What is a subscription?
A subscription is a recurring order that ships and bills on a set schedule, weekly, monthly, or whatever cadence the shopper picks. Instead of buying once, the shopper signs up and the store charges and fulfills automatically each cycle until they pause or cancel. Often paired with a subscribe-and-save discount that rewards the commitment.
Example
Say you sell coffee at $20 a bag. You add a subscribe-and-save option: 15% off for shoppers who set a monthly delivery. A one-time buyer brings $20, then you hope they come back. A subscriber pays $17 a bag every month, on autopilot. Over a year that is $204 from one signup instead of a single $20 order and a maybe.
The math works because you stop re-earning the same customer. The first sale was the hard part. The next eleven happen on a schedule.
On Shopify stores
On a Shopify store, a subscription shows up as a "Subscribe and save" choice next to the one-time buy button on the product page. Behind it, a billing engine stores the payment method, charges on schedule, and creates each new order on its own. Many subscription apps add a customer portal for managing the plan; what a shopper can do there varies by app. The easier the exit feels, the more shoppers are willing to subscribe in the first place.
Related terms
Subscriptions with Sledge
Sledge Subscriptions add a subscribe-and-save option to the products you choose, with the cadence and discount set by you, and self-service cancel for the shopper. And built-in Growth Intelligence reads your store's order patterns, points to the products people reorder most, estimates the monthly lift in dollars, then measures it against real sales.
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