Given the day and age, subscription-based eCommerce is on the rise. Unlike one-time purchases, these purchases require a distinct checkout approach. How so? Well, subscription-based checkouts would need to support recurring payments, higher security compliance, while giving a smooth, responsive customer experience. This is when clean, custom checkouts come into play, thanks to their ability to drive steady revenue and build stronger customer trust.
Understanding Subscription-Specific Checkout Needs:
Subscription checkouts are poles apart from regular ones because of the following unique features:
- Flexible payment schedules & methods
- Trial periods and plan changes (upgrades)
- Automatic billing
- Hassle-free cancellations.
Subscriptions by default rely on recurring payments from customers. Therefore, businesses would need to store payment details securely and automate the fees and additional charges (if any). To accommodate all such changes into your checkout, your flow should be able to:
- Simplify Plan Selection: Provide users with detailed, clean, and specific information, such as frequency and quantity.
- Adapt Easy Changes: You need to allow your customers to adjust their plans at any given time as per their needs.
An excellent interface that accommodates these features without overwhelming users is important for customer retention and conversion.
What should be considered when implementing a custom checkout solution for subscription businesses?
1. Seamless Integration of Payment Gateway:
Your customers are going to make recurring payments based on the plan they choose for their subscription. These would include features like:
- Periodic Payment Support: Payment platforms like PayPal, Stripe, Square offer multiple tools that can handle subscription-related payments
- Auto-retry Payment: In case a transaction fails, your checkout should let the system to retry the transaction without long wait-times or worse, losing the customer.
- Multi-currency Support: If you’re a business that operates in multiple countries, then you’d need the customers to have the option to pay in their local currency modes.
For instance, many global online businesses use custom Shopify payment methods to keep things simple, secure and hassle-free for their customers.
2. Strict Security & Compliance Standards:
Subscription purchases require handling of sensitive data. Your customers entrust you with keeping their private information safe and is as per the highest industry safeguards:
- PCI-DSS Compliance – It ensures that your business meets the required standards to safekeep all sensitive card details
- Tokenization – It ensures that all card info is reolaced with secure token to reduce any chances data breach
- Safe & Secure login – Having Two-Factor Authentication practices are best to ensure safety at all fronts.
See also: Advantages of Optical TPU Technology for Clear Bra Owners
3. Personalized User Experience:
A tailored checkout experience effectively increases conversion rates and makes subscribers feel valued. Customization options may include:
- Pre-Filled Data: For returning consumers, auto-fill information like name, email, and shipping address can save time.
- Dynamic Pricing: Display discounts for tier upgrades or longer subscription commitments.
- Localized Content: Use geolocation to customize language, payment methods, and currency based on the customer’s region.
Personalization makes the checkout process highly engaging and removes barriers to completion.
4. Streamlined Account Creation:
Subscription-based businesses allow users to open individual accounts to effectively maintain their subscriptions. However, a complex account creation process may keep users frustrated. Best practices to streamline account creation include:
- Social Sign-On Options: This helps users sign up using Facebook, Google, or Apple accounts for fast access.
- Guest Checkout with Account Creation: Guest Checkout allows users to complete the purchase as guests without creating an account.
- Minimal Data Entry: Request only necessary information during the initial checkout process.
A balance between gathering necessary data and ease of use is key to increasing onboarding experiences.
5. 100% Transparent Pricing:
It’s always recommended to be upfront about prices and fees. For your subscribed customers nothing kills their trust more than hidden charges.
- Provide details to your customers before they can choose a plan, and also after choosing. These would include fields like billing frequency, trial time, recurring sum, etc.
- Present overall cost details after adding the taxes, shipping, and any other one-time fees clearly.
Remember, such transparency also reduces the cart abandonment rate in the long run.
6. Must-Have Mobile Optimization:
Over 70% of online shoppers worldwide shop from their mobile phones. If you plan to cater to such majority audience, your store and its custom checkout page need to be mobile-friendly:
- Quick, Responsive, Intuitive Design: Your store and its pages should seamlessly fit in different screens.
- Super Easy Navigation: Mobile/tablets are extremely sensitive to lagging/faulty layouts. Keep things simplified for minimal scrolling and hassle-free customer experience.
- Support Payment through Mobile Wallets: Given the rise in popularity of mobile wallets like Apple Pay, Venmo, CashApp, etc ensure that you add them for a quicker checkout.
A mobile-first approach can effectively improve accessibility and conversion rates across devices.
Conclusion
Having a subscription-enabled checkout means staying ahead of the game. Something that if done right can be supremely rewarding for your business. Be it recurring payments, user experience – it should be adding onto your customer’s trust, experience and build long-term loyalty. In case you’re wondering where to get started on this, we’d recommend ‘Simplified Checkout‘ for it. Built exactly for purpose like this, it’s a powerful custom checkout solution that can help turn one-time-purchases into subscriptions for your customers. It is super easy to integrate seamlessly with your online store as well as all CRMs like Vrio, etc to help you have complete control over your business purchases and transactions. Investing in a tool such as this for a personalized checkout experience to your customers is a boss move that your business deserves.
