber retention is a cornerstone of successful subscription commerce, and one of the best ways to retain loyal subscribers is to ensure that your subscription delivers value. Because many subscriptions allow subscribers the convenience to set it and forget it, your subscription business might not always be top-of-mind. That’s one...
Over the past number of years, Thanksgiving weekend has turned into an all-out ‘deal-apalooza’ with merchants offering discounts galore that begin earlier and earlier each year. Cyber Monday fell one week later this year, on December 2nd (compared to November 26th in 2018). This means consumers have only 26 days...
Recently, we wrote about the trends expected this holiday shopping season. We discussed tips and best practices related to gift subscriptions, coupons, and free trials which can be very effective tactics that subscription businesses can use to acquire new subscribers during this most wonderful time of the year. But what...
That time of year is approaching, when sleigh bells are rung, dreidels spun—and retailers look forward to making their revenue numbers for the year. For retailers and shoppers alike, the holiday season officially kicks off on Black Friday followed by Cyber Monday, an even more popular shopping day. Last year, 67...
According to McKinsey, subscription e-commerce has grown 100% a year over the last five years. Savvy e-commerce companies are taking full advantage of the subscription model—predictable revenue and deep customer relationships—to gain a competitive advantage and accelerate growth. You too can capitalize on this incredible growth by adding subscriptions as a...
Subscription businesses, like any other business, need to continually attract new customers—and of course, keep their existing customers happy. When businesses exceed all expectations, they may find themselves lauded in the trade press over these results, as AMC Theaters and Spotify were recently. AMC’s Stubs A-List movie ticket subscription service reported...
Sales of physical products in e-commerce are experiencing sustained growth. According to industry-expert, Mary Meeker, the market has experienced double-digit growth each year since 2008. Because of the intensely competitive nature of e-commerce, businesses seek any advantage that might give them an edge over their competition. For example, some businesses are...
The subscription e-commerce market has continued to grow exponentially year after year. To take advantage of the many benefits the subscription model offers, it’s important to understand current trends in terms of product offerings, growth beyond recurring revenue, and plan structures. The Recurly Research team set out to analyze these...
Did you know that 15% of online shoppers have signed up for one or more subscription services? Or that the subscription e-commerce market has grown by more than 100% every year over the past five years? In fact, this market generated more than $2.6 billion in sales recently, and 2019...
We’ve all been there: waiting in line at the grocery store with one item behind someone with twenty. It’s frustrating. The checkout process in e-commerce can be frustrating too, and subscription businesses should do all they can to optimize and streamline this process for their subscribers. Why? Because eliminating friction...
Tailor Brands was founded on the belief that powerful branding should be accessible to everyone, regardless of skill level, background in design, or budget size. The company describes its platform as the world’s first automated branding agency—providing AI-software that creates unique brand identities and elements on the spot. Based in...
The competition is coming. By 2020, eighty percent of SaaS players will move to a subscription-based model, which means your success strategies have to evolve—and that includes the all-important fundamental: how your subscriptions are structured. Your subscription pricing and plan structure have a profound impact on subscriber acquisition and retention. Do you...
Subscription businesses that want to optimize their payment process and gain an edge over their competition should consider integrating with a second payment gateway. A second gateway can offer increased operational efficiencies along with a variety of other benefits. What are some of the advantages of having multiple gateways? Can...
Mastercard has recently released new requirements for free trial conversions. We believe this reflects a positive change in subscription commerce, where more customer transparency and ease of cancellation leads to better subscriber relationships and limits to chargebacks. Luckily, subscription businesses using Recurly are prepared for these Mastercard changes, with several...
In today’s ever-evolving subscription commerce landscape, businesses must meet their subscribers’ present needs while also planning for how they will respond to future changes in the marketplace. The most successful businesses are those that have the flexibility to innovate, with solutions that are efficient and scalable. Another advantage is to...
Industry analysts have predicted that by 2020, all new software businesses and 80% of historical vendors will offer a subscription option. “What began as a trickle a few years ago has become a stampede of vendors wanting to make a move to a subscription business model,” remarks their analyst. The...
Checkout abandonment is the ongoing bane of ecommerce companies. Many such companies have dedicated product and engineering teams continuously monitoring and finding ways to increase conversion rates at checkout. One key to increasing conversion rates is removing friction. How many times have you found yourself shopping online and get to...
The best things in life are free, or so the saying goes. In subscription commerce, free trial subscriptions are a proven customer acquisition tool. By letting prospective subscribers sample your product or service, they can experience your offering before deciding whether or not to subscribe. Offering free trials is particularly...
One of the most difficult decisions a subscription business faces is figuring out how to price their product or service. This can be especially challenging when you offer both monthly and yearly plans for the same product. Set the yearly price too low and you could end up missing out...
To be successful, subscription businesses need to retain subscribers and continually attract new ones. This is true for both the smallest startup and the largest enterprise. Recurly provides a number of tools to support our customers’ efforts to gain new subscribers. Use coupons to increase your subscriber base Everyone loves...
The subscription model is booming. Subscription commerce grew more than 100 percent each year between 2011 and 2016, and the growth continues. Savvy companies are reaping the rewards: high recurring revenue that’s predictable paired with a competitive and sustainable business model. The potential ROI for global expansion is wide open,...
The subscription box segment was an early winner in subscription commerce. Whether based on a carefully curated selection of goods or the regular receipt of necessary consumables, subscription boxes have become an enduring success story. But what you put inside your box is only one piece of the puzzle. To...
Increasingly, subscription businesses seeking to expand are pursuing a global strategy. But to do this effectively, these businesses need to make sure they have the right subscription management platform. Capabilities to improve conversion at checkout such as support for multiple international currencies and payment options are vital. Your business will...
We’ve just returned from the third annual Subscription Summit, a meeting of the subscription box industry minds. Following are some observations that have stuck with us since the conference. The Power of Consumer Demand Consumer demand has driven businesses to innovate and deliver products and services in new ways, and...
These days, any e-commerce offering has international potential: if customers from other nations are able to complete their purchase, the business is operating “globally.” But there’s much more that a subscription business can and should do to foster and grow its international market. Supporting international currencies and payment methods, and...
Global marketing involves more than simply selling a product in other countries. You need to speak to subscribers in their preferred language and ensure that their experience signing up and paying for your subscription product or service is streamlined and optimized. Recurly is pleased to announce support for 11 different...
The best way to learn about subscription billing best practices are from some of the people who helped establish them. SUBCOM provides that opportunity. I had the great fortune to hear about various subscription challenges and their clever solutions from folks who work at Rent the Runway, Pandora, ZipCar, Adobe, Match.com,...
Subscription success demands a laser focus on providing subscribers with consistent value which leads to predictable recurring revenue. We recently explored the topic of subscriber acquisition. Now, in our newest e-book, we outline techniques, tactics, and best practices that subscription businesses can use to increase subscriber retention. One way to...
In February, couples around the world plan for how to celebrate Valentine’s Day. While flowers and chocolate are time-tested testaments of affection, gift cards have become a popular choice in our more modern, e-commerce-driven times. For B2C subscription businesses, gift subscriptions (whether gift plans or gift cards) provide an excellent...
Customers have come to expect convenience, simplicity, and speed when completing activities online. This expectation is especially true when shopping and completing purchases on a mobile device. With cart abandonment rates for mobile devices topping 85% last year, and the average across device types at over 77%, merchants have an...
Subscription businesses that want to expand globally know they need to offer the payment methods that their prospects in different countries prefer. They need a gateway that can accept international currencies along with a wide variety of payment methods global customers tend to use. For example, in Germany customers want...
Subscription commerce is ever evolving. A few years ago, who would have expected Porsche to launch a subscription service? Or that monthly boxes of beauty samples or shaving supplies and OTT services would propel the subscription model to new heights? And how will these trends shape the subscription space going forward—and drive...
Benchmark data is an invaluable resource. It can help businesses make better-informed decisions and provide an objective means to gauge business performance. Recurly has unique and valuable access to comprehensive data and metrics that can help subscription businesses make those critical decisions. Recently, we conducted a new analysis, assessing subscriber...
One of the main challenges subscription businesses face is churn, which lowers the number of subscribers and monthly recurring revenue. The two types of churn are voluntary and involuntary, and because each is driven by entirely different things, as a subscription business, you need to take different steps to mitigate each type of...
Subscriber acquisition is both an art and a science—and it can be a complex undertaking. A business needs to know who its best customers are likely to be, have a thorough understanding of what it is they want and what the business can provide (their pain points and how best...
The subscription model is ideal for today’s customer-centric, digital economy. However, to drive momentum and sustain growth, subscription businesses need to eliminate points of friction that can limit conversion from potential subscribers or cause existing subscribers to downgrade or churn. Join us as we share key insights into creating a...
For consumers, one of the most popular subscription type is the subscription box—that curated collection of goodies that subscribers receive on a regular basis (often monthly, but not always) which the box purveyor hopes will delight and surprise its recipient. Beauty boxes such as Birchbox were an early success story, along...
“Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.” -- Chinese Proverb In many parts of world, the month of August means the end of the school break. Students go back to school, parents’ lives become calmer, and businesses start to ramp up their various activities as employees return...
Most business decisions are driven by data. With a wide range of customers in multiple industries using Recurly, we have enviable visibility into comprehensive subscription data within our platform which gives us a unique perspective. Using this data—which we’ve aggregated and anonymized—we’ve compiled a variety of reports which provide meaningful,...
Isaac Newton’s first law of motion famously states that an object in motion will stay in motion. Similarly, you can think of the subscription model like a force that is always in motion, sustained by the subscriber lifecycle and recurring revenue. At critical points during the subscriber lifecycle, businesses are...
Millennials are a unique demographic. Generally defined as being born between the early 1980’s and the late 1990’s, there's no lack of commentary around this generation, which is the largest in U.S. history (they’re essentially the children of the Baby Boomers—the ‘Me Generation’). Time Magazine memorably dubbed them the ‘Me Me Me...
In our previous post in this series, we talked about using data to identify your most profitable subscribers and the metrics to measure campaign and channel profitability. In this post, we’ll focus on how you can leverage your existing subscribers to acquire more. You may have heard the adage, “take...
Subscription commerce continues to evolve. Long ago, subscriptions centered on newspapers, magazines, and for teenagers, the Columbia Record Club. With the dawning of the internet age, subscriptions took over new realms such cloud software, digital entertainment, and boxes of the month. As the subscription model continues to prove its appeal...
If you had a crystal ball that could tell you where the next major market for e-commerce will emerge, what would you do? Would you seize the opportunity to expand your business into this burgeoning market? The next boom in e-commerce may well be upon us, in Southeast Asia. This,...
Smartphones have revolutionized many aspects of how we live our lives. From the convenience of text messaging to keep in touch, map apps which keep us from getting lost, immediate access to our favorite social apps to stay engaged, and always having a camera to document what we see and...
In a recent study, what kind of customer did 59% of U.S. retailers say were more profitable than others? If you answered “omnichannel customers” then you’d be correct! The popularity among consumers of the omnichannel experience (with online and offline shopping options that are largely consistent) is likely due to consumers’...
Various statistics from the 2016 holiday season show that retailers’ holidays were bright, with strong sales both in-store and online. For example, a recent article from eMarketer highlighted data from Retail Metrics which showed overall holiday spending likely rose 4%. Similarly, retail consulting firm Conlumino’s data showed total holiday sales rose...
Recurly is pleased to announce two updates to our Hosted Payment Pages, coming on January 26th. Gift Cards Functionality for Hosted Pages To further support our gift card feature, Recurly has created a new hosted payment page that now allows your customers to easily purchase gift cards. Many of our...
For subscription businesses, customer acquisition cost (CAC) is a key metric, the flip side to monthly recurring revenue. This is because it tells you how much each new customer, who generates that monthly revenue, cost to obtain. While essential, this metric and how you calculate it can be complicated. Get...
“If you can’t feed a hundred people, feed just one.” ~ Mother Teresa Last year, on December 1st, PayPal broke a Guinness World Record for the most money raised online for charity in 24 hours. On that day—known as ‘Giving Tuesday’—PayPal users around the world gave more than $45.8 million...
There can be no doubt that Dollar Shave Club’s phenomenal success can be attributed to many factors—its irreverent and hilarious viral ads, its exemplary customer service, efficient manufacturing and distribution, and its incredible ability to scale, and (perhaps most importantly) its business model. Yes, there were many things that led...
The streaming media waters have been growing increasingly crowded as of late, and in order to keep their customers happy and fend off the competition, two well-known names in the space, Hulu and Spotify, are making some big changes to their current slate of offerings. Appealing to cord-cutters and cord-nevers,...
GatherContent was developed specifically to meet the content creation and workflow needs of today’s businesses. The platform helps companies create and manage content that’s both structured and portable—and then publish it to any CMS or platform. They launched in London in September 2012 and now have thousands of customers in...
Have you heard of “eSports”? If you haven’t, it’s probably because you’re not a gamer. But get ready, because while it might be a niche industry at the moment, soon it won’t be. Current estimates indicate that a billion people will be familiar with eSports by the end of 2016....
In 1965, American families began clipping coupons en masse and marketers realized how coupons convert prospects, upsell customers, and encourage brand loyalty. In 1990, the internet begat the era of online coupons, making it easier than ever for subscription-based and other businesses to reach an online audiences with their promotions....
There’s a rule of thumb when it comes to marketing: know your audience. This is a great rule in general, and it’s an essential rule for merchants designing a discount campaign to promote their subscription business. Know your audience. Merchants need to know how their customers interact with their product...
Over-the-Top (OTT) content is here to stay. Streamed over the Internet, OTT content is overtaking traditional distribution models. Companies like Netflix, Hulu, Sling TV, Pandora and Spotify are leaders in the category, but a number of new companies have jumped on the over-the-top bandwagon as the model continues to prove...
Are you planning to expand your subscription business internationally in 2016? The international business environment presents many challenges, from changing regional regulations and compliance standards to scaling recurring billing. Join Recurly and the business tax experts at Avalara to discover the common challenges subscription businesses face and the proven strategies...
E-commerce seems like it’s been around almost as long as personal computers have. Shopping is, after all, a national pastime, and online shopping is so much more convenient—we can do it at home, in our pajamas! So, it should come as no surprise that recent research, reported by eMarketer, indicates...
The world of streaming video content has grown significantly as consumers look to complement with and in many cases transition away from traditional cable television. By now, we’re familiar with mainstream players that serve a broad audience including Dish’s Sling TV, HBO, and Showtime to name a few. However, as...
Consumer expectations are changing the way merchants run their business, and there’s no better example than Dish Network. Dish CIO John Swieringa’s recent comments on how the company’s IT group “tries to be a source of innovation for the company, not just an IT shop”, highlights innovations occurring around the...
A new study by Millward Brown Digital highlights yet another reason why Recurly’s Pay with Amazon can significantly boost sales: customer conversions. Most notably among Prime members, Amazon’s conversion rate is a whopping 74%. And for non-Prime members, the conversion rate is still at 13% - that’s four times the average conversion...
Recurly now provides full support for promotions using coupons and discounts. Our simple interface supports percentage and dollar amount discounts on either a recurring or one-time basis, giving your business the flexibility to support multiple promotional scenarios. After speaking with our customers, we also included other features into our Coupon...
We’re pleased to announce that Recurly now supports optional ‘Add-On’ items to be added to any subscription plan. Add-Ons offer a tremendous amount of versatility to your subscription offers because they provide user-level customization resulting in better customer choice. We all know how customers love to choose from a variety...
