If you’re new to Cratejoy or thinking of joining the platform, one major obstacle may be standing in the way of launching your subscription box business: building a website.
For good reason – typical websites can take up to 14 weeks to build from start to finish. Cratejoy’s website designer tool can help cut down on that time dramatically, but for sellers who are less concerned with building website than they are with launching, our marketplace-first approach may be the way to go.
What’s Changed?
Previously, joining the Cratejoy Marketplace required having a separate, standalone website. For many sellers, this component of Cratejoy’s onboarding process elongated the journey to launching their subscription box.
As product manager Dan Drewno explains, “I’ve personally interacted with thousands of sellers on Cratejoy. The most painful situation I come across is when someone with a great idea over-focuses on tweaking their storefront.
They spend so much time perfecting their site that they end up delaying their launch, and in the end, lose the passion and momentum needed to really succeed. If we could get sellers to launch as soon as possible before getting bogged down in website minutiae, we’d be able to help them realize so much more success.”
So, with our new recommended approach, sellers no longer have to create a website before selling their subscription. They can simply join the marketplace in three easy steps:
- Add a subscription product
- Fill out their marketplace listing details
- Connect a payment processor
No website required to launch = more subscribers, faster
By eliminating the website requirement from Marketplace onboarding, we hope to address two major seller pain points: building a website and getting subscribers.
Designing a Website
Problem: Sellers often spend weeks or even months perfecting their website before launch. Rather than using that time for customer acquisition or product procurement, sellers get bogged down in the details of creating a beautiful, user-friendly website.
Solution: Cratejoy recommends creating a Marketplace listing first, then spending the time to create a website. This enables sellers to start growing their subscriber base without the time constraint of launching a fully functional website first.
To support our new process, Cratejoy is giving all new sellers a pre-set default website. This is done through a new theme, “Swift,” which is designed to work in tandem with a Marketplace listing.
The idea here is that sellers can start selling on the Marketplace while they’re customizing a website. It won’t matter if the process takes you weeks or months, because you’re already generating revenue and learning the ins and outs of running a subscription business on Cratejoy. Again, it’s entirely possible to never actually create your own website and simply use the Swift theme.
Getting Subscribers
Problem: Sellers can spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars trying to make Facebook and Google AdWords advertising work, only to find that they’ve either spent this money too early (before they really know the big lessons in running a business and keeping customers), or they’ve just spent it incorrectly with the wrong audience or keywords.
Solution: Joining the Marketplace, in short, gets you in front of Cratejoy’s millions of monthly visitors without any financial risk. The time investment here is minimal – setting up a Cratejoy Marketplace listing can take as little time as 30 minutes. And doing so gets your box immediately in the Marketplace ecosystem!
Finally, sellers who begin their business journey on the Cratejoy Marketplace don’t have to go through the painful process of learning about customer acquisition until they’re ready.
They’re able to launch fast and are immediately eligible for marketplace marketing campaigns. These include custom emails, reviews, blogs, YouTube influencer reviews, videos, and more. These campaigns are ONLY available to Marketplace sellers and have helped grow the Cratejoy family to thousands of subscribers.
How do I get started?
Launching your Marketplace listing is as simple as setting up your account and completing the three-step launch list. In as little as 30 minutes, you could be selling your subscription box on the Cratejoy Marketplace!
Cratejoy is an all in one subscription commerce platform that includes everything you need to start your own subscription commerce business online. Try it free for 14 days.
