In Cratejoy, a “product” is your subscription box. Check out the short post below for information on naming your product, setting a shipping schedule, and more.
In this article
- Picking your product’s name and description
- Deciding your shipping schedule
- Pricing your subscription box
- Setting subscription terms (1-, 3-, 6-, and 12-month prepaid options)
- Creating variants and surveys
- Setting up shipping options
Picking your product’s name and description
Name: This should simply be the name of your product. If you have a parent company whose name differs from your subscription, default to the name of your box for this text field.
Description: This should be an enticing, keyword-rich description of your box. Try including the number of products subscribers can expect or the retail value of each month’s box.
Deciding on a shipping schedule
Here, you’ll decide what day of the month you’ll ship your product, which then determines what day of the month your customers will renew.
Cratejoy’s recommended shipping schedule:
Packing Day (1st of each month): You’ll receive a finalized packing list of all shipments to ship. This includes all brand-new customers who just signed up in the prior month, plus any renewals in the prior month.
Shipping Day (by the 4th of the month): You should send out your shipments to your customers so they will receive their box sometime between the 5th and the 10th of the month.
Renewal Day (11th of the month): All renewing customers will be charged for next month’s box.
Note: If you have a different schedule in mind for your business, you can set up a different schedule! Click the link in the “Set up a different schedule” panel to pick your own renewal date.
Deciding on your subscription flow (what customers see on checkout)
Now you get to set up what options your subscribers will see when they purchase your subscription box!
Pricing: How much will you charge? Be sure to check out the Subscription Box Pricing Guide to make sure you’re pricing your box appropriately. (We recommend at least a 30% margin.)
Terms: You can also set up which prepaid terms you want to offer to your customers. Prepayment terms are a great way to build up a loyal customer base. To enable a term, click the red/green toggle next to it, and set its price.
Read more: Interested in learning how prepaid subscriptions can increase your customer value by 94%? Check out our Subscription Terms Case Study.
Additional Subscription Options
Add steps to your subscription flow, based on…
Variants: Specific variations of your subscription product. Common examples include sizes (e.g. shirt size for a T-shirt of the month club) or flavor preferences (e.g. decaf or regular coffee for a coffee subscription box).
Customer surveys: Tools to help you gather more free-form information about your customer as they sign up. Common examples include questions that let you learn more about your customer base: How did you hear about us? How do you describe your style?
Setting your shipping cost
Finally, you get to pick how you’ll charge customers for shipping each month.
Automatically calculate (US Only): Here, Cratejoy can calculate shipping costs based on the subscriber’s address, your shipping address, and the weight of the product. Be sure to enter the weight in the field above.
Free: Customers won’t be charged any extra for shipping, so be sure to bake the cost of shipping into your margins.
Flat rate: Customers will be charged a simple fee for each shipment.
Looking for more information?
Check out some of our most popular blogs and help docs to get you started even faster:
