Subscription Boxes

Starting a subscription box business can be a very marketable company that you can grow quickly and outsource work for easily as well. If you have a niche in mind that you think would make a great subscription box service, this section will go over where to find sources to fill your subscription boxes and how you can market online to get customers who will sign up for monthly subscriptions.

The first thing you will want to think about is what your niche is, who your target customer will be and how you will keep them subscribed and wanting more. You should be passionate and involved in the niche you are getting into so that you can create creative boxes that people will love. The goal is to keep your subscribers happy and have them tell their friends about it even. Write down on a piece of paper who your customer is and what value you will add aside from products they could buy on their own elsewhere. An example of this may be a subscription box focused on gaming, or sports or streetwear and of course the target customers for these would simply be gamers, athletes and fans, and people that wear streetwear. Just make sure you have a good idea of your brand and who your target audience is.

The next thing you will want to do is spend 2 months simply growing a community around your brand and building an audience that you will launch your subscription box to. Think about platforms that your target audience spends the most time on and create profiles for them focused on your niche. If you are going after gamers then you may want to focus on reddit, starting a twitch, and creating a gaming profile on Instagram and Facebook. No matter what niche you are going after, you should create profiles centered on your niche on all platforms that have short form content that allow you to be seen by new people. This includes TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and even Reddit now has short form content that people can scroll through. Come up with a brand that you can build a subscription box around. You can go on Chat GPT and ask it for name ideas for a subscription box service focused on your niche. You can then use Chat GPT to give you a logo for the brand name you choose. If you want to simply have this done by a professional instead you can also have your logo made by someone for cheap on fiverr.com.

To grow your community focus on creating 3 short videos per day that add value to people, show the behind-the-scenes process for your subscription box, talk about your subscription service and focus on creating hooks that focus on the problem you are solving for people in your niche. You can also check out our section on creating effective video ads for more in-depth instructions on how to do this. You should also be using this time to get feedback from the community you build and take suggestions from your audience that you can implement later on. Your subscription box should be something that would get you excited so focus on making people feel the same way about your brand. With this type of business, it is also safe to create multiple profiles on each platform so you can post to all of them each day and expand the amount of people you reach substantially. You can make 2 TikToks per device, 2 Instagrams, and a Google account to post to YouTube shorts on, a couple Facebook pages under your personal profile and a Reddit account. Post consistently every day and make sure all your profiles link to the landing page we will create later in this section. Also consider investing in a few phones with service so you can do this with even more accounts while keeping them on separate networks.

In this step you will also want to create a landing page for your subscription box. This landing page should be focused on getting people to sign up for a waitlist for your box through your site. The posts the videos you are making each day can direct people to this site to join the waitlist for your box and take down emails. You should focus on obtaining 500 emails minimum before moving on to launching your subscription box. You can use MailChimp to create a form for your landing page that will automatically send them an email that thanks them for signing up and tells them more about the next step which should be keeping up to date with social media and looking out for future emails that will allow them to preorder with a special surprise for joining early.

Now that you have started building up an audience in your niche, it is time to start making some designs for your packaging and creating some box mockups with different items in your niche. Start by looking at sites of other subscription boxes in your niche to get ideas on what quality packaging looks like. You can then start reaching out to custom packaging services in your area by searching for them on Google. A local supplier in your country of origin will allow you to receive samples much quicker starting out as well as receive your first bulk order. Once you have a box you like and fill your preorders which we will talk about later, then you can start using cheaper overseas packaging companies to fill orders later on. Local suppliers will also allow you to make orders with smaller minimum orders so that you can start at your own pace. So, focus on something quick and local first but keep in mind that big companies like Alibaba will allow you to talk and haggle with cheaper manufacturers that you can check reviews for once you have a good sample they can recreate and the demand necessary to fill their larger minimum orders. During this step you should also create a spreadsheet and create at least 6 boxes with listed items and cost that will get your subscribers excited and keep costs manageable.

When creating your box mockups there are a couple things you will also want to keep in mind which are price and profitability. You can check what other subscription boxes are charging in your niche but what is more important is that the price makes sense for your target customers, you are able to provide good value for that price and you are able to profit well. Your gross profit should be no less than 40% of the cost for a box, and your net profit after factoring in website upkeep, marketing, and everything else should be no less than 12%. Try to keep your profit as high as possible while still offering good value and these profits should only go up over time as you grow more customers and are able to get better wholesale prices for your items.

You will also want to think about the subscription options you will provide on your full site as well at this point. You can offer month-to-month subscriptions as well as 6 month and 12-month subscriptions at a discount on per month cost. Your longer commitments should also be charged monthly as well so that your customers can afford them but will keep them locked in for that period of time. All your subscription options should also be set to auto renew once they run out unless a customer cancels ahead of time. You should not offer any one-time boxes because it is much less profitable than an auto renewing subscription and it is a subscription box after all.

Next you will want to come up with a great offer for subscribers first boxes that will be hard to pass up and gain potential customers business. You can offer 25% off their first box, 50% off, you can double the items in their first box, give a fee gift with the first box or anything else that will make people want to subscribe. Keep in mind that these offers should only be offered on 6-month or 12-month plans and not month-to-month. Also, be sure that you will still at least break even on these offers when you are starting out.

Now that you have your business model figured out, it is time to create the full version of your site and start accepting preorders! Your site should mention your first box offer front and center on your homepage with a picture of your target customer opening a box and looking surprised and happy. You will also go over the process of how ordering works, amazing items they may receive, testimonials from subscribers after you fill your preorders and a section with any FAQ.

Create one landing page that has the first box offer front and center with a button to subscribe and claim the offer, use a picture of someone that is a target customer smiling surprised holding one of your boxes. Next to this should also be a button that says “claim offer” which will bring to a page offering them to preorder a 6 month or 12 month subscription. Show people how it works on the site from subscribing to hand picking items to shipping, show examples of the items they may receive, testimonials from subscribers and a FAQ section as well. You can again check out our how to make a professional website section to learn how to do all of this.

Once you have your full site created you can check out our section on creating a sales funnel to make use of the 500 emails you have gathered and start advertising for preorder spots with the short form videos you are creating. You can choose one very expensive item that one of your preorder customers or “founding members” will receive randomly to get people excited to subscribe as well. For example, if you are making a subscription box for gamers you can create short videos talking about how you are giving a Nintendo Switch away to one lucky preorder spot and put this offer on your site as well. You can also offer a free personalized item like a gaming headset with their name on it or a keychain or anything that will make people feel special for being a founding member and preordering through your site. You should take preorders for about a month or until you are comfortable that you will make a profit from the orders you have already. Taking preorders will give customers a sense of urgency to take advantage of a preorder offer and allow you to know just how many items you need to order so that you do not waste money.

The last thing to keep in mind is sourcing the items for the cheapest price you can while maintaining high quality products for your customers. Some great places to source items are Etsy, eBay, Amazon, and niche sites relating to your brand. You can also contact large retailers in your niche about opening a business account and getting bulk pricing on overflow items once you have gotten some customers built up. You can even make use of overseas suppliers like Alibaba and DH Gate for some products but make sure that you get samples from them first to make sure quality is to your customers’ standard.

Once you have gotten this far you will continue posting your 3 videos to your short form content platforms each day and creating new creative offers to drive in new customers. Continue to engage with your customers, build a community, and take feedback when necessary. You can also do things like personally call customers, send them random small gifts for free and send handwritten cards with orders to show customers you care so that they stay customers for the long term. You can even fil videos of boxes that you put together for customers on your social media profiles to show social proof of others buying and get them intrigued with items you are using. Be sure to keep track of your retention rate for your subscribers and focus on improving this all the time as well. Reach out to customers that cancel to get feedback and try to get them back on board and store all your customers’ contact info so that you can reach back to them later on with special offers if they ever do cancel. If you make use of all these steps that we have went over then you should get plenty of subscribers in no time and create a community that stays loyal to your brand for years to come.