July 15, 2024 • 32 mins
Wondering what software you should use to run your subscription box business? Or maybe looking to switch as your business needs change? We got your answer in today's episode where Julie interview Stefan, founder of Subbly.
Subbly is an all-in-one commerce platform allowing you to launch, run, and grow any subscription business model: sub boxes, subscribe & save, meal prep, replenishment, memberships and more! Hear what makes Subbly different than other popular software options and be sure to take advantage of their generous offers before 10/31/2024!
- Starting from scratch? Get 3 months free with this link.
- Looking to switch? Subbly will help you with migration and give you 12 months free. Just reach out to support@subbly.co and tell them Julie Ball sent you!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Julie (00:00):
Hey everybody and welcome back to Subscription Box Basics.
(00:03):
This is Julie Ball, your headcoach, and I'm here with my
friend Stefan.
He is the founder of Subbly, andyou guys, if you aren't already
on Subbly or if you've neverheard of Subbly, you are going
to be blown away because this isthe best software to run your
subscription box business onright now.
So without further ado, Stefan,welcome to the podcast.
(00:24):
Why don't you give everyone alittle bit of your background
and introduce yourself.
Hi, Julie.
Thanks for having me on thepodcast.
I know we did it about a yearago and I really appreciate you
having me back on again.
So yeah, I'm the founder and CEOof Subbly and My accent is a
little bit of a mess, but I'mfrom Scotland, just in case
you're interested.
(00:45):
And Subbly was born from analmost scratch your own itch
story and situation where I usedto run a digital marketing
agency and a client wanted tostart a subscription business
and at the time there was nosolution on the market that was
going to make that accessible oraffordable.
So, that's when I startedbuilding Subbly.
(01:07):
And that was about 10 years agonow, which is Crazy to be saying
that but yeah, so Subbly isbasically a dedicated platform
essentially for subscriptionboxes, like your listeners.
And we do service other usecases as well, just as a side
note, but predominantly we'vebeen focused on subscription
boxes and it provides you witheverything you need, you know,
(01:28):
the website.
The billing and all the otherstrategically focused and
tactically focused features thatyou may need for growth that
have been tried and tested byother experts in the industry.
So, yeah, that's I'm obsessedwith subscription boxes.
I guess you could say.
Same.
Back when I launched mysubscription box in 2016, right
(01:49):
around, not long after I thinkyou guys had kind of come to
market.
And at the time there weren'tvery many options, a lot of
subscription box companies, orjust e retailers that were
adding subscriptions to theirrevenue stream had to piece
together things.
They had to almost hiredevelopers and bring all of
(02:11):
these different conceptstogether and piece it together.
It was just such a mess.
And at the time I used asoftware called Cratejoy.
And over the years, you know,I've, I've talked about it a lot
with my, my subscribers and itworked really well for me, but.
Things have changed.
Things are a lot different now,and we no longer recommend
(02:34):
Cratejoy, but we recommendSubbly, over and above Cratejoy,
over and above Shopify, and somany of the other popular
options.
And so I want to take some timetoday to talk about why, like,
why would our listeners want touse Subbly instead?
You know, you guys have awebsite builder that is a no
code website builder, drag anddrop.
(02:54):
So if you're thinking about, Oh,I can't build myself a website.
Yes, you can.
Because Subbly has templates.
And so what are some of thoseother things?
Like, why would someone chooseSubbly instead of CrateJoy or
Shopify or the othersubscription options?
Yeah, this is such a heatedquestion, right?
Like it's a big question.
(03:17):
It's a really big question,surprisingly, right?
So, and it's one that I faceevery day, as you can probably
imagine.
And so I'm going to approach itfrom two sides.
One is the philosophical side,and then the other is like the
more kind of practical tacticalside.
So from a philosophical sideCratejoy, you mentioned
fantastic marketplace, and thatis exactly what their focus is,
(03:40):
right?
They're a marketplace forsubscription boxes, when talking
about Shopify, another one youmentioned Shopify is a
traditionally transactionalcommerce platform.
They're transactionally focused,but they, they rely heavily on
their ecosystem of apps toextend that functionality into
different places.
Right.
And then you've got otheroptions that people commonly use
(04:02):
like WordPress and WordPress isfundamentally a blog.
Right.
Let's just, let's not get ittwisted.
It is a blog.
And then you've got is Wix andSquarespace.
Those are also quite common.
And those are fundamentallywebsite builders, right?
They're, they're not e commerceplatforms.
So now we've got the, the, thelay of the land in terms of each
of the different options,there's us, Subbly, and we're a
(04:24):
subscription first e commerceplatform.
So.
Now let's unpack that a littlebit further, because I think
there's a lot there.
And we could spend a long timetalking about this, but I'll try
and keep it as succinct aspossible.
So if your business isultimately a subscription
business we believe that youdeserve a dedicated solution
because what you'll find isthese strung together solutions
(04:47):
or these non aligned solutionsend up costing you more money.
They also introduce otheroperational inefficiencies.
They can end up creating apoorer experience for your
customers.
Et cetera, et cetera.
There's just a break.
Yeah, if you're piecing thingstogether, they can break.
Yeah, I mean, like, let's takeShopify, right?
(05:10):
So Shopify, if you were to run asubscription box, and you wanted
to have a survey on there, forexample, you're going to need
Shopify, you're going to needsubscription plugin, and you're
also going to need a surveyplugin, you're also going to
need a bunch of other plugins,realistically speaking, to
really get Close to what you'retrying to replicate because
ultimately everybody's trying toreplicate another business.
(05:31):
That's one thing we've learned.
Everybody has like theirinspiration and then it's just
like an iteration of that.
So when we built Subbly, it's.
dedicated for your businessmodel and we've got all the
tools that you need in order tobe able to do that without
needing plugins and tools foryour mission critical functions.
So anything that's basicallywhere the customer lands on your
(05:53):
website all the way through tothem finishing the purchase.
And that's essential for thatpurchase to be successful.
So that's what we considermission critical.
Historically we've, we've saidlike we're, Against plug in
soup, as we used to call it andpeople now believe that we're
anti plug in.
We're actually not.
You know, plug ins areessential, integrations are
essential and necessary.
(06:14):
we're focused on the missioncritical functions and
capabilities, the basicfunctionality of a subscription
business.
So yeah, ultimately, if you'reusing loads of plug ins, this
introduces a bunch of issues.
One is the cost.
You're going to increase yourcosts.
The second thing is that it'sgoing to be a little bit more
inefficient, cause you're goingto be dealing with multiple
different tools.
(06:34):
You're going to be logging intodifferent places.
And when you want support, nowthis is one that is a really,
really important one, when youwant support, who do you talk
to?
Are you going to talk to yourplugin?
Are you going to talk toShopify?
Of the third parties is going togive you the answer that you're
looking for?
And then oftentimes you'll getsent in circles, so like you
might contact Shopify becauseShopify has got great support,
(06:55):
but they're not versed insubscription businesses because
it's not their focus.
So if they go, Oh, you need totalk to recharge, then you go
over to recharge and you askthem for support.
And then say, maybe actuallyturns out.
Yeah.
If it was maybe a problem withShopify Shop Pay, then they'll
send you back to Shopify and youjust can end up playing,
customer support tennis orwhatever you want to call it.
And then another thing is as youbecome bigger and you grow and
(07:17):
become more sophisticated yourneeds change and evolve and the
costs actually scale a littlebit exponentially.
So you'll find that the biggeryou are, suddenly the costs just
go like this.
So There's also another issue isthat as you become more
sophisticated, you're morelikely to need an engineer or
developers.
That's probably true for mostsolutions, probably even Subbly
(07:38):
to some extent.
But what you'll find is thatyour developers need to become
versed in multiple different,tools as well in documentation.
So there's just a lot morecomplexity added when you have a
stack as they call it ofplugins.
So we try to eliminate that andjust simplify the whole thing
and take all your core basicfunctionality that should be
(07:58):
native for your model andbecause we believe your model
deserves that then we eliminateall that complexity and it's
just all it all understands oneanother, natively so yeah,
that's pretty much it in asummary.
Just as a side note, had a veryinteresting dialogue with some
members on on one of thefacebook groups recently and it
was about wordpress and like Youthere's WordPress is a bit of an
(08:20):
outlier.
So WordPress, in order to run asubscription business, you'd
need WordPress plus WooCommerceplus WooCom subscriptions.
Now that's three layers andlevels.
Now it is.
cheap in that it's arguably likeclose to free.
I think there's like, I thinkthere's a subscription now that
you have to pay per year.
It's like a hundred dollars orsomething like that for
(08:41):
subscriptions.
But ultimately this has also gotits own set of issues and
concerns, considerations.
Again, I just want to be clearhere.
Everybody has their ownpriorities, right?
So, somebody might see it asmore important to have full
control over the code, forexample, or maybe somebody
doesn't see it as much of aburden, the things that I'm
(09:01):
about to say.
So with WordPress, you'reresponsible for keeping the
website.
So you need to actually maintainyour servers, make sure that
they're patched, make sure thatyou've got a good hosting
provider that's doing it foryou.
I'm familiar with WordPress, Iused to build WordPress websites
when I was running a digitalmarketing agency myself.
And I can't tell you how manytimes my clients have broken
(09:24):
their site because they haveupdated their plugin.
But it wasn't compatible withtheir version of WordPress or it
wasn't compatible with somethingelse.
And it was, as soon as I got anemail with the subject line is
help, I knew exactly what it wasgoing to be.
It was, I broke my WordPresswebsite cause I tried to update
it myself.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(09:44):
you're right.
And that's the next thing is theplugins, right.
Keeping them up to date, keepingyour WordPress up to date, the
compatibility issues that cancome from that.
The security issues, if youdon't Right.
And that's another thing.
I have a similar background toyou and that ran an agency as
well.
When we were predominantlyWordPress focused and it was not
uncommon for a website to havebeen hacked or compromised.
It would just happen.
It was just part of what wouldhappen.
(10:07):
And you know, there's this otherpiece as well that, you know,
from a philosophical level, I'vementioned already WordPress is
ultimately a blog.
It's a CMS.
That's how it started.
And then you've got a pluginmaking it into an e commerce
platform.
And then you've got a pluginmaking that e commerce platform
into a subscription e commercecapable platform.
There's a lot of layers thereand extrapolations, and I think
that actually does translate,even though the truth, I'm not
(10:28):
saying it's not good, it's afantastic product if you value
what it is and what it canprovide and if you value, as I
said, full customization and youknow, lower initial upfront
costs, but then we've foundrepeatedly, At scale, and this
can even start as low as likehundreds of subscribers, but
especially at thousands, thatthe subscription billing breaks.
(10:53):
It doesn't scale well.
And I'm not going to get intothe technical reasons for that,
but overall generally it's to dowith the way that the
subscription billing works.
So essentially it's a backgroundprocess.
And so sometimes that is justnot efficiently built on other
platforms that are not reallynative or really thinking about
(11:14):
subscription.
So, like, for example, atSubbly, we have a subscription
building engine, and it's triedand tested, and we know it
scales to millions oftransactions and we've built
that over years.
But when you're trying to do iton top of something that's not
built for subscription, it'sgoing to introduce,
inefficiencies and it's just notgoing to be a perfect solution
for that functionality.
It almost sounds like it's ducttape.
(11:34):
You know, you're duct taping,you're trying to put together
things that, yeah, they can worktogether, but is it the
strongest when you're using ducttape?
And I think the best way for ourlisteners to really grasp it is
when you talked about missioncritical.
And I think as a subscriptionbox business owner, we need to
think about that.
Like what?
Is our mission critical.
(11:55):
Like, what are the things thatmy software has to do to make
this business work?
And you guys check off all thoseboxes.
So you've got your websitebuilder, you've got operational
tools, you've got transactionaltools, email tools, like all the
tools that you would need, youliterally can run it with just
(12:17):
your software, if that's whatyou choose to do.
And so I think that's what Itake from this is.
All those other softwares aregood for what they were built
for, but Subbly was built forsubscriptions and the other
softwares we talked aboutweren't built for subscriptions.
Yeah, exactly.
I think that you know, Isometimes say it's the sum of a
hundred parts, right?
So like, You know, peoplechallenges often like, Oh, why,
(12:40):
you know, why are plugins sobad?
Like what, what really makessomebody different to Shopify,
for example?
Well, the developers in thatecosystem have not considered
subscription cause that's nottheir primary focus and it's
just like the sum of like a lotof little parts.
I'm not saying Subbly's perfectby the way.
And it is like down topreferences.
I mean, at the end of the day,if somebody is used to working
with Wix and they just want toget to the website at the door.
(13:02):
They're probably going to beinclined to go and just like,
Oh, I'll just use what I knowand what works.
But there is a problem that thatcreates later.
And that's where we find peoplemoving to Subbly because they're
like, I've ran into the limitshere and I, I want to solve that
and untangle that.
And it can be quite problematicto untangle a migration.
It can get pretty, frustrating.
But we've got solutions forthat.
(13:24):
Well, good.
Cause I think that's a greatsegue because I know, a lot of
our listeners are, starting fromscratch and they're like, okay,
this could be the software forme, but what about those people
that have been running theirbusiness on other platforms
already and are hitting thoseroadblocks, whether it is
becoming too expensive as theyscale, or maybe it is, they
don't have the features thatthey want for their business.
(13:45):
So let's talk about what thatlooks like to even switch.
Yeah, so overall as a process itused to be a lot more
straightforward but there's beena few things changing in the
industry that have really veryanti competitive and anti
subscription business.
And again, this is kind of likewe describe ourselves as
subscription first, and one ofthe benefits of us being
(14:08):
subscription first is that we'reincentivized for you to succeed
as a subscription business, butwe're also we're very
knowledgeable about yourbusiness model and we can
provide the adequate support forit.
But, you know, what we'venoticed in the industry, and
this is pretty alarming, to behonest with you.
You know, I don't like pointingfingers, but Shopify introduced
(14:30):
ShopPay.
It's a great product.
It's consumer facing.
It's a wallet.
You know, it does have a greatconversion rate.
But all the merchants have beenencouraged to actually adopt
through selling the benefits ofShopPay, because it is a great
product.
But the problem is and wethought this was limited to
ShopPay, by the way, just to beclear, that once you are on
there, you cannot get yourtokens off of it.
(14:52):
that you do not have controlover your payment tokens.
Now, let me just unpack thatreally quickly.
Payment tokens.
Yeah.
So when a customer puts theircard details into your website,
they are tokenized and thenthey're stored in the server.
And that's for security reasons.
It's like you never touch theactual credit card details.
So these tokens essentially arewhat you can use to do that.
(15:12):
Charge the card, right?
So it's an identifieressentially.
That's how you send theinstruction to the gateway to
say, charge this card.
Okay.
Every month or a week orquarter, like it's, it's your
lifeblood.
Literally, it's the mostimportant part of your whole
entire business, apart from theactual email address of the
customers.
So they do not give you that.
(15:33):
Again, we thought it was justshop pay, turns out it's
actually, even if you use yourown Stripe account with, with
Shopify, they've now made itimpossible to get the tokens
off.
And this is again, becausethey're a transaction focused
business.
So for them, yeah, it makestheir product more sticky.
You know, it makes it harder toleave and I can understand the,
the desire to make it moredifficult to leave, but I I'd
(15:56):
want to give them the benefit ofthe doubt and say that that's
not why they've done it.
But I think at the same time,generally speaking, just because
they're a transaction focusedbusiness, right?
they're wanting to create thebest tools possible that they
know are going to helptransaction businesses perform.
And they do, they work reallywell.
But when it comes tosubscription business, because
it's not their focus, thesubscription business is
actually the one who's sufferingbecause they need those tokens
(16:18):
and they can't go anywherewithout those tokens.
The same is also true forCratejoy.
They've changed their policiesto do the same.
So these tokens they're beingwithheld as well.
You're not able to get them.
You're not able to request anexport like you used to be able
to.
of that is because we believeShopify has set the precedent.
And again, people are notthinking about it as like, well,
(16:39):
Shopify are not focused onsubscription businesses.
Wix also do this.
I think that's pretty much it.
Those are the three main ones,but it looks like a trend.
So normal businesses are doingthis.
And I will say this right nowthat we do not hold your tokens
or your data hostage at Subbly.
And, and if you want to leave,you can leave.
So here's a quick recommendationand a quick tip.
If you are thinking aboutstarting a subscription
(17:01):
business, try us first, try it.
And if you have a hard time withus, fine, you can go and go
somewhere else.
At least, you know, you've triedand you're able to leave.
And we're not going to stop youfrom leaving.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
Cause it's not like When you'retalking about tokens, it's not
like me as the business owner,I'm not going to physically hold
these tokens or do anything withthese tokens.
The problem is that if my needschange as a business owner, I
(17:25):
can't move those tokens me when,when I'm with Shopify or with
crate joy or whatnot.
So if you're, if you'rewondering, like, what is he
talking about?
These tokens?
That's, that's, Again, how youcan charge a credit card.
And so if your needs change andyou're like, okay, I want to try
a different software for mybusiness.
You're, you're kind of inhandcuffs.
(17:46):
Yeah, thanks for keeping me ontrack because I get, get a
little technical at times, soapologies.
but yeah, you're, you're spoton.
If you wanted to move, thatmeans that you can't
essentially, makes it a lotharder anyway, right?
So and just to be clear, Shopifyis a really fantastic platform.
And I'm not, I'm not, you know,throwing shade.
I think it's really impressive.
But as you said, as your needschange and evolve, right?
(18:07):
So maybe you've decided I am asubscription box and I'm really
going to go down this path.
And then at that point, it'slike, okay, well, maybe the
tooling is limiting you or allthe things that we've mentioned
already.
So I want to go to Subbly.
Let's talk about that.
So I want to go to a morededicated solution, such as
Subbly.
So we've come up with a solutionfor this and we actually call it
the subscription switchprotocol.
(18:27):
And so normally without thetokens, what you need to do is
let, you'd have two websitesrunning essentially.
You'd have your new website andthen you'd leave the old one
running in the background.
And then over time you wouldtake new customers to the new
website.
And then the old one would churnout over time.
In that timeline we've done somenumbers on it and essentially 14
months to have 80 percenttypical average churn for them
(18:51):
to churn out on the oldplatform.
That means you're going to berunning two platforms for over a
year when you get to 100%.
And then what we've done iswe've created this whole entire
protocol to create friction inthe right places and to build a
campaign around it, so thatessentially you can reclaim your
payment tokens from yourcustomers through Subbly.
(19:11):
And we're seeing that it's,yeah, that's right, it's 11 days
to get to 80 percent instead of14 months.
On average.
Wow, okay.
That's good news.
Yes.
So, this, this protocol, we runit over like a month, depending
on your specific case and needs.
Month to, it could be twomonths, it could be a couple of
weeks, depends on what yourappetite is.
But yeah, the numbers areshowing that we're getting
(19:33):
percent of the tokens reclaimedwithin 11 days.
Versus 80 percent over 14 monthsif we didn't do the protocol.
Gotcha.
So you're saying there's hope ifsomeone is over there just
pulling their hair out saying Ineed to switch and I don't know
how to do this, your team overat Subbly, the support team, can
help them with this protocolthat you've already created.
(19:54):
So that's really good news.
And guys, keep listening becauseat the end of the episode, we're
going to give you really specialoffer if you want to switch, and
we're also going to give aspecial offer if you are
starting from scratch and youwant to give Subbly a try with
very low risk, so let's shiftthe topic here.
It's been about a year since Ihad you on the podcast.
(20:14):
I want to know about some of thenew features you've implemented.
Recently that you are really,really excited about.
And I have a couple that I wantto talk about as well.
So you, you go first.
Okay.
Yeah.
I think one of the most notableones recently is that we have
the new checkout template.
So flashback a couple of years,we started rebuilding our
checkout from the ground up.
(20:35):
And we consolidated everythingthat we've learned over the last
10 years into this newessentially product.
So.
The, the idea is that now we canactually build templates for the
checkout so you can choose yourideal checkout design or flow.
So we now have two checkouttemplates and the new one is a
one page template.
(20:56):
Checkout rather than like multistep.
So this is just the beginning ofthis journey, but that's
something that's very exciting.
And, you know, we're seeing thatit's got a higher conversion
rate, for example which ispretty exciting.
So that's one thing that I'mparticularly excited about.
There's something else that'snot a hundred percent related to
you subscription box owners, butwe did launch a really, really
(21:18):
comprehensive product calledbundles.
If you were running a meal kitor meal prep subscription
business, that would be likegreat news for you.
Another thing that was prettycool and seems like a small
thing, but it's quite notable.
So we have a survey builder onSubbly, so you can build like a
form essentially, right?
Like a questionnaire or quiz,whatever you want to call it for
your onboarding flow.
(21:40):
Typically, that was always prepurchase.
When I say pre purchase, I meanbefore they actually checkout.
But we've actually made itpossible for you to do that post
purchase, which means after theycheck out, so that you can
collect that data afterwards,which can reduce friction and
also lead to a higher conversionrate.
If that data is not missioncritical for you to fulfill
those orders.
That's a big one.
(22:00):
Definitely.
So there's a couple of things.
And I think this is just achance for me to, to, to say
like the questions that I getasked a lot about, like, does
Subbly do thisdoes Subbly dothis.
Yes, you can do one timeproducts.
Yes.
You can offer gift cards.
Yes.
You can have sequentialsubscriptions and subscriptions
that are a specific length.
So I've had people say, I wantto do a one year plan where,
(22:23):
they start with box one and theyend with box 12.
Can you do that?
It's like, yes, yes, yes.
You can do all that.
And then one of the other thingsthat I love.
Is that you guys offer reallyflexible sales cycles.
So for example, if you want toship weekly, monthly, quarterly,
annually, or you could createyour own custom sales cycle.
(22:45):
Like you're just giving thesteering wheel back to the
business owner to drive theirbusiness the way they want to
go.
Whereas a lot of these otherplatforms are, you know, you
have to only do anniversarysales cycles, meaning that if
someone joins on the first, thenthey're going to renew on the
first.
And that just doesn't work foreverybody.
So I really appreciate some ofthose super basic things that
(23:08):
get overlooked in othersoftwares.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's funny because, youknow, I think it's become more
complex over time as we covermore and more cases.
And you know, as you said, notevery business is going to
follow the basic script.
And that's created a newchallenge for us.
Just as I do it, like we'retrying to make it so that it's.
Easy for those who do have thebasic script, but also that you
(23:31):
can dive in and go make it morecomplex and more unique to your
specific needs as a business.
So that's something that we'reconstantly trying to balance
that.
So if we haven't got it right,please let me know.
Cause I'm open to all feedbackand we want to make sure that
it's easy to use.
But yeah, I would say you canpretty much set up almost any
cadence or that you can imagineessentially any setup or cycle
(23:52):
yeah, and we have commitmentterms.
This is pretty specific.
So you can set up, for example,you could do prepaid 12 months,
you could do 12 months.
paid monthly, and then they'recommitted for that 12 months.
There's something else that'scoming out, I think, this week
or next week which is basicallyauto expiring subscriptions.
So instead of doing a commitmentterm or prepaid, you could do a
(24:18):
fixed term that ends instead ofcontinuing to renew after that
as well.
That's something that we'reintroducing because that was a
big request.
Yeah, so there's, there's a lotthere.
And challenge us on, if there'ssomething that we haven't
thought about for subscriptionbusinesses.
Yeah, like if there's featuresthat you need, I know you guys
are open to hearing about that.
I have to mention too, that justbecause I, you know, used to run
(24:41):
a box business called SparkleHustle Grow and one of our
Membership benefits was digitalcontent.
You guys implemented thatdigital content feed, which I
love.
Now, if I was still running thebusiness, I could run the entire
thing without having to add on aanother platform just for
digital content, anotherplatform for this and for that.
(25:02):
And so I, I just love that.
And I Have to give you guys abig shout out.
Yeah, I know the content feed itis it is still like the first
version of it, but You know andthat brings me on to another
point that like we're alwaysimproving and we're still very
early on this mission Like we'rewe're here for it.
And so if you do have feedbacki'm I want to hear it And we
(25:24):
appreciate the, the loyalty thatour customers have given us
because we wouldn't be herewithout them because we are
bootstrapped.
And at the same time, we areexcited about the things that
we're working on as well.
So I hope that, that people canexercise a little bit of
patience because I know there'sa lot of demand at the moment
for, for various features.
But yeah, it's a, it's a goodtime on our mission right now.
I'm glad you said that.
(25:44):
You don't see that with othercompanies.
You don't see that in othersoftwares where you can tell
them I need this feature and ifit's a true feature, that's
going to benefit the, greatercommunity, you guys actually
implement it.
And I think that's really,really.
A great way to look at it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, it goes on the backlog.
We discuss it and we prioritizeit.
And you know, it might nothappen tomorrow, but it's on
(26:06):
there and we're planning towardsit.
one other thing I want tomention actually, and I think
this is really important.
And although it's not a newfeature, it's been around for a
while, but I just see a lot ofsubscription boxes failing to
leverage this.
And that is the funnels insideof Subbly.
Essentially funnels allow you tobuild offer chains, so you can
do like an upsell or a downselland you can do it pre purchase
(26:27):
or before the checkout, duringthe checkout or after the
checkout post purchase.
the hardest part is for peopleto think about what they can
offer.
Like what product can I offer asan upsell?
But every time this is enabled,we see an uplift in AOV, which
is the average order value, theamount of money per order on
average that is spent on theirstore and that can be the
(26:48):
difference between spending moreon ads and succeeding and
compounding and not, it's suchan important piece and I need to
mention it because if you areusing Subbly, get on the funnels
and set up your upsell offers,because I'm sure you've got
inventory sitting around.
Make the most of it.
We used to offer last month'sbox as an upsell during the
(27:09):
subscribe flow, but I canimagine how impactful that might
be.
Also, after the purchase hasbeen made, like post purchase
upsell, because you've alreadycaptured their subscription,
their payment information.
They've already made theirdecision at this point.
So that friction is so muchlower.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
It's a one click upsell.
(27:30):
So at any stage it's basicallyyour opt in.
So if it's before the checkout,it's going to add it to the
cart.
If it's during the checkout,it's going to add it to the
cart.
But if it's after the checkout,it's just one click, the same
order information, like the, theshipping address, the payment
information all of that's justused again.
(27:50):
And it's super effective, as yousaid, because they've already
made a commitment to your brand.
There's trust that it's likereverse rationalization.
And then what works really wellthere is if it's a value add.
Like this is going to make your,what you've just committed to
even more value.
And I think that's probably thebest approach to think about it.
Like, okay, how can I enhancetheir experience even further
(28:13):
and give them a really juicyoffer?
To make the most of thataffinity they've built with your
brand by, signing the dottedline essentially by clicking
submit.
Nice.
All right, so let's bring thishome.
We've talked a lot about, thelandscape.
We've talked a lot about thefeatures.
We've talked about what'sworking right now.
So if someone is interested instarting from scratch with
(28:35):
Subbly, we have a special offerfor them.
Will you tell them about thatspecial offer?
Yeah, certainly.
So, we're doing three monthsfree on, on Subbly if you're new
to Subbly and you're juststarting out, and you need to go
to Subbly.
co, S U B B L Y dot C O forwardslash julie.
(28:55):
And that will take you to theactual offer and you'll get the
three months free when you signup for the trial, essentially
it's a three months free trialand it's so important at that
front end, like when you're juststarting your business, Your
money is going to be going outthe door on inventory.
On all these different things.
And to have three months free ofyour core software to me, it's
(29:17):
just, it's a no brainer.
So if someone is on a differentplatform and they're thinking
about switching, You have anoffer for them as well.
Right.
Yeah.
So, you know, we spoke about thesubscription switch protocol
earlier and how that's provingto be really successful.
Just as a quick note, by theway, it's not necessary for
(29:37):
everybody.
There are situations where wecan migrate you really easily
with the old process that hasbeen tried and tested over
hundreds, if not thousands, of,of migrations.
So Yeah, it's the subscriptionswitch protocol.
I'm just mentioning it becauseit's there for those who need to
use it.
But for those who are alreadyrunning their business and have
subscribers and they're onanother platform that's not
(29:58):
Subbly, we're giving away 12months free when you switch to
Subbly.
And just to be clear, because Iknow that some people ask this
question, the reason that we canoffer that is because of the
transaction fee that we charge.
So it keeps the light on, youknow, And there's also you know,
you guys who are running abusiness on another platform we
understand that it's aninconvenience and there's a big
(30:19):
switching cost involved for youtoo.
So it's kind of like meeting youin the middle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So even more so today than inthe past, but but yeah, so 12
months free when you switch toSubbly in order to claim that we
can give a link, Julie, to putin the show notes, but also just
reach out to our and that offeryou can claim that before
(30:41):
October 31st of this year, 2024.
I'll make sure those links arein the show notes, but if
they're trying to reachWSupport, is the best way to use
the chat function that you guyshave, or is there an email?
Yeah, you can, you can doeither.
So support at subbly dot co oryou can go onto our website and
there's a little green bubble atthe bottom, right?
Just click it and then you'llget through to the chat widget,
(31:02):
which will bring you directly tothe team.
It's not real time.
It's close to it though.
It's like 10 minute responsetime.
Okay.
That's awesome.
Okay.
We will make sure to put all ofthat information in the show
notes so that The newbies cantry it for free.
If you're listening and you'rethinking about switching, you
can have that conversation andcash in on those 12 months free.
(31:24):
Those will expire October 31stof 2024.
Make sure you apply before then,because the way it works is once
you, you get the interestsubmitted, we'll then, you know,
chat you through the process andthen we'll give you three months
to actually get set up and dothe migration.
So there's like a grace periodthere for the T for you to lock
(31:46):
in the rest of the 12 months.
So very cool.
Just make sure you submit yourinterest before October 31st.
Love it.
Okay.
So if you're listening and youhave questions about Subbly, you
know, you can always reach me inthe DMs of Subscription box
basics on Instagram, happy toanswer any questions, or you can
try out the chat feature onSubbly dot Stefan, thank you for
(32:07):
joining me again and for sharingeverything that you know about
what is going on in theindustry.
What are the challenges andbuilding features to solve those
problems?
Yeah, no, thank you so much forhaving me on the podcast, Julie.
And feel free to reach out tous.
We'd love to, get you set upand, and, provide you with
advice even if you don't chooseSubbly.
(32:28):
So just hit up the Subbly team.
Thanks so much.
All right, everyone.
Thanks for listening today, andwe'll see you in the next
episode.
Bye.
Hey everybody and welcome back to Subscription Box Basics.
(00:03):
This is Julie Ball, your headcoach, and I'm here with my
friend Stefan.
He is the founder of Subbly, andyou guys, if you aren't already
on Subbly or if you've neverheard of Subbly, you are going
to be blown away because this isthe best software to run your
subscription box business onright now.
So without further ado, Stefan,welcome to the podcast.
(00:24):
Why don't you give everyone alittle bit of your background
and introduce yourself.
Hi, Julie.
Thanks for having me on thepodcast.
I know we did it about a yearago and I really appreciate you
having me back on again.
So yeah, I'm the founder and CEOof Subbly and My accent is a
little bit of a mess, but I'mfrom Scotland, just in case
you're interested.
(00:45):
And Subbly was born from analmost scratch your own itch
story and situation where I usedto run a digital marketing
agency and a client wanted tostart a subscription business
and at the time there was nosolution on the market that was
going to make that accessible oraffordable.
So, that's when I startedbuilding Subbly.
(01:07):
And that was about 10 years agonow, which is Crazy to be saying
that but yeah, so Subbly isbasically a dedicated platform
essentially for subscriptionboxes, like your listeners.
And we do service other usecases as well, just as a side
note, but predominantly we'vebeen focused on subscription
boxes and it provides you witheverything you need, you know,
(01:28):
the website.
The billing and all the otherstrategically focused and
tactically focused features thatyou may need for growth that
have been tried and tested byother experts in the industry.
So, yeah, that's I'm obsessedwith subscription boxes.
I guess you could say.
Same.
Back when I launched mysubscription box in 2016, right
(01:49):
around, not long after I thinkyou guys had kind of come to
market.
And at the time there weren'tvery many options, a lot of
subscription box companies, orjust e retailers that were
adding subscriptions to theirrevenue stream had to piece
together things.
They had to almost hiredevelopers and bring all of
(02:11):
these different conceptstogether and piece it together.
It was just such a mess.
And at the time I used asoftware called Cratejoy.
And over the years, you know,I've, I've talked about it a lot
with my, my subscribers and itworked really well for me, but.
Things have changed.
Things are a lot different now,and we no longer recommend
(02:34):
Cratejoy, but we recommendSubbly, over and above Cratejoy,
over and above Shopify, and somany of the other popular
options.
And so I want to take some timetoday to talk about why, like,
why would our listeners want touse Subbly instead?
You know, you guys have awebsite builder that is a no
code website builder, drag anddrop.
(02:54):
So if you're thinking about, Oh,I can't build myself a website.
Yes, you can.
Because Subbly has templates.
And so what are some of thoseother things?
Like, why would someone chooseSubbly instead of CrateJoy or
Shopify or the othersubscription options?
Yeah, this is such a heatedquestion, right?
Like it's a big question.
(03:17):
It's a really big question,surprisingly, right?
So, and it's one that I faceevery day, as you can probably
imagine.
And so I'm going to approach itfrom two sides.
One is the philosophical side,and then the other is like the
more kind of practical tacticalside.
So from a philosophical sideCratejoy, you mentioned
fantastic marketplace, and thatis exactly what their focus is,
(03:40):
right?
They're a marketplace forsubscription boxes, when talking
about Shopify, another one youmentioned Shopify is a
traditionally transactionalcommerce platform.
They're transactionally focused,but they, they rely heavily on
their ecosystem of apps toextend that functionality into
different places.
Right.
And then you've got otheroptions that people commonly use
(04:02):
like WordPress and WordPress isfundamentally a blog.
Right.
Let's just, let's not get ittwisted.
It is a blog.
And then you've got is Wix andSquarespace.
Those are also quite common.
And those are fundamentallywebsite builders, right?
They're, they're not e commerceplatforms.
So now we've got the, the, thelay of the land in terms of each
of the different options,there's us, Subbly, and we're a
(04:24):
subscription first e commerceplatform.
So.
Now let's unpack that a littlebit further, because I think
there's a lot there.
And we could spend a long timetalking about this, but I'll try
and keep it as succinct aspossible.
So if your business isultimately a subscription
business we believe that youdeserve a dedicated solution
because what you'll find isthese strung together solutions
(04:47):
or these non aligned solutionsend up costing you more money.
They also introduce otheroperational inefficiencies.
They can end up creating apoorer experience for your
customers.
Et cetera, et cetera.
There's just a break.
Yeah, if you're piecing thingstogether, they can break.
Yeah, I mean, like, let's takeShopify, right?
(05:10):
So Shopify, if you were to run asubscription box, and you wanted
to have a survey on there, forexample, you're going to need
Shopify, you're going to needsubscription plugin, and you're
also going to need a surveyplugin, you're also going to
need a bunch of other plugins,realistically speaking, to
really get Close to what you'retrying to replicate because
ultimately everybody's trying toreplicate another business.
(05:31):
That's one thing we've learned.
Everybody has like theirinspiration and then it's just
like an iteration of that.
So when we built Subbly, it's.
dedicated for your businessmodel and we've got all the
tools that you need in order tobe able to do that without
needing plugins and tools foryour mission critical functions.
So anything that's basicallywhere the customer lands on your
(05:53):
website all the way through tothem finishing the purchase.
And that's essential for thatpurchase to be successful.
So that's what we considermission critical.
Historically we've, we've saidlike we're, Against plug in
soup, as we used to call it andpeople now believe that we're
anti plug in.
We're actually not.
You know, plug ins areessential, integrations are
essential and necessary.
(06:14):
we're focused on the missioncritical functions and
capabilities, the basicfunctionality of a subscription
business.
So yeah, ultimately, if you'reusing loads of plug ins, this
introduces a bunch of issues.
One is the cost.
You're going to increase yourcosts.
The second thing is that it'sgoing to be a little bit more
inefficient, cause you're goingto be dealing with multiple
different tools.
(06:34):
You're going to be logging intodifferent places.
And when you want support, nowthis is one that is a really,
really important one, when youwant support, who do you talk
to?
Are you going to talk to yourplugin?
Are you going to talk toShopify?
Of the third parties is going togive you the answer that you're
looking for?
And then oftentimes you'll getsent in circles, so like you
might contact Shopify becauseShopify has got great support,
(06:55):
but they're not versed insubscription businesses because
it's not their focus.
So if they go, Oh, you need totalk to recharge, then you go
over to recharge and you askthem for support.
And then say, maybe actuallyturns out.
Yeah.
If it was maybe a problem withShopify Shop Pay, then they'll
send you back to Shopify and youjust can end up playing,
customer support tennis orwhatever you want to call it.
And then another thing is as youbecome bigger and you grow and
(07:17):
become more sophisticated yourneeds change and evolve and the
costs actually scale a littlebit exponentially.
So you'll find that the biggeryou are, suddenly the costs just
go like this.
So There's also another issue isthat as you become more
sophisticated, you're morelikely to need an engineer or
developers.
That's probably true for mostsolutions, probably even Subbly
(07:38):
to some extent.
But what you'll find is thatyour developers need to become
versed in multiple different,tools as well in documentation.
So there's just a lot morecomplexity added when you have a
stack as they call it ofplugins.
So we try to eliminate that andjust simplify the whole thing
and take all your core basicfunctionality that should be
(07:58):
native for your model andbecause we believe your model
deserves that then we eliminateall that complexity and it's
just all it all understands oneanother, natively so yeah,
that's pretty much it in asummary.
Just as a side note, had a veryinteresting dialogue with some
members on on one of thefacebook groups recently and it
was about wordpress and like Youthere's WordPress is a bit of an
(08:20):
outlier.
So WordPress, in order to run asubscription business, you'd
need WordPress plus WooCommerceplus WooCom subscriptions.
Now that's three layers andlevels.
Now it is.
cheap in that it's arguably likeclose to free.
I think there's like, I thinkthere's a subscription now that
you have to pay per year.
It's like a hundred dollars orsomething like that for
(08:41):
subscriptions.
But ultimately this has also gotits own set of issues and
concerns, considerations.
Again, I just want to be clearhere.
Everybody has their ownpriorities, right?
So, somebody might see it asmore important to have full
control over the code, forexample, or maybe somebody
doesn't see it as much of aburden, the things that I'm
(09:01):
about to say.
So with WordPress, you'reresponsible for keeping the
website.
So you need to actually maintainyour servers, make sure that
they're patched, make sure thatyou've got a good hosting
provider that's doing it foryou.
I'm familiar with WordPress, Iused to build WordPress websites
when I was running a digitalmarketing agency myself.
And I can't tell you how manytimes my clients have broken
(09:24):
their site because they haveupdated their plugin.
But it wasn't compatible withtheir version of WordPress or it
wasn't compatible with somethingelse.
And it was, as soon as I got anemail with the subject line is
help, I knew exactly what it wasgoing to be.
It was, I broke my WordPresswebsite cause I tried to update
it myself.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(09:44):
you're right.
And that's the next thing is theplugins, right.
Keeping them up to date, keepingyour WordPress up to date, the
compatibility issues that cancome from that.
The security issues, if youdon't Right.
And that's another thing.
I have a similar background toyou and that ran an agency as
well.
When we were predominantlyWordPress focused and it was not
uncommon for a website to havebeen hacked or compromised.
It would just happen.
It was just part of what wouldhappen.
(10:07):
And you know, there's this otherpiece as well that, you know,
from a philosophical level, I'vementioned already WordPress is
ultimately a blog.
It's a CMS.
That's how it started.
And then you've got a pluginmaking it into an e commerce
platform.
And then you've got a pluginmaking that e commerce platform
into a subscription e commercecapable platform.
There's a lot of layers thereand extrapolations, and I think
that actually does translate,even though the truth, I'm not
(10:28):
saying it's not good, it's afantastic product if you value
what it is and what it canprovide and if you value, as I
said, full customization and youknow, lower initial upfront
costs, but then we've foundrepeatedly, At scale, and this
can even start as low as likehundreds of subscribers, but
especially at thousands, thatthe subscription billing breaks.
(10:53):
It doesn't scale well.
And I'm not going to get intothe technical reasons for that,
but overall generally it's to dowith the way that the
subscription billing works.
So essentially it's a backgroundprocess.
And so sometimes that is justnot efficiently built on other
platforms that are not reallynative or really thinking about
(11:14):
subscription.
So, like, for example, atSubbly, we have a subscription
building engine, and it's triedand tested, and we know it
scales to millions oftransactions and we've built
that over years.
But when you're trying to do iton top of something that's not
built for subscription, it'sgoing to introduce,
inefficiencies and it's just notgoing to be a perfect solution
for that functionality.
It almost sounds like it's ducttape.
(11:34):
You know, you're duct taping,you're trying to put together
things that, yeah, they can worktogether, but is it the
strongest when you're using ducttape?
And I think the best way for ourlisteners to really grasp it is
when you talked about missioncritical.
And I think as a subscriptionbox business owner, we need to
think about that.
Like what?
Is our mission critical.
(11:55):
Like, what are the things thatmy software has to do to make
this business work?
And you guys check off all thoseboxes.
So you've got your websitebuilder, you've got operational
tools, you've got transactionaltools, email tools, like all the
tools that you would need, youliterally can run it with just
(12:17):
your software, if that's whatyou choose to do.
And so I think that's what Itake from this is.
All those other softwares aregood for what they were built
for, but Subbly was built forsubscriptions and the other
softwares we talked aboutweren't built for subscriptions.
Yeah, exactly.
I think that you know, Isometimes say it's the sum of a
hundred parts, right?
So like, You know, peoplechallenges often like, Oh, why,
(12:40):
you know, why are plugins sobad?
Like what, what really makessomebody different to Shopify,
for example?
Well, the developers in thatecosystem have not considered
subscription cause that's nottheir primary focus and it's
just like the sum of like a lotof little parts.
I'm not saying Subbly's perfectby the way.
And it is like down topreferences.
I mean, at the end of the day,if somebody is used to working
with Wix and they just want toget to the website at the door.
(13:02):
They're probably going to beinclined to go and just like,
Oh, I'll just use what I knowand what works.
But there is a problem that thatcreates later.
And that's where we find peoplemoving to Subbly because they're
like, I've ran into the limitshere and I, I want to solve that
and untangle that.
And it can be quite problematicto untangle a migration.
It can get pretty, frustrating.
But we've got solutions forthat.
(13:24):
Well, good.
Cause I think that's a greatsegue because I know, a lot of
our listeners are, starting fromscratch and they're like, okay,
this could be the software forme, but what about those people
that have been running theirbusiness on other platforms
already and are hitting thoseroadblocks, whether it is
becoming too expensive as theyscale, or maybe it is, they
don't have the features thatthey want for their business.
(13:45):
So let's talk about what thatlooks like to even switch.
Yeah, so overall as a process itused to be a lot more
straightforward but there's beena few things changing in the
industry that have really veryanti competitive and anti
subscription business.
And again, this is kind of likewe describe ourselves as
subscription first, and one ofthe benefits of us being
(14:08):
subscription first is that we'reincentivized for you to succeed
as a subscription business, butwe're also we're very
knowledgeable about yourbusiness model and we can
provide the adequate support forit.
But, you know, what we'venoticed in the industry, and
this is pretty alarming, to behonest with you.
You know, I don't like pointingfingers, but Shopify introduced
(14:30):
ShopPay.
It's a great product.
It's consumer facing.
It's a wallet.
You know, it does have a greatconversion rate.
But all the merchants have beenencouraged to actually adopt
through selling the benefits ofShopPay, because it is a great
product.
But the problem is and wethought this was limited to
ShopPay, by the way, just to beclear, that once you are on
there, you cannot get yourtokens off of it.
(14:52):
that you do not have controlover your payment tokens.
Now, let me just unpack thatreally quickly.
Payment tokens.
Yeah.
So when a customer puts theircard details into your website,
they are tokenized and thenthey're stored in the server.
And that's for security reasons.
It's like you never touch theactual credit card details.
So these tokens essentially arewhat you can use to do that.
(15:12):
Charge the card, right?
So it's an identifieressentially.
That's how you send theinstruction to the gateway to
say, charge this card.
Okay.
Every month or a week orquarter, like it's, it's your
lifeblood.
Literally, it's the mostimportant part of your whole
entire business, apart from theactual email address of the
customers.
So they do not give you that.
(15:33):
Again, we thought it was justshop pay, turns out it's
actually, even if you use yourown Stripe account with, with
Shopify, they've now made itimpossible to get the tokens
off.
And this is again, becausethey're a transaction focused
business.
So for them, yeah, it makestheir product more sticky.
You know, it makes it harder toleave and I can understand the,
the desire to make it moredifficult to leave, but I I'd
(15:56):
want to give them the benefit ofthe doubt and say that that's
not why they've done it.
But I think at the same time,generally speaking, just because
they're a transaction focusedbusiness, right?
they're wanting to create thebest tools possible that they
know are going to helptransaction businesses perform.
And they do, they work reallywell.
But when it comes tosubscription business, because
it's not their focus, thesubscription business is
actually the one who's sufferingbecause they need those tokens
(16:18):
and they can't go anywherewithout those tokens.
The same is also true forCratejoy.
They've changed their policiesto do the same.
So these tokens they're beingwithheld as well.
You're not able to get them.
You're not able to request anexport like you used to be able
to.
of that is because we believeShopify has set the precedent.
And again, people are notthinking about it as like, well,
(16:39):
Shopify are not focused onsubscription businesses.
Wix also do this.
I think that's pretty much it.
Those are the three main ones,but it looks like a trend.
So normal businesses are doingthis.
And I will say this right nowthat we do not hold your tokens
or your data hostage at Subbly.
And, and if you want to leave,you can leave.
So here's a quick recommendationand a quick tip.
If you are thinking aboutstarting a subscription
(17:01):
business, try us first, try it.
And if you have a hard time withus, fine, you can go and go
somewhere else.
At least, you know, you've triedand you're able to leave.
And we're not going to stop youfrom leaving.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
Cause it's not like When you'retalking about tokens, it's not
like me as the business owner,I'm not going to physically hold
these tokens or do anything withthese tokens.
The problem is that if my needschange as a business owner, I
(17:25):
can't move those tokens me when,when I'm with Shopify or with
crate joy or whatnot.
So if you're, if you'rewondering, like, what is he
talking about?
These tokens?
That's, that's, Again, how youcan charge a credit card.
And so if your needs change andyou're like, okay, I want to try
a different software for mybusiness.
You're, you're kind of inhandcuffs.
(17:46):
Yeah, thanks for keeping me ontrack because I get, get a
little technical at times, soapologies.
but yeah, you're, you're spoton.
If you wanted to move, thatmeans that you can't
essentially, makes it a lotharder anyway, right?
So and just to be clear, Shopifyis a really fantastic platform.
And I'm not, I'm not, you know,throwing shade.
I think it's really impressive.
But as you said, as your needschange and evolve, right?
(18:07):
So maybe you've decided I am asubscription box and I'm really
going to go down this path.
And then at that point, it'slike, okay, well, maybe the
tooling is limiting you or allthe things that we've mentioned
already.
So I want to go to Subbly.
Let's talk about that.
So I want to go to a morededicated solution, such as
Subbly.
So we've come up with a solutionfor this and we actually call it
the subscription switchprotocol.
(18:27):
And so normally without thetokens, what you need to do is
let, you'd have two websitesrunning essentially.
You'd have your new website andthen you'd leave the old one
running in the background.
And then over time you wouldtake new customers to the new
website.
And then the old one would churnout over time.
In that timeline we've done somenumbers on it and essentially 14
months to have 80 percenttypical average churn for them
(18:51):
to churn out on the oldplatform.
That means you're going to berunning two platforms for over a
year when you get to 100%.
And then what we've done iswe've created this whole entire
protocol to create friction inthe right places and to build a
campaign around it, so thatessentially you can reclaim your
payment tokens from yourcustomers through Subbly.
(19:11):
And we're seeing that it's,yeah, that's right, it's 11 days
to get to 80 percent instead of14 months.
On average.
Wow, okay.
That's good news.
Yes.
So, this, this protocol, we runit over like a month, depending
on your specific case and needs.
Month to, it could be twomonths, it could be a couple of
weeks, depends on what yourappetite is.
But yeah, the numbers areshowing that we're getting
(19:33):
percent of the tokens reclaimedwithin 11 days.
Versus 80 percent over 14 monthsif we didn't do the protocol.
Gotcha.
So you're saying there's hope ifsomeone is over there just
pulling their hair out saying Ineed to switch and I don't know
how to do this, your team overat Subbly, the support team, can
help them with this protocolthat you've already created.
(19:54):
So that's really good news.
And guys, keep listening becauseat the end of the episode, we're
going to give you really specialoffer if you want to switch, and
we're also going to give aspecial offer if you are
starting from scratch and youwant to give Subbly a try with
very low risk, so let's shiftthe topic here.
It's been about a year since Ihad you on the podcast.
(20:14):
I want to know about some of thenew features you've implemented.
Recently that you are really,really excited about.
And I have a couple that I wantto talk about as well.
So you, you go first.
Okay.
Yeah.
I think one of the most notableones recently is that we have
the new checkout template.
So flashback a couple of years,we started rebuilding our
checkout from the ground up.
(20:35):
And we consolidated everythingthat we've learned over the last
10 years into this newessentially product.
So.
The, the idea is that now we canactually build templates for the
checkout so you can choose yourideal checkout design or flow.
So we now have two checkouttemplates and the new one is a
one page template.
(20:56):
Checkout rather than like multistep.
So this is just the beginning ofthis journey, but that's
something that's very exciting.
And, you know, we're seeing thatit's got a higher conversion
rate, for example which ispretty exciting.
So that's one thing that I'mparticularly excited about.
There's something else that'snot a hundred percent related to
you subscription box owners, butwe did launch a really, really
(21:18):
comprehensive product calledbundles.
If you were running a meal kitor meal prep subscription
business, that would be likegreat news for you.
Another thing that was prettycool and seems like a small
thing, but it's quite notable.
So we have a survey builder onSubbly, so you can build like a
form essentially, right?
Like a questionnaire or quiz,whatever you want to call it for
your onboarding flow.
(21:40):
Typically, that was always prepurchase.
When I say pre purchase, I meanbefore they actually checkout.
But we've actually made itpossible for you to do that post
purchase, which means after theycheck out, so that you can
collect that data afterwards,which can reduce friction and
also lead to a higher conversionrate.
If that data is not missioncritical for you to fulfill
those orders.
That's a big one.
(22:00):
Definitely.
So there's a couple of things.
And I think this is just achance for me to, to, to say
like the questions that I getasked a lot about, like, does
Subbly do thisdoes Subbly dothis.
Yes, you can do one timeproducts.
Yes.
You can offer gift cards.
Yes.
You can have sequentialsubscriptions and subscriptions
that are a specific length.
So I've had people say, I wantto do a one year plan where,
(22:23):
they start with box one and theyend with box 12.
Can you do that?
It's like, yes, yes, yes.
You can do all that.
And then one of the other thingsthat I love.
Is that you guys offer reallyflexible sales cycles.
So for example, if you want toship weekly, monthly, quarterly,
annually, or you could createyour own custom sales cycle.
(22:45):
Like you're just giving thesteering wheel back to the
business owner to drive theirbusiness the way they want to
go.
Whereas a lot of these otherplatforms are, you know, you
have to only do anniversarysales cycles, meaning that if
someone joins on the first, thenthey're going to renew on the
first.
And that just doesn't work foreverybody.
So I really appreciate some ofthose super basic things that
(23:08):
get overlooked in othersoftwares.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's funny because, youknow, I think it's become more
complex over time as we covermore and more cases.
And you know, as you said, notevery business is going to
follow the basic script.
And that's created a newchallenge for us.
Just as I do it, like we'retrying to make it so that it's.
Easy for those who do have thebasic script, but also that you
(23:31):
can dive in and go make it morecomplex and more unique to your
specific needs as a business.
So that's something that we'reconstantly trying to balance
that.
So if we haven't got it right,please let me know.
Cause I'm open to all feedbackand we want to make sure that
it's easy to use.
But yeah, I would say you canpretty much set up almost any
cadence or that you can imagineessentially any setup or cycle
(23:52):
yeah, and we have commitmentterms.
This is pretty specific.
So you can set up, for example,you could do prepaid 12 months,
you could do 12 months.
paid monthly, and then they'recommitted for that 12 months.
There's something else that'scoming out, I think, this week
or next week which is basicallyauto expiring subscriptions.
So instead of doing a commitmentterm or prepaid, you could do a
(24:18):
fixed term that ends instead ofcontinuing to renew after that
as well.
That's something that we'reintroducing because that was a
big request.
Yeah, so there's, there's a lotthere.
And challenge us on, if there'ssomething that we haven't
thought about for subscriptionbusinesses.
Yeah, like if there's featuresthat you need, I know you guys
are open to hearing about that.
I have to mention too, that justbecause I, you know, used to run
(24:41):
a box business called SparkleHustle Grow and one of our
Membership benefits was digitalcontent.
You guys implemented thatdigital content feed, which I
love.
Now, if I was still running thebusiness, I could run the entire
thing without having to add on aanother platform just for
digital content, anotherplatform for this and for that.
(25:02):
And so I, I just love that.
And I Have to give you guys abig shout out.
Yeah, I know the content feed itis it is still like the first
version of it, but You know andthat brings me on to another
point that like we're alwaysimproving and we're still very
early on this mission Like we'rewe're here for it.
And so if you do have feedbacki'm I want to hear it And we
(25:24):
appreciate the, the loyalty thatour customers have given us
because we wouldn't be herewithout them because we are
bootstrapped.
And at the same time, we areexcited about the things that
we're working on as well.
So I hope that, that people canexercise a little bit of
patience because I know there'sa lot of demand at the moment
for, for various features.
But yeah, it's a, it's a goodtime on our mission right now.
I'm glad you said that.
(25:44):
You don't see that with othercompanies.
You don't see that in othersoftwares where you can tell
them I need this feature and ifit's a true feature, that's
going to benefit the, greatercommunity, you guys actually
implement it.
And I think that's really,really.
A great way to look at it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, it goes on the backlog.
We discuss it and we prioritizeit.
And you know, it might nothappen tomorrow, but it's on
(26:06):
there and we're planning towardsit.
one other thing I want tomention actually, and I think
this is really important.
And although it's not a newfeature, it's been around for a
while, but I just see a lot ofsubscription boxes failing to
leverage this.
And that is the funnels insideof Subbly.
Essentially funnels allow you tobuild offer chains, so you can
do like an upsell or a downselland you can do it pre purchase
(26:27):
or before the checkout, duringthe checkout or after the
checkout post purchase.
the hardest part is for peopleto think about what they can
offer.
Like what product can I offer asan upsell?
But every time this is enabled,we see an uplift in AOV, which
is the average order value, theamount of money per order on
average that is spent on theirstore and that can be the
(26:48):
difference between spending moreon ads and succeeding and
compounding and not, it's suchan important piece and I need to
mention it because if you areusing Subbly, get on the funnels
and set up your upsell offers,because I'm sure you've got
inventory sitting around.
Make the most of it.
We used to offer last month'sbox as an upsell during the
(27:09):
subscribe flow, but I canimagine how impactful that might
be.
Also, after the purchase hasbeen made, like post purchase
upsell, because you've alreadycaptured their subscription,
their payment information.
They've already made theirdecision at this point.
So that friction is so muchlower.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
It's a one click upsell.
(27:30):
So at any stage it's basicallyyour opt in.
So if it's before the checkout,it's going to add it to the
cart.
If it's during the checkout,it's going to add it to the
cart.
But if it's after the checkout,it's just one click, the same
order information, like the, theshipping address, the payment
information all of that's justused again.
(27:50):
And it's super effective, as yousaid, because they've already
made a commitment to your brand.
There's trust that it's likereverse rationalization.
And then what works really wellthere is if it's a value add.
Like this is going to make your,what you've just committed to
even more value.
And I think that's probably thebest approach to think about it.
Like, okay, how can I enhancetheir experience even further
(28:13):
and give them a really juicyoffer?
To make the most of thataffinity they've built with your
brand by, signing the dottedline essentially by clicking
submit.
Nice.
All right, so let's bring thishome.
We've talked a lot about, thelandscape.
We've talked a lot about thefeatures.
We've talked about what'sworking right now.
So if someone is interested instarting from scratch with
(28:35):
Subbly, we have a special offerfor them.
Will you tell them about thatspecial offer?
Yeah, certainly.
So, we're doing three monthsfree on, on Subbly if you're new
to Subbly and you're juststarting out, and you need to go
to Subbly.
co, S U B B L Y dot C O forwardslash julie.
(28:55):
And that will take you to theactual offer and you'll get the
three months free when you signup for the trial, essentially
it's a three months free trialand it's so important at that
front end, like when you're juststarting your business, Your
money is going to be going outthe door on inventory.
On all these different things.
And to have three months free ofyour core software to me, it's
(29:17):
just, it's a no brainer.
So if someone is on a differentplatform and they're thinking
about switching, You have anoffer for them as well.
Right.
Yeah.
So, you know, we spoke about thesubscription switch protocol
earlier and how that's provingto be really successful.
Just as a quick note, by theway, it's not necessary for
(29:37):
everybody.
There are situations where wecan migrate you really easily
with the old process that hasbeen tried and tested over
hundreds, if not thousands, of,of migrations.
So Yeah, it's the subscriptionswitch protocol.
I'm just mentioning it becauseit's there for those who need to
use it.
But for those who are alreadyrunning their business and have
subscribers and they're onanother platform that's not
(29:58):
Subbly, we're giving away 12months free when you switch to
Subbly.
And just to be clear, because Iknow that some people ask this
question, the reason that we canoffer that is because of the
transaction fee that we charge.
So it keeps the light on, youknow, And there's also you know,
you guys who are running abusiness on another platform we
understand that it's aninconvenience and there's a big
(30:19):
switching cost involved for youtoo.
So it's kind of like meeting youin the middle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So even more so today than inthe past, but but yeah, so 12
months free when you switch toSubbly in order to claim that we
can give a link, Julie, to putin the show notes, but also just
reach out to our and that offeryou can claim that before
(30:41):
October 31st of this year, 2024.
I'll make sure those links arein the show notes, but if
they're trying to reachWSupport, is the best way to use
the chat function that you guyshave, or is there an email?
Yeah, you can, you can doeither.
So support at subbly dot co oryou can go onto our website and
there's a little green bubble atthe bottom, right?
Just click it and then you'llget through to the chat widget,
(31:02):
which will bring you directly tothe team.
It's not real time.
It's close to it though.
It's like 10 minute responsetime.
Okay.
That's awesome.
Okay.
We will make sure to put all ofthat information in the show
notes so that The newbies cantry it for free.
If you're listening and you'rethinking about switching, you
can have that conversation andcash in on those 12 months free.
(31:24):
Those will expire October 31stof 2024.
Make sure you apply before then,because the way it works is once
you, you get the interestsubmitted, we'll then, you know,
chat you through the process andthen we'll give you three months
to actually get set up and dothe migration.
So there's like a grace periodthere for the T for you to lock
(31:46):
in the rest of the 12 months.
So very cool.
Just make sure you submit yourinterest before October 31st.
Love it.
Okay.
So if you're listening and youhave questions about Subbly, you
know, you can always reach me inthe DMs of Subscription box
basics on Instagram, happy toanswer any questions, or you can
try out the chat feature onSubbly dot Stefan, thank you for
(32:07):
joining me again and for sharingeverything that you know about
what is going on in theindustry.
What are the challenges andbuilding features to solve those
problems?
Yeah, no, thank you so much forhaving me on the podcast, Julie.
And feel free to reach out tous.
We'd love to, get you set upand, and, provide you with
advice even if you don't chooseSubbly.
(32:28):
So just hit up the Subbly team.
Thanks so much.
All right, everyone.
Thanks for listening today, andwe'll see you in the next
episode.
Bye.
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