8 Steps to Start a Subscription Box Business

Imagine getting all the necessary products in one box. For example: getting a box full of your favorite vegan snacks with new varieties every month, or getting all the essentials for your gym diet in one box. It sounds as exciting to the customers as it sounds to you. Subscription boxes offer customers with personalized experiences on a particular theme with unique unboxing ideas.

From a business point of view, subscription boxes offer a stable financial model cashing monthly revenue. You just need to follow the following steps and tips to start your subscription box business:

Find Your Niche

This is a foremost step to get clear with to start any business. Try to be specific when it comes to settling on your niche. For example: When we talk about makeup, books or food items, try to specify those products like organic make-up, mythology novels and vegan food products.

Rooting to specifications will help you to attract the specific and interested audience. This will help you to gain more sales and will also serve great customer experience. And when we talk about specifications, packaging should not be left aside. You can use a packaging design tool for creating your own customized packaging.

Know Your Audience

Knowing your audience is important because without that, the chances are pretty high that you might fail at marketing and eventually at selling. Get a brief idea about the necessities of your targeted audience. This will help you in everything from selecting items, packaging and in choosing the right marketing platform.

Source the products

Once you know your niche and your audience, finalize the list of items you want to include in your subscription box. As far as the quality of the product is concerned, it is advisable to give the high quality products only.  So now the question arises, ‘How can I get high quality products at low cost?’ You can buy them from global marketplaces such as Alibaba and Indiamart, which offer quality bulk goods at a low cost.

Choose packaging wisely

Subscription boxes are known for their ‘unboxing experience.’ You might have seen unboxing subscription boxes videos too streaming on YouTube. Concentrate on delivering the whole unboxing experience to your customers. You can use personalized packaging or trendy anime filter papers, etc.

Installing package design software allows you to customize your own packaging essentials. You can even opt for signature boxes or colors. Going with trends or keeping it subtle is your choice. Just keep your audience in mind while finalizing the packaging.

Price your subscription box

Pricing is a very crucial part of starting a subscription box business. Keeping your prices too low or too high would directly affect the engagement and sales count. Your subscription box consists of various different products that belong to different price ranges. And to make sure, you don’t misprice it, consider the following points:

  • Evaluate each item’s cost

  • Add packaging cost (don’t forget accessories like bubble wrap, stickers, stamps, etc.)

  • Include shipping costs (include packing tapes and labels too)

  • Transaction and platform fees

  • Advertising and marketing costs

  • Fixed monthly costs like software fees

  • Last but the most important, don’t forget to add your labor fees

Set up your ecommerce site

Ecommerce platforms are in great demand due to its engaging features. Platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, etc. are already in the market to help you set up your ecommerce site. Many of these apps allows you to:

  • Custom build your own cart with the help of a developer

  • Make easy-to-integrate subscription apps by using recurring billing software

  • Compatible with package design software

Market your subscription boxes

Digital marketing is the answer to most of your marketing concerns. You can use Facebook and Instagram paid ads for marketing your business. It helps in attracting engagements among all age groups. Use social media to engage with your audience and to build trust among your community. You can even use affiliate marketing to hype up your subscription boxes.

Grow your subscriber base

Targeting more subscribers involves factors like:

  • Date and time of launch

For example: launching a subscription box including self care products on mother’s day would impact the emotions behind that day. This will strike your engagement count straight to the heights.

  • Active on social media

Use social media to post updates about your products, interact with your audience and use every trendy feature of social media to get visible.

  • Target word-of-mouth referrals

Send feedback forms or special days wishes to maintain customer relationships. All these small efforts will work wonders for your engagement and sales count.

Subscription boxes vary from essentials to trends, opening wide possibilities for start-ups or established businesses. People are likely to try their interested subscription box at least once. So you can trigger that interest, sell high quality relevant products, provide unique packaging experience with the help of packaging design tools, and build up your weekly or monthly revenues.

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