B2B subscriptions are becoming a growth area as companies are finding it increasingly useful to implement subscription services into their business models. Subscription commerce helps build longer lasting consumer relationships, helps boost the business and has other potential benefits for B2B companies.
Let’s look into how subscription-based services can be useful for B2B e-commerce companies and how the business can benefit from such strategies.
A subscription service helps customers as it places the order for them, while they control the frequency of each order placed. B2B companies have to identify the items that the shopper reorders, and then the shopper chooses a subscription that helps them save time by reordering their desired products. In the case of digital services, a subscription models means simply renewing a previous subscription.
How can a subscription-based model benefit a company? It simply decreases the time and effort it takes to repeat an order, it creates a repeated and predictable source of revenue for the company and it increases the overall lifetime value of the customer. The key word in “B2B subscription commerce” is “subscription,” so it delivers all of the same benefits that are associated with a recurring model. The customer has a standing order debited in his account every month or year, and the retailer has a steady source of revenue. In the digital landscape, implementing a seamless subscription commerce model is one way to achieve continued success.
According to Forbes, when Covid-19 was declared a pandemic in 2020, paid subscriptions spiked up to 40% higher than pre-pandemic, and specifically, in May of 2020, there was a 115% jump in trial subscriptions for professional services, as well as a 45% increase in all e-commerce subscriptions. As the work from home (WFH) model continues to grow in 2022, we can expect that digital subscriptions will just continue to rise with it. Employees find it extremely easy to sign up for free trials and subscribe later, or sign up for subscriptions on the spot that will help them streamline their daily life easier. This includes subscriptions for retail, for pharmaceuticals, for entertainment purposes, for digital softwares, for groceries and so on.
This global shift towards subscriptions is being driven by increased consumer demand and increased expectations post-pandemic in terms of faster, easier digital purchases. Even during a crisis such as the pandemic, businesses that had subscription based models demonstrated resilience, proving that these services are beneficial for a business even during a global pandemic.
The key here, however, is retaining consumer data and maintaining consumer relationships through the subscription model. Companies are faced with an opportunity to get closer to the consumer, offer valuable and more personalized services and fulfill direct-to-consumer demands. Building on the words of Bert, Senior Vice President of Provider Services, “B2B subscription commerce covers all of the technology and business operations that power the sales of digital products for businesses on a recurring basis. That includes everything from sales operations, to marketing, to product delivery and deployment, to vendor management, to customer support and lifecycle management, and much more.” This means that such model extends to marketing, technology, and general decision making for the company that when utilized, can be revolutionary to the business-to-consumer relationship.
Concluding this thought, even though the pandemic has generated impactful shifts and a great transition towards digital services, there is a great amount of proof that subscription models are vital for businesses in terms of innovation and progress but more importantly, for the business to remain relevant to the consumer.
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