Running subscriptions in Magento can be tricky and requires a great deal of research in order to set up a proper subscription revenue stream within this platform. While the concept seems simple enough, it is easy to get put in a position where without proper planning you find that you are spending more time and money diagnosing bugs than to have the system set up in the first place. A great subscription platform, more than anything, has to be reliable in its ability to:
- Process Subscription Orders On Time
- Provide Reports On Each Subscriber And Their Orders
- Diagnose Failed Orders While Allowing You To Re-Attempt Order
- Provide Customers Immediate Updates Regarding Their Subscription
- Provide Secure Payments/PCI Compliance
A great Magento Subscription solution we work with, and will continue to work with going forward, is Subscribe Pro. While we have worked with a subscription module from one of the more well known module development companies, we have learned the importance of working with a company that is solely vested in subscription services because this ensures, should there be a bug or any tech issue that needs to be addressed, the company will dedicate everything it has to the ability to process these orders, whereas most software developers handle requests for 100’s of non subscription related modules. To be able to work with a company with one mission is worth its weight in gold.
What Makes Subscribe Pro Worth Looking Into
From The Website Owner’s Experience
Multiple Payment Types
Subscribe Pro supports hundreds of different payment methods and offers PCI compliant tokenized credit card storage. This means you do not have to worry about saving credit cards on your website in order to re-apply subscription payments. From Authorize.net to Paypal, you should be able to take payments through Subscribe Pro’s payment vault using your existing merchant account.
Detailed Subscription Statistics
As a store owner running a subscription product or service, you will want to know the following in order to successfully maintain your business:
- What orders went through successfully
- What orders did not, and why.
- Which credit cards have expired
Subscribe Pro handles this and much more. The site owner logs into their own administration panel, which is hosted on the Subscribe Pro platform, and they can view reports of daily subscriptions, monthly subscriptions, failed subscription orders and even reports on credit cards that have expired. This is incredibly useful when diagnosing customer issues for any order that does not process. Without this information you run the risk of losing a significant percentage of your customer base because there are few things more frustrating to a customer than not being able to diagnose why their order will not go through. Speaking of customers, lets look at the experience customers have when you use Subscribe Pro.
The Customer Experience
When a customer logs in to your website, they can view their subscription orders, including the next order date, as well as be able to cancel their subscription as well as add/edit/delete a new saved credit card. This is incredibly useful when they want to make quick purchases without having to re-enter their credit card information. They also receive a customized email, which you can setup in the Subscribe Pro platform, which is a separate email from the Magento order email. This is a receipt of any subscription they order and you can customize this with variables such as next order date as well as personalizing their name in the email.
Supports Multiple Product Types And Discounts
Subscribe pro supports the following product types:
- Simple
- Grouped
- Configurable
- Bundle (limited)
This allows great flexibility in creating subscription products for items that provide multiple options, such as if you were to sell various sizes of a product, the customer can choose between a product that is listed as ‘small’ whereas another can be listed as ‘medium’. The flexibility that comes with offering grouped and configurable products is one of the reasons we recommend Subscribe Pro.
Another nice feature is the ability to assign discounts on memberships, both universally to all products, or individually. This is all controlled in the Subscribe Pro admin panel. You have the option to set a universal discount to all products that get added to subscribe pro or you can edit a product individually and apply it directly to that product.
If you need a subscription service for your Magento store, we highly recommend Subscribe Pro. The service can easily be customized to your needs and help grow your online business.
Magento Development Lead
