Our latest guest post for Entrepreneur from OceanX CEO and Founder, Georg Richter, about the common mistakes in subscription commerce and how to avoid the pitfalls. Read the full article here an excerpt copied below.
The subscription e-commerce model has enjoyed a lot of press in recent years thanks to the success of brands such as Ipsy, FabFitFun, Hello Fresh, and even large retailers such as Sephora. In fact, according to The Wall Street Journal, drugstore giant Walgreens purchased a minority stake in beauty subscription box company Birchbox in October, adding its name to the roster of physical retail subscription players.
However, for the few brands that strike it rich with subscription businesses, many more will fail to get off the ground. While there’s no way to guarantee that your effort lands you in the former category instead of the latter, avoiding these four common mistakes will give your subscription the best possible chance at success:
1. Thinking the subscription model alone is enough to make a business stand out.
2. Assuming that original customer acquisition costs will remain constant.
3. Forgetting to prepare for scale and using technology solutions that have been cobbled together haphazardly for too long.
4. Offering only help pages instead of putting customers in touch with real people.
Read the full article on Entrepreneur.