These are tough times for retail. While eCommerce sales might be up, many omnichannel brands and specific categories are taking a hit. There’s also a lot of anxiety, both personal and financial, due to Covid-19 and an impending recession. We feel it too. 

We’re also having a moment of information overload from all of the articles, tips and reports being produced. To help you weed through and find information you can use to determine what modified strategies are right for your business, we thought it would be helpful to provide a roundup of and key takeaways from what we’ve found insightful. As we come across new articles and resources, we’ll continue to update this blog, so be sure to check back.

Increasing average order value (AOV) is a tried-and-true strategy for maximizing revenue from existing customers. You’ve been there, done that. However, now that the subscription eCommerce market is growing by leaps and bounds, you may want to consider how you can apply this strategy to your subscription customers.

Despite the increasing use of messaging apps and social media, good old email continues to outperform them all when it comes to customer acquisition, retention and revenue. And when you create personalized emails that deliver relevant messages and offers to specific audiences – like your most profitable or engaged customers – the power of email really becomes apparent. One survey concluded that segmented email campaigns (vs. one-size-fits-all campaigns) could increase email revenue as much as 760%! Another survey reported that targeted emails generate 58% of companies’ overall revenue. That’s nothing to sneeze at.

Use of SMS, aka “texting,” for eCommerce is on the upswing, but still widely underutilized, creating major opportunities – particularly with subscriptions and customer service, in our opinion – for brands that are quick to the punch.

If you don’t offer your customers a subscription rental option, maybe you should. The last five to six years have seen a continued shift in consumption patterns from traditional purchasing and ownership to an increase in subscription-based services of the future. According to McKinsey, the subscription eCommerce market has been growing by more than 100% year over year. Although this includes subscription boxes, like razors, food and cosmetics, there also is a growing trend for subscriptions that enable access over ownership, such as rentals for designer clothing, high-end luggage or sporting equipment.  In fact, a study by UPS showed that Millennials are nearly five times more likely to rent online than other demographics.

If you can make a subscription model work for your eCommerce business, what’s not to like? Subscriptions can deliver more predictable revenue, more opportunities to upsell or cross-sell, and higher customer lifetime value (LTV). We work with many brands that ask us about subscriptions and how to integrate a subscription platform like ReCharge into their Shopify or Shopify Plus stores. We think subscriptions can be an exciting way to grow an eCommerce business, and have seen the most success with replenishment goods, like razors and vitamins, and curated items, like fashion and beauty boxes.

When your customers buy your products, it’s theoretically a sale that could happen anywhere – in a competitor’s online store, for example. But when your customers purchase your brand’s experience, lifestyle or community, they’re buying something unique they can only get from you. And that keeps them coming back.