The most successful subscription brands are built into their customers’ daily routines. Each one aims to craft products and experiences so essential that customers reach for them again every single day. And with many customers starting their days off with breakfast, the morning meal could be the perfect foothold for the right brand.

Oats Overnight recognized that opportunity early on, which was step 1 of their growth into one of the DTC industry’s leading food brands. Forming the idea was the easy part, though—their subsequent explosion into the breakfast of choice for hundreds of thousands of subscribers took years of meticulous product development and smart scaling.

Brian Tate, the founder and CEO of Oats Overnight, recently explained how listening closely to customers, using data to spot trends early, and making their subscription service easier and more personal helped grow the brand into a big success across both online and in-store shopping. Here’s an inside look at one way a brand can scale from an idea to an enterprise, without ever losing sight of the customer.

2016-2020: Big things brewing

All in: Former poker pro bets big on breakfast & finds a gap in the market

A quick scan of Brian Tate’s résumé might surprise you. Before he leapt into entrepreneurship as the founder of Oats Overnight, he spent 12 years on professional high-stakes poker circuits—long enough to see the game make the leap into the digital world and transform into a strategic, data-driven venture.

At the time, Tate began most of his days with a mason jar of overnight oats. Ever the problem solver, he optimized his breakfast over time: swapped the clunky jar for a portable shaker bottle, added protein to round out his macros, increased the milk ratio for texture, and so on.

During his latter years at the poker table, as he considered his next move, he wondered if there might be a way to blend easy eats with big data. After some late-night tinkering and tasting in his kitchen, he created Oats Overnight.

Meet the flavors: Launched online with 3 SKUs, turning first-time buyers into loyal fans

Oats Overnight officially launched in 2016 with a lineup of three flavors—a far cry from the 33 currently on the brand’s site. With a team that included Tate’s own mom, the scrappy young company operated out a small production facility/warehouse/office combo.

Despite their small size, Oats Overnight employed sophisticated, data-driven strategies. Some early efforts at optimizing marketing campaigns, for example, resulted in 2% gains in retention. Not bad! But when taste-enhancing recipe tweaks resulted in retention gains closer to 10%, it became clear that Oats Overnight would be a product-led brand. They put R&D front and center and have kept it there ever since.

A perfect pair: Subscription-first business model powered by Recharge

The company’s early evaluation of their customer cohorts revealed that subscriptions would be critical to their retention and growth: Customers valued low-hassle replenishment, which would translate into reliable revenue for the brand. The search for a subscription platform landed Oats Overnight on Recharge in late 2016.

At first, the brand’s first-time subscription rate (FTSR), or the portion of first-time customers who opt to open a subscription, was just 30%. Searching for ways to boost uptake, ecommerce director Thomas Keller suggested replacing the brand’s product sample offer with a first-order discount for subscribers. It was a daring move, since the samples drove most of the brand’s orders; eliminating them would remove their biggest entry point into customers’ routines. On the other hand, just 20% of sample orders resulted in subscriptions, making their long-term value questionable.

The team decided to play the odds, end their sample program, and launch the first-order discount. Keller’s call paid off—the FTSR jumped to 90%. Oats Overnight was officially and quantifiably a subscription-first brand.

2020–2023: Rising to the occasion

The MV-est of P’s: The pivot from acquisition to retention

2020 presented brands around the world with a slew of new challenges. For Oats Overnight, COVID lockdowns meant that one of their biggest advantages—convenience—nearly evaporated overnight. A nutritious, prep-free breakfast had been an easy sell to commuters with busy mornings, who comprised half of the brand’s customer base. But with most commutes paused indefinitely, and many customers even filling their time with slower meal options, speed was suddenly less compelling.

Tate was used to changing tack in a fluid situation. It was clear that customer acquisition would be more difficult for now, so Oats Overnight pivoted to maximizing relationships with the customers they already had.

Product innovation powered by the people who eat it

Getting customers to continue wanting more from Oats Overnight, it turned out, was simply a question of offering them more. The brand launched the Flavor In Development (FID) program, which would grant customers priority access to upcoming products in exchange for their feedback.

The initiative had all kinds of benefits. For subscribers, it delivered a novel experience and something to look forward to—both of which were in short supply in 2020. But the feedback that FID members provided on experimental flavors was invaluable to Oats Overnight too, helping them guarantee that each new launch would be a hit—a huge win for a brand built on R&D.

After the FID program’s success, the company immediately set out to source even more product intel. They launched a Facebook group to grow their community and collect real-time feedback from customers. The group generated over 2,000 comments each day at its peak, making it a goldmine of customer insights.

Oats Overnight had always let those insights guide its product development. With customers more open and accessible than ever, the company was able to fine-tune its recipes even faster.

Raising the stakes: Securing funding for expansion

Though Oats Overnight eventually emerged from 2020 intact, they still needed ways to safeguard their growth. As they evaluated their options, the online-only brand realized they may need to look a little farther afield. 85% of all oatmeal in the US was sold in stores; that was where the opportunity lay. Oats Overnight would build its future with brick and mortar.

A novel approach to traditional retail

Entering retail stores offered huge potential, but plenty of risk too. Undeterred, the company secured $2 million in seed funding with an airtight entry plan backed top to bottom by customer insights. No consideration was off limits if it would provide a better experience—even the product’s form factor.

For online orders, Oats Overnight packages each serving in a pouch, intended to be poured into the brand’s signature shaker bottle and mixed with milk. A shaker bottle is included for free with each customer’s first order to minimize the packaging required for refill orders.

In stores, however, the brand’s own intel suggested that customers would be more amenable to overnight oats that didn’t require a separate accessory to prepare. So for physical retail inventory, the company opted to ship their product in a new disposable bottle that was ready for mixing—no shaker bottle required.

Sticking to your guns

When Walmart, the first retailer to explore stocking Oats Overnight, balked at the new bottles, Oats Overnight didn’t waver. They knew their intel was solid, so they found a more willing partner in Wegman’s, an East Coast supermarket chain. After customers responded enthusiastically to the Wegman’s launch, Oats Overnight carried their momentum back into subsequent launches at Walmart, who reconsidered the bottles after seeing them succeed, and at Target.

Tate says the saga held a lesson for any brand: If you’re confident in your product and have the research to back it up, you don’t need to cave to outside pressure.

Data bites: Launching the Flavor Command Center

Going omnichannel does more than expose a brand to more customers and revenue streams. One of the biggest benefits of the model is that insights from each channel can improve the other; shared learning makes each channel stronger than it would have been on its own.

In 2021, Oats Overnight tapped into that potential by centralizing their product R&D in the new Flavor Command Center. By then, the brand had added dozens of flavor options and was constantly experimenting with new ones. The Command Center’s role was to find the frontrunners that had the most potential to resonate with customers and drive LTV.

Insights generated at the Command Center were funneled back into both of Oats Overnight’s retail channels, delivering a steady flow of data that helped both improve continuously.

2023–present: Full speed ahead

If 2020 had been a speed bump for Oats Overnight, the following years were more like a launchpad. In 2021 alone, the same year they expanded into physical retail, the company quadrupled its subscriber base from 10,000 to 42,000. Sales similarly shot up 150% year-over-year to reach $25 million.

With the uncertainty behind them, the company began laying the groundwork for further expansion.

A recipe for growth: Scaling retail partnerships, manufacturing & DTC

In 2021, Oats Overnight had catapulted into multichannel success with just $2 million in seed funding. The sum was modest but crucial; Tate says the timely cash infusion saved the company.

By 2023, the company was breathing more easily. With their near-term survival secure, they shifted their sights to a more ambitious plan to scale production and sales across the board, with the budget to match: $20 million in Series A funding.

At the time, the company’s operations were distributed across four different facilities throughout Phoenix, which left lots of room for inefficiency: Product had to be transported between multiple locations, and coordination between functions could be difficult when they weren’t in the same place. So this time, Oats Overnight would use their extra resources to transform into a manufacturing and logistics powerhouse. 

Building a more efficient oat

The brand consolidated their separate Phoenix facilities into a single, sprawling 86,000-square-foot one. The new location combined functions like manufacturing, supply chain, fulfillment, and R&D into a single location big enough to meet needs for both the DTC and retail channels.

Centralizing these functions made it easier to coordinate between them, enabling faster feedback and more agile initiatives. Limited product runs, for example, were easy to launch with all teams under a single roof, whereas coordinating between external logistics and manufacturing partners would have complicated them significantly.

Built to deliver: State-of-the-art facilities ramp up production & innovation

Oats Overnight was on an optimization tear. Their next move would be to complement the new Arizona facility with a smaller one in Ohio. The idea had surfaced years earlier, but was shelved as the company focused on its main facility. Now, with the Arizona location complete and half the company’s customers located in the eastern part of the country, the time was right.

The 62,000-square-foot facility location opened in 2023. It immediately made shipping both faster and cheaper for customers in the eastern U.S., slashing a full day off of shipping times. The savings from shipping and process automation powered beefed-up marketing efforts for the brand—the new facility even doubled as a studio for behind-the-scenes video content. Oats Overnight had pulled the rare double feat of delivering a better customer experience while saving on costs.

Churn? What churn? Optimizing the subscription model

While they tamed their production and logistics, Oats Overnight remained a product-led company. The next item on their long checklist of areas to optimize: subscriptions.

With their menu approaching 60 flavors, customers often reported that they were resorting to tools like notebooks and spreadsheets just to track their favorite varieties. So the Oats Overnight team used Recharge’s SDK to build their “likes/notes” feature, which tracked each customer’s personal rating and impressions of each flavor. Their feedback would even make its way to the Flavor Command Center for further flavor refinement.

And with separate updates to their customer portal that customized and personalized it even further, Oats Overnight reinvented their subscription program into a retention machine. The results: 152% more recurring orders, 41% longer-lasting subscriptions, 13% higher AOV, and 29% less churn.

We’re obsessed: Future plans and innovations

Oats Overnight is almost as much a movement as a brand. 90% of their DTC sales come from their dedicated contingent of subscribers, who now number over 300,000. On the brick-and-mortar side, the growing list of stores sporting Oats Overnight products now includes wholesale giant Costco.

They’re not slowing down now, of course. They recently secured a $35 million round of Series B funding that they’ll use to keep optimizing their products and experiences. On the docket: AI-powered customer flavor profiles, mapping how receptive customers can be to different flavor components. They’re even making their first foray outside of oats with an instant protein coffee, expected to make a full launch later in 2025.

These initiatives are a concerted effort to build what Tate calls a “next-gen CPG company, powered by data and community.” Oats Overnight has leaned on both to guide its growth from a homegrown experiment into one of the DTC industry’s defining brands. Now, with new insights and ideas flowing in faster than ever, it’s not hard to imagine them redefining breakfast yet again.

The post From insights to action: How Oats Overnight puts data & customers at the center appeared first on Recharge.

The modern tech behind a classic brand

Balance of Nature has empowered people to live healthier lives for over 25 years with balanced whole food nutrition. Now their ecommerce channel is powered by an all-new, state-of-the-art tech stack architected by Shopify specialists iamota.

With a core built on Shopify, Recharge, and Gorgias—plus a custom-built phone order system—building the new platform required meticulous coordination between tech partners and Balance of Nature’s own in-house development team. Migrating to it from their custom-built legacy system was a nuanced process, too. But creative problem-solving and close collaboration ensured that over a million customers continued their subscriptions with minimal disruption.

Their new stack of proven, ready-to-go tech has enabled Balance of Nature to launch long-awaited programs, discover new opportunities, and scale more effectively. With their costs lowered too, they’re delivering better service and more value to customers every day.

The post 2025 Exceptional Collaboration Award winner: iamota x Balance of Nature appeared first on Recharge.

The winners of the Outstanding Results in Retention and LTV Growth Award were Nulastin and Absolute Web, for implementing satisfying solutions that rewarded and retained customers.

Rejuvenation & retention

Nulastin’s elastin-replenishing hair and skin products deliver real, lasting results. But last year they faced issues with high churn and low subscription uptake. The problem was that their default subscription cadence was mismatched with real-world product usage: Subscribers often ended up with too much product and had to cancel, whereas one-time buyers often didn’t return because their first shipment didn’t last long enough to produce results.

Absolute Web tackled both challenges with a custom subscription program that opens with a full 10-week supply (enough to generate real results), then switches to smaller, more manageable orders shipped every 5 weeks.

The results: Positive trends in both subscription uptake and retention—exactly the invigorating effect Nulastin was looking for.

The post 2025 Outstanding Results in Retention & LTV Growth Award winner: Absolute Web x Nulastin appeared first on Recharge.

The winner of the Partner of the Year Award was Shopify, for routinely elevating Recharge and our brands.

Beyond integration: A partnership that powers innovation and growth

Recharge is proud to recognize Shopify as our 2024 Partner of the Year—a reflection of an evolving and meaningful partnership that has grown steadily over time and now stands as a cornerstone of the subscription merchant experience.

While our collaboration began over a decade ago, this year marks an inflection point, one defined by deeper integration, stronger alignment, and shared momentum in supporting the brands we collectively serve. Together, Shopify and Recharge work across the brand journey, helping merchants build, scale, and optimize their subscription businesses.

This year brought significant progress: We partnered as a launch collaborator on Shopify’s Customer Account Extensions, offering merchants seamless subscription management within Shopify’s native experience. From Bundling, Rewards, and Upsells to Shopify’s New Product APIs and more, our product teams continuously collaborate to extend our brands’ ability to innovate and succeed in today’s dynamic economic climate. Together we supported the successful migration of brands like Harry’s, quip, and Estrid to the Shopify + Recharge stack. And with 29 new brand referrals from Shopify, our joint merchant community continues to grow.

From product to go-to-market, our teams are working more closely than ever—learning from each other, informing roadmaps, and building for the future of commerce.

For their ongoing partnership, leadership in commerce, and continued support of merchants seeking innovation and scale, we’re honored to name Shopify as Recharge’s Partner of the Year.

The post 2025 Recharge Partner of the Year Award winner: Shopify appeared first on Recharge.

Thirteen years ago, a moment of frustration in a drugstore shaving aisle set something big in motion. The simple desire to make shaving better has since snowballed into a family of brands that are reimagining their categories. Mammoth Brands (formerly Harry’s Inc.), the company behind personal care mainstays Harry’s, Flamingo, Lume, and Mando, is the largest CPG company built in the last two decades.

They constantly share learnings between their brands to ensure that each one can serve its customers as well as possible. Now they’re sharing their expertise with us. Mammoth Brands’ journey to the top of the industry is full of lessons for any brand—let’s take a look.

2012–2013: The early days

Smooth operator: Harry’s is founded to deliver affordable, high-quality grooming essentials

Like many brands, Harry’s was inspired by an unmet consumer need. The consumers: Harry’s co-founders Jeff Raider and Andy Katz-Mayfield. The need: shaving products that were approachable, affordable, and high quality.

Frustrated by a drugstore shaving aisle flanked with overpriced products with branding more appropriate for a spaceship than a razor blade, Andy found that little about the state of the shaving industry resonated with him. So he got in touch with his friend Jeff, who’d previously co-founded Warby Parker, and asked how he’d feel about creating a new shaving experience. Harry’s was born.

Custom-crafted: Harry’s enters the DTC market with a custom tech stack

Based on the personal motivations that inspired Harry’s (and on Jeff’s experience with Warby Parker, another DTC standout), the co-founders knew DTC was the right model for Harry’s. The direct connection to customers gave them invaluable insights on everything: product feedback, delivery times, even how often customers replaced their blades. Customer input guided decisions ranging from website redesigns to new product ideas.

In other words, they didn’t set out to pioneer the DTC space. That’s what they did in the end, of course, but it was simply the result of building for and around their customers. The customer-centric spirit still reigns at the company—members of the team, including Jeff and Andy themselves, still regularly take calls to connect with customers. 

Early tech decisions shaped the customer experience

Harry’s early efforts at building their tech stack will sound familiar to many DTC brands: They considered the experience they wanted to deliver to customers, then evaluated the ecommerce platforms on the market to find one up to the task. Unfortunately, none of them were.

Much like Harry’s had responded to gaps in the shaving market by simply building better products themselves, they built their own custom tech stack based on Ruby on Rails. The custom tech enabled them to tailor every aspect of their experience to their (and their customers’) exacting standards. It had staying power, too—Harrys.com would run on that tech until 2024.

2014–2023: Growth—and growing pains

Made in Germany: Harry’s takes control of manufacturing with razor factory purchase

As the brand grew, it became clear that Harry’s would have to take manufacturing in-house to continue improving product quality while keeping up with demand. Though only a few factories in the world produced blades of the caliber they needed (and most of them were owned by competitors), they managed to partner with—and then buy outright—a 93-year-old razor blade factory in Germany less than a year after Harry’s launched.

The purchase gave Harry’s full control over their product (a recurring theme for the company) and transformed them into a global manufacturer overnight.

Bullseye: Harry’s lands on Target shelves & beats sales goals by 5x in two months

By 2016, Harry’s had earned over 3 million online customers and a devoted fanbase. They were ready for a big step forward: brick-and-mortar retail.

When choosing where to sell, they decided to meet their customers where they already shopped, and where they shopped was Target. Harry’s products hit Target’s site and shelves in 2016; the in-store configuration included 4 feet of dedicated aisle space aisle and an endcap display with an enormous orange cardboard razor.

The launch was a hit: In just two months, sales outpaced the forecast by 5x en route to becoming Target’s biggest personal care launch to date at that time.

Sharper moves: Flamingo and Harry’s Labs launches redefine the CPG landscape

Harry’s realized that their trajectory—building a brand online, fostering direct relationships with customers, entering retail disruptively—hadn’t been a fluke. On the contrary, they suspected that it was a repeatable playbook that other founders could follow to grow and scale their own visions.

To test their theory, they created Labs, an in-house incubation and acquisition engine; Flamingo, a women’s hair care and removal brand, emerged in 2018 and started to grow quickly.

The playbook worked. Harry’s vision of the modern CPG company was solidifying under Harry’s Inc., the umbrella over the Harry’s and Flamingo brands.

New tech makes incubation & launch more efficient

Just as important as following the playbook was understanding when to diverge, and Harry’s Inc. knew their existing Ruby on Rails ecommerce platform wouldn’t be the right fit for Flamingo. They also knew Flamingo would be just the first of many launches or acquisitions that would need a strong tech backbone. 

When the market still didn’t offer a mature enough ecommerce platform off the shelf, they decided to invest in another homegrown platform. This one, built on a services-oriented architecture, would provide centralized back-end services like subscriptions, cart, and checkout for Harry’s Inc.’s various brands and storefronts to access via API.

Sound familiar? Yup—they were building their own version of Shopify.

A fresh take: Lume acquisition paves the way for more flexible tech

In 2021, Harry’s Inc. acquired the whole-body deodorant brand Lume, founded by Dr. Shannon Klingman. As a founder-led brand whose top-notch products had attracted a dedicated customer base, Lume had huge potential to scale (and more than a little in common with Harry’s). To preserve the magic behind Lume’s success, Harry’s Inc. left Klingman in charge and operating autonomously—they simply provided the playbook, infrastructure, and expertise that would help Lume grow.

Their hands-off philosophy paid dividends: In the 24 months after the acquisition, Lume grew 125% and even broke Harry’s record-breaking retail launch. The Labs group decided to capture that momentum by incubating Mando, the first dedicated men’s whole body deodorant brand—it’s been growing tremendously since launching in 2022.

Solving for scale: Harry’s merges parallel paths & stays nimble

Unsurprisingly, Harry’s Inc.’s growth from a single DTC brand into an international manufacturer and omnichannel retailer presented the company with some new challenges to manage. Even as they entered their partnership with Target, for example, they were expanding into new markets like the United Kingdom.

Adding new markets and channels multiplied the business’s complexity; soon they were introducing brand-new systems like an ERP (enterprise resource planning system) to centralize information and communicate with partners.

Their ecommerce tech was approaching its own inflection point too; while it had served Harry’s well so far, the company’s growing brand portfolio began to reveal that different brands would require different solutions.

Sandeep Chouksey joins as CTO to unify DTC and retail operations

While Harry’s envisioned itself as a truly omnichannel brand, its DTC and retail wings were drifting apart; customer and business data from either side lived in separate siloes, and it was becoming harder and harder to fuse them into omnichannel insights.

As a result, the two organizations started operating independently of each other, and it eventually became clear that they’d need to be unified. So in 2021, Harry’s Inc. appointed Sandeep Chouksey CTO and tasked him with building a unified omnichannel tech platform for the company.

Chouksey focused on merging the two parallel ecosystems’ data and operations into one source of insights and capabilities for the entire company—any brand, any channel. The new structure underpins all of their brands now, and is a key part of the company’s ability to scale new brands and acquisitions into successful omnichannel businesses.

Lume acquisition sparks ecommerce platform reevaluation

Harry’s Inc. may have lent its resources and expertise to Lume to help grow the brand after acquiring it, but the knowledge-sharing went both ways in the end.

Lume had been running on Shopify and Recharge for two years by the time of the acquisition. Though Harry’s homegrown ecommerce platform was now available to them too, it didn’t feel like the right fit for the brand; in fact, it was even missing some features that Lume and their customers used every day.

Harry’s believed in preserving the autonomy and character of the brands they acquired, which meant that pushing a new tech stack on to them—especially when it wouldn’t better equip them to serve their customers—was a non-starter. And with Shopify having become the platform of choice for most DTC brands, Harry’s realized that any future brands they acquired would likely be using it too.

The writing was on the wall—they would trade their in-house platform for Shopify.

2024–present: Unification & reinvention

Testing the water: Flamingo becomes the first to migrate

Moving every Harry’s Inc. brand to a new platform would require finesse. Rather than migrate all at once, the company started with Flamingo alone—it was a newer brand with less data to move, making it an easier test case.

The decision paid off. When the migration went smoothly, it solidified the company’s confidence not only in Recharge and Shopify, but in their own teams’ ability to handle even more complex migrations.

Welcome home: Harry’s Inc. unifies its brands on Shopify + Recharge

And migrating Harry’s to the new platform certainly was more complex. Where Flamingo had taken 3 months to migrate, Harry’s, with years’ more data to account for, took 8. But in February 2025, after 12 years on custom tech, Harry’s joined the other brands on Shopify and Recharge.

The new platform offers plenty of advantages, without compromising on the company’s ethos of letting its brands operate independently. They still spend plenty of time sharing insights with each other—a churn prevention strategy that works for one brand is certain to make its way to the others. And now that they share a tech toolset, it’s even easier to apply those insights or transfer talent between teams, making the company even more flexible.

A cut above: Harry’s Inc. rebrands to Mammoth Brands to mirror their diverse portfolio. 

This far into their journey, Harry’s Inc. had become way more than just a razor company. In April 2025, they announced that Harry’s Inc. had become Mammoth Brands to reflect the company’s breadth and scale.

Big, formidable, and friendly, the Mammoth is a Harry’s icon that has appeared on the brand’s products for years. It was the natural choice for the parent company’s new identity.

The company’s core remains unchanged—their vision, operating model, and mission to Create Things People Like More still guide everything they do. Mammoth Brands is dedicated to improving the lives of consumers and building a home for brands, founders, and people who want to do the same.

The post From startup to scale: The tech decisions behind Mammoth Brands’ massive growth appeared first on Recharge.

To understand how the ecommerce industry in particular is responding and how brands can navigate the new regulations, Recharge assembled a panel of experts at ChargeX, our annual subscription commerce conference. Here are the insights and recommendations they shared in a session moderated by Lindy Crea, Recharge’s Vice President of Partnerships & Solutions.

Your costs will increase. There’s no one right answer

With the tariffs impacting goods up and down the supply chain, every brand is likely to face price increases. If you’re considering passing the price increases on to customers, you’re not alone—an EY poll of 4000 executives found that over 70% planned to pass at least 50% of tariff costs on to customers.

In addition to the costs themselves, brands will also have to decide how (or whether) to communicate cost increases to customers. Dale Traxler, Shopify’s Director of Technology Partnerships, notes that Shopify brands who increase prices to offset the tariffs can also opt to either note tariff surcharges as a separate line item at checkout or simply roll them into product prices.

The right answer will be different for every brand, depending on factors like unit economics, margins, and customer price sensitivity—in other words, finding the balance between cost increases and customer satisfaction. 

Not all customers are equally price-sensitive

Scott Wallace, founder and CEO of kids’ cooking subscription brand I’m The Chef Too, noted that while his brand started raising prices quickly in response to the tariffs (and opted to raise list prices instead of adding a tariff surcharge), customers seemed unconcerned: “Most of [our customers] wouldn’t be able to tell us if [our product cost] $34.95 or $36.95. They’re looking at mostly what the discount offers are…and then what value we’re giving.”

The lesson: Not every price increase will cause a commensurate drop in sales. Brands trading in luxury items or experiential offers like I’m The Chef Too may find their customers more amenable to a slight bump. On the other hand, brands specializing in commodities or everyday essentials may have less wiggle room before customers opt for a lower-cost alternative or cut a product out of their routine.

Reduce supply chain costs & inefficiencies

Tariffs are essentially a logistics cost, and you’ll find plenty of opportunity to offset them within your supply chain. Austin Smith, founder of logistics agency Best and Basic, recommends scrutinizing every step from packaging to final mile.

Sell off excess inventory

If old product is sitting on shelves and running up your warehouse fees, Smith says now is the time to launch clearance sales or liquidate. Even defective products and bad batches are fair game, he says, noting that one brand repurposed a batch of 1000 units with defective packaging into a limited-run promotion. The batch sold out completely.

With consumers facing the prospect of dramatic price increases, they may be more eager than ever to get factory seconds or out-of-season stock at a discount.

Consolidate steps in your supply chain

There are plenty of places to save after the product leaves the warehouse. Each time a product arrives at or departs another location, its cost rises. “Some [logistics touchpoints] could be 50 cents a touch, 25 cents a touch,” adding that flat cost to each product shipped, Smith says. Brands need to consider how to go “from ten touches to eight touches and so on” to minimize the number of steps with incremental cost increases.

Visit facilities in person to uncover inefficiencies

While you’re evaluating all of these costs, Smith cautions against doing so purely on paper. “Get to your facilities. I know this is a hard one, [but it] will give you a lot of insight into maybe how you’re doing things inefficiently.”

One brand had developed elaborate custom packaging that seemed viable in demos; a trip to their production facility, however, revealed that the packaging added a full minute to the packing process for each unit. The brand quickly decided to switch to simpler packaging.

Relocate & consolidate logistics nodes

As your customer base grows, you may find your brand shipping orders far from your original logistics network. Smith noted that the extra costs could be considerable. “If you’re doing 70% of your shipments [to the] East Coast, I highly recommend you look at a fulfillment center closer to your customers. It’s absolutely going to [have] a massive impact [on] your shipping costs.”

If you have customers all over the country, then opting for multiple nodes may seem like an appealing option. Not so fast, Smith says. “You’re going to get greater efficiency going out of one singular node in the middle of the country. Transferring your inventory back and forth, [split shipping], those indirect costs are killing you.”

Maximize cash on hand & minimize expenses

Though blanket tariffs may cause price increases across the board for your brand, mitigating costs will require a more precise approach. Alex Ledoux, co-founder of private equity firm Karta Ventures, recommends that brands prepare to tighten their expenditure and turn to other sources of funding.

Anticipate setbacks—and your responses

First try playing out a variety of scenarios to determine your company’s financial readiness. “What does it look like if acquisition cost goes up 20%? Wow. [If] revenue goes down 20%, can you survive that? If you’re a subscription business, what does it look like if your LTV [drops 20%]? Can you survive that? The D2C debt landscape has already been in a very challenging situation…if your million-dollar line of credit gets pulled overnight, can you survive that?”

These scenarios should help you identify which costs will be most difficult to sustain. “If it’s a mission-critical expense, we’re contacting that vendor [to work on options].”

Secure financing from manufacturing partners

When margins narrow, Ledoux recommends exploring how your partners may help you shoulder the burden. “Lean on your manufacturers. They really are an extension of your bank. Almost every exporter can get export financing from their bank [at] a 2-5% interest rate, which is obviously way cheaper than anyone can here.”

Be prepared to pivot

It’s impossible to predict the exact impact the tariffs will have on any brand. For some, staying the course will become untenable, but an adjustment may make them more sustainable in the long run.

Traxler recalls that during the 2008 recession, his jewelry supply company was forced to pivot away from silver after a series of dramatic price increases. Searching for a more economical material, the company turned to copper, which turned out to be less a compromise than a blessing—copper’s low cost enabled margins of 800-1000%, ultimately resulting in the brand recentering itself around copper altogether.

Brands navigating today’s margin pressures have an opportunity to rethink and strengthen their business models. By evaluating how to protect margins, secure smart financing, and fine-tune products and pricing to exceed customer expectations, companies can lay the groundwork for long-term sustainability. What you sell today doesn’t have to define your future—adapting with intention could be the transformation that unlocks new growth and resilience.

Seeking clarity amid uncertainty

While the full impact of new regulations is still unfolding, one thing is clear: uncertainty is a powerful prompt to reassess. It’s always the right time to evaluate your business model, optimize your P&L, and ensure you’re delivering real value to your customers. At Recharge, we’re committed to helping brands navigate this evolving landscape with clarity, insight, and strategic support.

The post How ecommerce industry experts are responding to tariffs appeared first on Recharge.

With consumer behaviors shifting rapidly and competition growing fierce, it’s never been more important to enter the market with a solid strategy. A good one will encompass every aspect of your business from UX to marketing to process automation. Let’s take a look at some of the most useful tactics an ecommerce business can use to scale today.

Why you need a comprehensive ecommerce growth strategy

If you’re serious about scaling, you won’t get there by focusing on just one aspect of your business. When its other aspects fall out of step, your customer journey and experience are likely to feel disjointed and incomplete, losing you customers before you can land a sale—and burning the resources you’ve invested in them.

On the other hand, a brand with a well-rounded strategy is greater than the sum of its parts. Investments in marketing will raise your profile and bring more shoppers in; investments in your customer experience will lead to higher conversion; and personalized touches and good service will lead to higher customer retention. With every area covered, you’ll be able to build a steady pipeline of revenue and keep scaling.

Foster word-of-mouth and referral marketing

Happy customers are a brand’s best advocates. Encouraging word-of-mouth marketing with referral programs can generate high-quality leads with minimal ad spend.

Offer referral incentives

A referral program isn’t just a good way to gain new customers. It can even help you retain existing ones. Provide customers with referral links or codes that they can offer to friends and family, complete with first-order discounts to sweeten the deal—that’s how you bring new shoppers in the door.

Then, when one of your customers successfully completes a referral, reward them with incentives like discounts, store credits, or exclusive perks. They’ll be happy to stick around.

Encourage user-generated content (UGC)

Authenticity is everything. Curious shoppers are more likely to convert when they know that real people just like themselves have used and enjoyed your products.

Even if you’re producing stellar marketing materials on your own, UGC provides a personal touch that’s difficult to match. Try encouraging customers to share reviews, testimonials, and social media posts to bridge the gap. 

Reward loyalty from existing customers

Rewards programs are a proven way to keep customers around for the long haul. But don’t stop at implementing a basic points-for-purchases scheme—mix and match engaging incentives like account credits, free gifts, and discounts so there’s always another reason for loyal customers to stick around.

Implement (and prioritize) subscriptions

Most ecommerce businesses dream of steady, dependable revenue streams. For that, you need repeat customers; for many, the solution is subscriptions.

A typical subscriber provides as much revenue as about three non-subscribing customers in just their first year. Many provide even more. A thoughtful subscription program could provide your brand with huge advantages in customer loyalty and retention.

Go subscription-first

Making subscriptions the default purchase option tells customers that they’re the ideal way to purchase your products, and it takes the friction out of signing up. To make them even more appealing, add discounts for recurring orders, including an even steeper discount on the first order to make it an easy choice.

Provide flexible options

Subscriptions are valuable to customers because they’re convenient. A subscription configuration that’s rigid or limited will quickly become inconvenient and earn a cancellation. Make it easy to pause, adjust, or skip orders to keep customers around long-term.

Help subscribers discover your catalog

A customer’s first subscription is your first step toward catering to their entire routine. Try adding cross-sell offers at touchpoints like checkout or in emails about upcoming orders—they’re the perfect way to showcase complementary products.

Excel at customer service

It’s hard to oversell the value of quality customer service. Data from Salesforce (published via Hubspot) paints a compelling picture:

• 88% of customers say good customer service makes them more likely to purchase again
• 75% say they’ve recommended a company based on excellent customer service
• 80% say the experience a company provides is as important as its product or services

Accessible, effective service can make the difference between purchase and abandonment. Earn brand loyalty by giving customers easy access to the answers they need.

Offer multiple contact points & solutions

There’s no one service solution that will meet all of your customers’ needs. Email is a good start, but it may be too slow for customers who need quick resolutions and too involved for those with smaller issues.

The ideal approach is to offer a wide array of service options, including quick, light-touch options like chat and self-service options like a help center with documentation and resources.

Try an always-on chatbot

Automated, AI-powered chat bots may not be a silver bullet for customer service, but they have some important advantages. They’re instantly available to customers 24/7, and they excel at transactional tasks like basic account or order management.

Consider implementing a bot to handle frontline requests and free up your service team for issues that require a more personalized approach.

Personalize journeys through your online store

Every customer has unique needs and preferences. Scaling an ecommerce business doesn’t mean providing a one-size-fits-all experience for every customer; it means tailoring each customer’s experience to them specifically.

Recommend products dynamically

Use what you know about your customers’ shopping habits to suggest more relevant items, either as they shop or in between orders.

Personalization is crucial here. A relevant recommendation can feel like you’re helping a customer solve a problem; miss the mark and it’s more likely to feel like you’re trying to stuff their cart.

Target customer outreach

For your outreach to engage customers, it needs to feel just as personalized and relevant as your product recommendations. If you have customers who like to order from the New Releases section, let them know about upcoming products that could round out their routines. If you have customers who make repeat orders without subscribing, target them with education about your subscription program to see if they convert.

Use personalization to stop churn

For subscription businesses, churn is inevitable. But a lot of customers who move to cancel only do so because they don’t realize a better option is available.

Try pairing your cancellation survey with personalized solutions. Too much product on hand? Skip the next order. Trying to save on costs? Here’s 10% off the next order.

Build a social media presence for your ecommerce business

Traditional marketing channels are still worthwhile, but social media is where you’ll find the most opportunity to build real relationships with customers. Keep your brand visible, accessible, and engaging to cultivate a community.

Post a variety of content

Your social media feed won’t inspire much engagement if it feels like a big ad reel. Mix up the product plugs with different types of posts: how-to guides, handy tips, memes, customer content, peeks behind the scenes, and whatever else you can think of. With the right mix, your accounts will be an instant follow.

Dabble in influencer marketing

Two things need to happen before a customer buys your product: They need to know it exists, and then they need to believe that it’s worth buying. Influencer marketing can accomplish both at once by broadening your reach and adding credibility. Look around for credible influencers within your industry and see if you can partner with them on a social media campaign.

Make your posts shoppable

Boosting sales is all about removing friction from shopping. There’s no better way to do that than with shoppable posts (built right into platforms like Instagram and TikTok) that show off your products, then let customers buy them on sight.

Upgrade your ecommerce store with a smooth UX

User experience (UX) has a huge impact on sales—it’s how customers navigate your ecommerce site and buy your products at all. Removing friction from the shopping journey is a surefire way to boost sales.

Optimize for mobile

76% of ecommerce traffic comes from mobile users. That’s not a new phenomenon, so by now any brand should be monitoring mobile load times and designing responsive websites that work on any device. And don’t shy away from adding mobile-first touches to your online store, like vertical videos or swipeable media.

Expand your payment options

In addition to traditional credit cards, digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Wallet have become ubiquitous both online and in physical retail (not to mention online-only ones like Shop Pay and PayPal). Try supporting a variety of payment options so each customer can pay the way they like.

Simplify sign-in

A lost password or a clunky account management process could mean the difference between repeat orders and a churned customer. One way to mitigate that is with passwordless sign-on, which uses methods like email verification to handle login.

Go even further by enabling customers to manage their accounts without even logging in, like via one-click order management buttons in account emails.

Your ecommerce growth strategy is step 1 to scaling

There’s no silver bullet for scaling your ecommerce store. Instead, steady growth and rising sales depend on a multifaceted strategy.

Make sure you’re bringing customers into your funnel by building a strong social media presence and investing in referrals programs. Then make sure each customer has ample opportunity to convert by delivering smooth shopping and checkout experiences. Finally, once customers have converted, make sure you have a plan to keep them engaged: subscriptions, loyalty programs, and personalized recommendations are great options.

With some careful planning and execution, you’ll be able to build a thriving ecommerce website.

The post Honing your ecommerce growth strategy: Tactics for sustainable success appeared first on Recharge.

Except that the middle portion of that equation can be trickier than it sounds. For ecommerce brands in particular, costs come from all sides. Physical goods come with costs for production, warehousing, and logistics, and the digital side is no different.

A truly best-in-class ecommerce shop might have a storefront, a customer account portal, a loyalty program, retention tools, subscription software, marketing tools—the list goes on. Each of those features or capabilities has its own purchase price, and they can add up fast, resulting in a high total cost of ownership (TCO) for a brand.

Brands around the industry are working hard to keep their TCO low and their resources free. Let’s dive into what TCO is and how to manage it.

What is total cost of ownership?

Initial purchase price + maintenance costs

Total cost of ownership is just what it sounds like: the all-in cost of a particular piece of tech in a brand’s stack, or, more broadly, the total cost of all the tech in their stack. Both definitions are useful for assessing your business at different levels (more on that below).

Keep in mind that total cost of ownership really is total. Up-front acquisition or build costs, also known as capital expenditure, are just one factor to account for. TCO also includes ongoing maintenance costs, or operational expenditure, to help you see the big picture.

While the initial purchase price is typically flat and transparent, maintenance in particular can entail more costs than anticipated—keep a close eye on them over time to be sure they don’t outpace the benefits your tech provides.

Why it’s important to determine TCO—and mitigate it

Total cost of ownership is critical to understanding your business’s health and guiding purchasing decisions. Take a holistic approach to TCO analysis, considering it at multiple levels:

• The overall TCO of your entire platform or tech stack, to ensure that your tech investments are sustainable overall.
• And the TCO of individual products, to make sure each is delivering the expected value.

Overall platform TCO

Even if sales are growing, ballooning costs could undercut your gains. A high total cost of ownership will siphon resources away from growth-oriented ventures like product development or customer acquisition and toward simply keeping the lights on, ultimately capping your brand’s growth.

Product TCO

The total cost of ownership of each individual product in your tech stack is equally important, helping you evaluate their true value to your business. Even if the product delivers on a promise of increased sales or customer acquisition, those gains need to be weighed against the costs—not just the initial cost or ongoing costs, but the full TCO, evaluated over an appropriate timeframe. With all factors considered, a low-cost, medium-impact product could provide better value to your brand than a high-cost, high-impact product.

When TCO doesn’t tell the full story

But the opposite can also be true! In addition to capital and operational expenditure, a broad ownership analysis could even consider the opportunity cost of missing out on a more capable asset.

Sure, a low-cost, low-maintenance asset may look like a no-brainer that keeps your TCO low on paper. But what if a more capable alternative could broaden your market or accelerate your growth? Simple TCO calculations won’t reflect that. Try projecting what your TCO could be, compared to the potential benefits.

TCO analysis: Comparing to GMV

There’s no one ideal total cost of ownership that guarantees a healthy business. But remember, you want most of your resources going back into your business itself, not just into your platform.

With that in mind, comparing your TCO to your gross merchandise value (GMV) makes a helpful reference point. You want platform costs to reflect a relatively low portion of your revenue, with some sources recommending that the TCO of your ecommerce platform itself be as low as 1% of GMV. If the TCO of your platform and other foundational tools starts to stretch far past that, it may be time to reevaluate.

Build or buy: in-house vs. third-party

When a brand needs a new product or capability, they may realize that they have the option of building it in-house or paying for a ready-built version.

Both options have merit and can positively affect total cost of ownership under the right circumstances. But the choice isn’t as clear-cut as it may seem at first—a strong TCO analysis will help you make the right call.

In-house investment

For enterprise brands in particular, building a product in-house is appealing. An initial analysis might find that it would result in the ideal platform at a low TCO.

There are valid reasons for that. Every brand has unique goals and needs; a third-party solution built for a broad audience could easily have critical feature gaps with no recourse, whereas an in-house solution that a brand controls completely would be purpose-built for their platform.

Building in-house could also introduce cost savings too. A third-party product’s purchase price doesn’t reflect the product’s value alone—it includes a profit margin for the developer, not to mention additional costs like marketing that wouldn’t even apply to a homegrown tool.

Why risk overpaying for an inadequate product when you can build a complete one for a lower total cost?

The inflexibility dilemma

Unfortunately, building in-house is often more complex than it seems, and even more resource-intensive than that.

Starting from scratch drives expenses

For one, if a development team isn’t already in place, then building one is an enormous investment with a high initial cost and administrative burden. Long-term maintenance is similarly expensive. And that’s not to mention the overhead involved with managing the product and the team behind it.

Keeping pace with the industry

Eventually, the industry standards for a product may begin to change faster than an in-house team can keep up with. A product that met its original goals might start to lag behind the rest of the market, lacking features that customers have grown accustomed to.

With so many resources tied to the product, it becomes even harder for the brand to pivot to an alternative. What was once an asset is now an anchor, inflating TCO instead of controlling it.

Gaining value by buying third-party

Brands grappling with tech debt and outdated infrastructure—or simply hoping to avert them—may have better luck buying third-party.

External tools aid agility

Adopting external tools can make an organization nimbler almost immediately, offloading the development process and resource management to another, more specialized company. That leaves the brand free to focus on their products and customer experience—their real differentiators.

Specialization reduces operating costs

The same effect leads indirectly to lower costs, too. The product developer is similarly free to direct resources right back into their own product, resulting in more mature tech at lower cost.

Buying is more flexible than building

And the perceived flexibility provided by a custom-built in-house solution can eventually be outweighed by the very real flexibility of having options. Adapting an entrenched homegrown platform in response to changing needs can be slow and difficult, or even unfeasible on a tight timeline. Shifting from one ready-made product to a more capable alternative can be comparatively quick and easy, especially when the new provider already has infrastructure in place for migration.

For a pulse check on your business, start with total cost of ownership

Let’s be clear: total cost of ownership isn’t the be-all, end-all metric for a healthy business. It’s one KPI of many, and it’s best used in conjunction with others like GMV to form a comprehensive picture of your performance.

But TCO directly relates to your business’s sustainability, so if you’re going to put just one KPI in the spotlight, a TCO analysis is a great place to start for a gut check.

Take a look at your costs. Does it seem like lots of your revenue is going right back into your platform? It might be time to take a closer look at the returns that each piece of tech in your stack is delivering.

Look for areas where impact doesn’t seem to outweigh investment—you may find a good opportunity to pivot toward a tool that can deliver more results at a lower cost.

The post Total cost of ownership: Why it’s on every brand’s mind (and what to make of it) appeared first on Recharge.

Here’s a simple option you might not have explored yet: subscriptions. The right subscription option can provide a huge boost to your online store—not only will it open up repeat orders and recurring payments, but it can provide further benefits that enhance retention and help you foster a robust customer base.

Let’s take a look at some of the biggest benefits of the subscription model and how the right subscriptions app can help you take advantage of them.

Subscriptions are dependable

Whether you plan to sell a curated subscription box or replenishable essentials, subscriptions have clear advantages for both consumers and brands. For consumers, they de-stress the day, keeping everyday essentials stocked and ready to go. A brand that can deliver killer products on a customer’s terms has an excellent shot at entrenching itself in their daily routine and becoming a long-term standby.

For brands, that translates into solid, predictable sales. A non-subscription business relies on one-time customers consciously choosing to return; a subscription business has repeat purchases built in. Even retaining customers for just a few recurring orders can smooth out dips in business, and the right combination of products and subscription experience can result in customers for life.

A Shopify subscription app can strip out hassle and manual work

The concept behind subscriptions is sound, but execution is critical. Don’t leave a potentially integral component of your business to an ad hoc manual solution—instead, opt for a business-ready, off-the-shelf option for your Shopify store.

Here are some of the top factors to consider among subscription apps.

Robust subscription management options

Simply offering subscriptions is one thing. But remember the shifting landscape of brand loyalty—the brands that truly thrive on subscriptions are the ones that provide a flexible experience that fits into (and enhances) customers’ lives rather than expecting customers to conform to it.

What does that mean? Provide options. Your subscriptions app should let customers manage subscriptions effortlessly, including:

• Configuring their subscription plans and delivery cadences
• Adjusting product options and selections easily
• Skipping or delaying orders, or even pausing subscriptions indefinitely

The easier you make it for customers to work your products into their day, the more likely they are to do so.

Easy migration and launch

Just like customers won’t rearrange their lives around an inflexible subscription, you likely don’t want to rearrange your business to suit a one-size-fits-all subscriptions app.

Whether you’re launching your subscription offering from scratch or trying to upgrade your existing one to a more robust version, make sure your subscription app of choice is prepared to meet your business where it is. That means:

• Supporting your (and your customers’) preferred payment options, to avoid disruptions to recurring payments.
• Intaking existing subscription data, if you already use subscriptions, so customers can continue receiving subscription products uninterrupted.
• Responsive customer service and extensive support. Integrating an all-new function into your business can be complex, especially for established businesses—your subscription provider should be prepared to guide you through it and make sure you can launch without a hitch.

The right subscription app will elevate your whole business

While you’re implementing your subscription app, see how else you can enhance your business. While the more basic options may focus solely on subscriptions, others provide more holistic retention offerings, ways to increase customers’ cart sizes and LTV, and more.

Don’t overlook these benefits—if the core advantage of the subscription model is the dependability it provides, then you don’t want to miss out on other ways to shore up your revenue streams.

Recharge: Far from just a subscription app

Built for Shopify, Recharge subscriptions are at the core of our platform, but that’s just the start. Our full offerings include loyalty programs, cancellation reduction measures, automated failed payment monitoring, and more—plus the in-depth analytics and industry benchmarks you need to put your performance into context.

Shopify subscription apps are a top tactic for dependable revenue

Online stores of all kinds can benefit from implementing subscription apps. Subscriptions are a key opportunity to turn one-time purchases into recurring payments from repeat customers—don’t miss out!

When evaluating potential subscription apps, make sure the one you choose will be right for your business and your customers. It should provide easy subscription management options for customers, helping your subscription options complement their lives rather than complicate them. If you already carry subscriptions and are trying to upgrade your offering, make sure your new selection can easily intake existing subscription data and support your business as you get onto their platform.

The post Driving sustainable growth: Leveraging Shopify subscription apps for recurring revenue models appeared first on Recharge.

But retention is also a different beast from acquisition—it requires a multifaceted approach to different aspects of the customer experience. And with different brands favoring so many different retention strategies, it can be hard to know where to focus your efforts.

In this blog, we’ll walk through some of our most trusted customer retention strategies, including:

• Loyalty programs
• Personalized cancellation alternatives
• Automated failed payment resolutions
• Lapsed subscriber re-engagement

Like what you see? Take a look at Recharge’s Retain package, our suite of offerings designed to help you build lasting relationships with customers.

Our favorite ways to retain customers

Expand your customer retention strategy with these proven tactics.

Thank loyal customers with rewards

They’re no secret—brands in every retail segment have used rewards programs to earn customer loyalty for years. This tried-and-true approach could be the perfect addition to your customer retention strategy, providing incentives that get existing customers to their next order every time.

Rewards programs come in lots of different forms:

• Points-based programs that reward customers with points to redeem for discounts on future purchases. These are often ideal for consumable products that are replenished regularly, adding a layer of variety to a subscription.
• Tiered programs that reward customers with freebies or points when they pass certain milestones, like the number of orders placed. These can be the perfect option for something like a skincare or nutrition regimen that need time to start working—staggered rewards at key points encourage subscribers to stick around long enough to see results.
• VIP programs that provide special perks and benefits, like access to members-only events, new releases, or opportunities for input and feedback. These are a versatile option that can be blended with other setups for unique results. And more detailed customer feedback will help you enhance your products, too.

No one-size-fits-all option

Whichever loyalty program you choose for your business, make sure it’s flexible enough to adapt to your brand and customers. Recharge’s Rewards feature is designed to get better over time—its built-in A/B testing capabilities help you zero in on the most effective incentives for customer retention.

Plus, its integration throughout the customer experience means you can even use remaining rewards to try to sway customers when they move to cancel (more on that below).

Alternatives to cancellation

Eventually, some customers will end their subscriptions. There’s no way around that—churn is an inevitable part of subscription commerce.

But not every cancellation attempt needs to be the end. Sometimes customers cancel permanently due to temporary circumstances, or to solve a problem they don’t realize has another solution. That’s where personalized cancellation alternatives come in.

It’s simple: When a customer initiates cancellation, just check on why, then offer a tailored (and less permanent) solution. Too much product on hand? Skip or delay the next order. Extended trip out of town? Pause the subscription, to be resumed when ready. Trying to save money? Here’s a one-time discount. Not sold on your product of choice? Try these other options customers like you love.

This approach doesn’t just prevent losses, it turns them into wins—solving problems for customers extends their subscriptions and results in even higher customer satisfaction (and thus customer retention) than before.

A built-in solution from Recharge

Recharge’s Retain suite includes Cancellation Prevention, a solution that does all this out of the box. Your brand can use it to build custom exit surveys and configure alternative offers for different cancellation reasons.

And like lots of Recharge tools, it comes with built-in testing capabilities and analytics, so you can rest assured that you’re maximizing your customer retention rate.

Fix failed payments

Churn may be inevitable, but it’s not always intentional. In fact, passive, or unintentional, churn is relatively common—and since it happens to customers who still value your services and products, addressing it can be a surefire way to keep subscribers around and revenue flowing.

Passive churn is usually the result of one of a handful of payment-related reasons, like insufficient funds, expired cards, or processing errors. And its solutions are often straightforward on paper: notifying customers of payment info issues, reattempting failed payments, etc.

But even among brands that have solutions to passive churn, those solutions are often inadequate. They may simply reattempt payment over and over without addressing the root cause, or they may provide cryptic, confusing communication to customers that doesn’t lead to a resolution. When choosing a passive churn solution, be sure to invest in one that addresses the issue intelligently and can actually increase customer retention.

Try Failed Payment Recovery from Recharge

Also included in Retain is Failed Payment Recovery, which Recharge designed from the ground up to tackle the most common problems with passive churn solutions. It uses a custom AI- and machine learning-based smart retry policy to reattempt payment processing at the times most likely to result in success, and the communications it sends to customers can be fully branded and customized.

Re-engage lapsed subscribers

While customer acquisition and retention are often discussed as separate concepts, they intersect at one notable source of new subscribers: former subscribers.

That’s right—a surprising number of customers are ready to return for the right offer. And since they’re already familiar with your brand and products, they typically require less education than brand-new customers, making them a cost-effective source of subscriptions.

The trick is personalization. Someone who’s already tried your products and ended their subscription isn’t likely to be won over again by the same approach that earned their business the first time—you’ll need more finesse.

Luckily, you know a bit more about them now than you did when they first began shopping with you. You have information about their shopping habits, budget, and preferred products. Use that! When you launch a new product, advertise it to former subscribers with a history of enjoying similar products. If you lower the price of an item that many subscribers have cancelled in the past due to costs, send them an email about it—you may earn yourself a few more customers.

Coming soon to Retain: Win Backs

Recharge’s platform is built to enable deep personalization and strong customer relationships. Win Backs, an upcoming component of the Retain suite, is no exception. Brands will be able to use it to craft personalized landing pages that showcase compelling offers on products that subscribers are likely to love, making new customers out of old ones.

Boost customer retention with a comprehensive strategy

Retaining customers may not always be simple, but a multifaceted strategy will keep your customer retention rate high and growing higher.

• Turn curious shoppers into repeat customers with a loyalty program that incentivizes them to get to their next order (and maximizes customer lifetime value to boot).
• When current customers move to cancel, offer alternative solutions that they’ll find even more effective.
• Monitor payment processing and implement a smart, automated system to fix issues.
• Don’t rule out former subscribers—send them personalized offers that can renew their enthusiasm.

With the right combination of systems in place, customer retention can turn from a problem into an advantage.

The post 4 customer retention strategies to extend subscriptions & build customer loyalty appeared first on Recharge.