Subscriptions aren’t just for protein powder, meal kits, or mystery boxes anymore.
In this episode of Winning With Shopify, Nick Trueman sits down with Chris George (CEO and Co-Founder of SubSummit) and breaks down why more ecommerce brands should be thinking seriously about subscriptions, memberships, loyalty, and recurring revenue, and the creative ways you can do so.
Nick & Chris talk about how subscription models can work across more categories than most brands realise, why the real battle is for share of wallet, and how brands can use AI, customisation, upsells, partnerships, and better retention strategy to grow long-term customer value.
This episode also gives a behind-the-scenes look at Sub Summit, the world’s largest event for subscription, membership, and loyalty brands, including how brands can attend for free.
In this episode:
• Why subscriptions are becoming essential for e-commerce brands
• How to make subscriptions work even in categories like fashion
• The real difference between value, convenience, and access
• Why share of wallet matters more than direct competitors
• How AI is changing subscription personalisation
• How better checkout upsells can increase LTV
• Why “auto ship” converts better than “subscribe and save”
• What brands can learn from Amazon Prime, Netflix, Apple, BattleBox, and The Farmer’s Dog
• How to think about churn, cancellations, and retention more strategically
If you run a Shopify store and want to increase LTV, retention, and recurring revenue, this is a really valuable episode.
Transcript from video:
0:00 Hello and welcome to another episode of the winning with Shopify podcast. If you haven't tuned in before, welcome to the most awesome Bright Pink podcast you've ever been on. Today we're going to be talking about something very, very exciting. We're going to be talking about subscriptions and also something
0:12 super exciting which I'll come on to in a minute. There's an opportunity to meet me if you're in the US. I come out once a year and this year I'm not just going to meetings and hiding in offices or on planes. You can come meet me. Um, we have sponsored something really, really
0:24 awesome which we're going to come on to in a moment. But I'm going to introduce my very, very special guest. His name's Chris. He's the CEO and co-founder of SubSummit. So Chris, welcome to the show. How are you? Thank you so much for having me, Nick. I'm glad to be here.
0:36 Well, it's a pleasure to have you here. And if anyone's not heard of you, Chris, or they've not heard of Subsummit, give us the elevator pitch like what is SubSummit and why should people care? Yeah, so Subsummit is the largest event in the world for all DTOC and retail subscription membership and loyalty brands. So thank everybody from Barkbox
0:53 to Ipsy to Fabit Fund, even like Netflix, Spotify, Battlebox, Carnivore Club. If you got a subscription, membership or loyalty brand, you come to SubSummit, which happens once a year. Next one happening in May, May 13th to the 15th. Amazing. And I I've been joking with you and the team quite a lot while we've been getting ready for Subsummit um
1:11 about how much I love the American market and how blunt you guys are. It's just world's biggest. It's just like there's just no question. It's like we're the world's biggest. We checked. We're the world's biggest. Um I'm going to be at Subsummit everyone. So, if you
1:22 want to come meet me, there is a um in fact, Chris, tell us a bit more about the stage that we're sponsoring the podcasting stage. Tell us a bit more about what happens at Subsummit and why is there a podcasting stage and what are some of the other things that people could expect to see
1:34 or do if they came? Yeah, I mean, look, we've got three track room stages. We've got a main theater which is called the arena this year. It's going to have stadium seating, so that's going to be remarkable. Nice. We've also got a podcast stage and a big part of that is we've got an amazing podcast podcasters like yourself that are going to be at
1:50 the conference are going to be doing live shows right at the event. People can walk up and watch. You know, we've got an exhibitor hall with 120 exhibitors with different solution providers and technologies. We've got a
2:02 huge uh hosted meetings area. We've got a great lunch area and everything lives on one floor for three days. And so, you know, I know we'll get into that more as we get through the through the podcast here, but the opportunity at SubSummit
2:16 to meet like-minded individuals that are in the subscription space or if you're not in subscriptions and you're thinking about adding it, which you probably should be, Subsummit's the And we're going to talk a bit more about subscriptions in general as we go through this episode today. But I'm I mean, I'm super excited. I we I will be
2:34 flying out. Byron will be there as well. So, if you didn't believe Byron was a real person who does all the hard work to make people, amazing people like Chris and myself and all our amazing guests be here, then Byron's going to be there. We're also going to have I I
2:46 think it might be going out the week after this episode as well. We got John from Battlebox, who's the CEO, coming on to talk about live shoppable video and a few other bits and pieces. They've got, you mentioned Netflix, Elliot, Chris, they've got their own Netflix series,
2:57 which is insane. Like a Shopify brand is now running a Netflix series. So, if you want to come and meet some incredible people, it's it's the place to be. I'm so excited to be there. Um, and we're also talking some of the tech brands about getting involved in the podcast and Growth Vault later in the year.
3:10 We're also super excited to meet some uh meet some brands. Tickets [snorts] though, Chris, they're quite expensive, but it's free to brands if they do something. Tell us more. Like, it's I think it's an incredible offer.
3:21 I mean, look at we built this event so that we could cultivate the largest community of direct to consumer subscription membership and loyalty brands. When you think about the event circus of the the event circuit in the
3:34 US, a lot of them are focused on retail and ecom. We're the only one that's three days focused around subscription. Our goal is to get the greatest minds in the room. We make it super easy. You can apply for our hosted meetings ticket,
3:47 which gets you a free ticket to the conference and up to 750 in travel reimbursement. And all you have to do is take up to eight meetings with technologies and solutions at the event. However, all of those meetings are
3:59 agreed to and approved by you. So, let's say you're looking for a new CRM. You approve to meet with only the CRM. Let's say you're looking for a new agency. You approved to meet with only the new agencies. You need a new fulfillment center. You're looking for new plugins.
4:12 So, it's really an easy way to attend the event and we have a lot of companies that come and they use that as an off-site opportunity, right? So, brand like Battlebox, you mentioned John, he's bringing eight people from his company
4:24 to the conference, right? And when you're thinking about who should be there, it should be your head of customer acquisition, your VP of growth, your director of marketing, your head of retention, your head of CX, your head of technology. Use that as an opportunity.
4:37 It's the one event a year where you're going to come out and learn some things that are going to help you apply deliverables to your business when you get back to the office. I mean, that's amazing, Chris. And obviously, people can come for free, which is so cool. There's obviously one
4:49 rule everybody is if you go there do the meetings go for free get a reimbursement there but you're not allowed to meet any other SEO PPC partners the only ones so come see us joking obviously you can do what you want but let's talk about for
5:02 anyone that's like look this conversation we don't do subscriptions let's let's go right to the heart of this and go and answer that I think that big question then we'll talk about some of the ways it works but what would you say to a business that that sell like I
5:15 don't know clothing or a sofa or something what would you say to one of those guys. He's like, "People don't people don't buy regularly from us.
5:21 Like, it's a one in a year, one in every year or something. How could they use subscriptions to grow their business?"
5:26 Yeah. I mean, look, you've got True Classic that's going to be in the room. You got Fablettics that's going to be in the room. Not having a subscription membership or loyalty program, and I I'm going to just negate loyalty from this, so we'll talk subscription and
5:38 membership. It's like having a retail store and not a website in the 2000, right, era. It's you're missing the boat. [clears throat] If you got a clothing brand, you can build a membership that
5:51 gives your consumers an opportunity to get discounts on products, gives you gives them the the opportunity to get exclusive drops or release get opportunity access to products on
6:03 release early. There's different ways you can do it. And by the way, there are items that you do need regularly that's in the fashion space, whether that's underwear, socks, right? You know, clean
6:15 tees. And then, you know, I've seen brands that are doing it that have done things really, really well. There's a uh there's a brand called Southern Hat Company. I think that's the exact name. You know, they drop a new hat once a month. All they and all you can do is be a subscriber to it and
6:33 there's a wait list and they sell out every single month. And every single month you get a brand new hat delivered right to your door. Fashion can be put on subscription. It's just about how you
6:45 build it, right? And you had made a comment. You'd said, "A lot of these brands get one or two purchases per year from a customer." That's the exact reason that you need to build a subscription because you're likely going to see four to six purchases per year,
6:58 right? Membership, some sort of subscription. It is 100% possible. Brands are doing it. And the [snorts] truth is, if you're not doing it now, it's going very very soon, it's going to be too late. I I
7:12 cannot think and it's interesting you know I I speak at a lot of events or I and I speak at a lot of colleges and I and I challenge people to tell me their business model and I'll tell them how to build a subscription around it.
7:24 Love that. Yeah. There's not a lot of businesses where this doesn't work. There are some there are not a lot. Yeah. And we I mean we as an agency are a subscription business and for exactly that reason we used to do it was about
7:36 70% projectbased work. Someone would say, "Can you optimize my site?" And we say, "Yeah, here's the fee. We'll go and optimize the site." There were two issues. One is I'm now whilst I'm optimizing it, I have to pitch for the
7:47 next gig. So, I'm doing two jobs at Chasing You're just chasing business the whole time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then, but the second issue as well is once we did the SEO, all the numbers change. It's like two
7:57 weeks later, I'd be back I'd be banging on their door going, "We should do another round of this." And they're like, "No, we only budgeted for one." And it was like, "What a loss leader."
8:04 And I love I love the example you gave Drops. Fantastic. And I think the membership or subscription partly because of Amazon Prime that's become so much more popular all over the world, hasn't it? With the um if you become a member, you get member only pricing, you get free delivery. Like it's growing. It's growing. Yeah. I mean, look, it's been and and
8:22 they've they've been doing subscribe and save for the last 10 years. So, if you look at what makes a subscription successful, they either have to have value, convenience, or access. If you offer one
8:35 of those three things, you are likely going to build a very successful subscription business. Amazon offers all three. They give you value on products, give you discounted products regularly. They give you convenience by delivering it to you not just in two days, not just
8:47 in one day, but here like in an hour you can get items, and then they give you access to Prime Video. They've got all three elements of a successful subscription business built into their Amazon Prime. If you look at their most
8:58 successful day, do you know what the most successful day was for Amazon Prime where they had the most signups in one day? It's got to be Black Friday. Surely it was the day they announced Thursday Night Football for NFL.
9:09 Oh, really? [laughter] You could only watch Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime. This was two years ago. They had the most signups they'd ever had in one single day because they gave you access.
9:20 Yeah. If you look at the success of Netflix, the the success of Netflix is going to rely on their original series content. If they stop building out content that you can only watch on Netflix, then they
9:31 will eventually die. But they continuously come out with more content that can only be watched on Netflix. That's amazing, Chris. And I think the, as you say, some people have been doing this for a long time. What is changing
9:43 in the subscription space at the moment there? What's evolving? So, we're seeing a lot of different things, right? You're seeing how AI is starting to have an effect on the industry, which is having an effect on most industries. And I think what becomes important there is how you're using AI, but also more customization, right? So, how do you customize the
10:00 experience for the consumer to make sure that not only do they subscribe, but they don't churn and and you don't have a big retention problem. We're also seeing frequency changes. So, being able to offer frequency opportunities based
10:13 on what the consumer's needs are. So, let's use for example, let's say that you are a protein powder brand and you've got a subscription or auto ship or subscribe and save. I work out four to five times per week. Another
10:26 individual might work out twice a week. You know, just offering a monthly subscription to a tub of the protein may not always work because one individual might only, you know, go through that tub of protein over two months. I might go over it over one
10:40 month. So, you got to be able to have that cadence. If you look at like if you look at like Farmer's Dog, Farmer's Dog does a really good job of adjusting the cadence based on the consumer's needs. So, when you sign up for Farmer's Dog and you get those daily meals for your pet, before the next renewal, they'll
10:58 ask a question about two weeks out, they'll say, "How many meals do you have left?" And based on your response, they'll adjust the next renewal date.
11:05 That becomes really, really important, and it allows for less churn and more customization and being able to follow the needs of the consumer. Yeah, which makes a lot of sense. And I think the certainly the control over a
11:16 subscription I think is really really important. And there's so much I mean we mentioned um Recharge who we both know quite well and there's Reby and there's a whole load of other systems to manage either the subscription itself or bits
11:28 around the subscription. Lots of these guys are going to be at Subsummit and I mean I for one I'm super excited to meet them because it's where I I learn the
11:34 most is going to talks especially when I'm in a talk I can't get distracted. If you ask me to watch a YouTube video, which the irony is I I am a podcaster and I'm the one who can't consume podcast content and yeah, when I'm driving put something on, I think it's
11:47 it's really interesting seeing what some of these brands are doing and I love some of those use cases you've just shared. And I think that then starts to help people either someone who's doing a subscription but just could be sweating that asset and that process so much more. Do you ever find that in your
12:00 warehouse you have dead stock? You can't sell it, no one wants to buy it, and you can't get a refund on it. or alternatively, you're missing inventory in your warehouse that you [music] need. You've got sales coming in and you're low on stock and you haven't ordered more stock in time. All these things hit
12:14 profit. And I've been there. I've run my own Shopify store and had exactly [music] that problem. But we've partnered up with Inventory Planner who have the most incredible app to help you manage that and forecast exactly what products, what SKs, even down to what
12:25 color of product you need to order in advance to make sure stock levels remain consistent throughout. They're also running a 7-day boot camp. And if you want to go and sign up to that, it's seven emails every 7 days. And it takes the same amount of time as your morning
12:37 [music] coffee. And in 7 days, like me, you can become an inventory management pro. Both links are in the description. Enjoy. With AI, I want to dig more into this bit because this is the bit that everybody talks about at the moment is AI. What What are some of the ways that
12:51 the customer specifically actually interacts with AI when it comes to subscription? Yeah, I mean, look, it you're going to see it across the board with customer service, right? So, how are we using the customer service tools to help streamline the process, give 24 access to the consumer? And that's not that
13:09 crazy new, but where I think you're going to see AI start to come into play is when it identifies the consumer that lands on your website and then showcases to them the products that they actually need and use. So, for example, if you
13:22 were on, we'll just use Fabletics as an example. Not that I know that they're doing this. I'm just it's a clothing brand. So, you were on Fabletics, you ordered some products. Now, they've know
13:33 what your size is and what type of products you need. They also can look at like what time of the year it is based on where you live. So, if I'm in Detroit, which I am, and I wear extra large, and I like leisure wear, when I
13:45 land on the site in the middle of the winter, it should be showing me their winter products. Somebody in California at the exact same time is likely not looking at winter products because they're in California. they'll know where they're coming from. Using AI to
13:58 identify what the who the consumer is and offer them the correct products based on seasonality, based on purchase history, based on location is going to become really relevant. You know, let's talk about another product. Let's say like uh Miracle Grow, you know, fertilizer for your grass. Well, the grass in Detroit is very different than
14:16 the grass in Florida. It should know who I am and I shouldn't have to go through 3,000 SKs to find the right product. It should say, "Hey, Chris, I see you're you're coming in from Michigan. You likely have this type of uh grass. You
14:30 need this type of fertilizer." Yeah. Yeah. That's where you're going to see a lot of success with AI. Nice. I I think one of the big things I'm seeing in um personalization using AI at the moment on sites is that I love this geographic examples and it actually
14:43 saying going one step further and saying like this is the most popular product in Michigan right now and here are the reviews from customers who are in Michigan. And this relies on two things. One is AI understanding the data
14:55 properly and the second thing is having your data and reviews and other things tagged properly. It you need to feed the AI that data so it knows what to come back with. [snorts] Some sites we're working on at the moment have actually
15:05 become search engines where it's just an the search engine actually just triggers an AI to go, look, we got 22,000 products here. What kind of thing you looking for? And it's like, all right, I'm looking for a beige shirt. I'm this size. I need it by Wednesday. Like, okay, cool. We can sort all of that out for you. like and it it starts to drill down to that product which then begs a
15:23 bit of a question of what on earth is going to happen to things like uh search what's going to happen to meta advertising uh to Tik Tok the advert's going to pop up going look at all these incredible products do you like this yes great AI pops what would you like let's
15:36 have a conversation is there anything else like this you'd like to see do you want to see more or less of this content at the moment it's just kind of working out what you engage with and there's so many flaws in all of that and when it comes to retail brands and and certainly
15:47 comes to subscription products the subscription ription products have got more data I would say than anyone because you can say they're already subscribed to these products that they're buying therefore we should push this stuff
15:57 and I guess it doesn't end at the point if you just sell one product say you just sell candles and you've got people on a a subscription to get more candles now there's a big opportunity to also do like sister the brands um integrations isn't there to say here's a partner
16:10 brand of ours and they're going to push us to their audience to start subscriptions on our candles to them but that we're also going to push them to our audience and tell our audience, you should go and buy um you know these diffusers. So you got candles from us diffus I know it's a silly example but somewhere like Subsummit is where you
16:26 make these connections. It's who you meet when you're having a coffee. It's who you sit next to in the arena. Well, look, we I my background prior to building and launching SubSummit was that I was the original CEO and
16:40 co-founder of the Gentleman's Box, which was a subscription for men. Yeah. Yeah, I remember it. Yeah. Yeah. that got acquired in 2020. Back in 2016, we had a partnership with Ipsy, which was a women's makeup subscription. A
16:53 month before Valentine's Day, we had put a bunch of inserts in their subscription box that said, "Hey, get this for your significant other." And then on the reverse side, we did the same thing for them. Those partnerships worked really
17:05 well. When you can find the right partner that you can work handinhand with, it's a great customer acquisition tool. The consumers already adapted to understanding what subscriptions are. These are complimentary products.
17:15 They're not competing. And you build those relationships at SubSummit. I I I love that. That is such a good example. I think one of the stats I've been talking loads of on the show about and lots of you guys that listen to my
17:27 Tuesday talks will know this. I've been talking [snorts] a lot about lifetime value. And the higher lifetime value is, the more orders you get per customer, the more the average order value is going up per order as well, which obviously subscription makes it automatic. They have a 12 month subscription. You've just done you've
17:39 just 12folded your ROI from all your advertising um instead of them buying one product. But if your lifetime value is sitting at like 1.5 or two orders per customer, a subscriptions are massive. But doing this partnership suddenly
17:51 means that we don't even have to do the heavy lifting. We're just sending an email and they're doing the same. And we're now going to have although we might be stuck at two um you know two ROI per customer or two LTV, so two orders per customer. Although we're
18:04 stuck at that, we've just got a massive influx of customers our way and we've helped someone else do something with our customer base which we've struggled to get another order through. Do do you see how you're kind of taking a lateral step to sweat that that
18:16 twice but yeah I mean look at if you're at a two if you're at a two renewals you've got a bigger problem and I don't think the solution I don't think the solution is going to be to add more customers at that level. I think it's we need to identify how do we increase that from
18:29 two to 10 but you know making the partnership is definitely another top of the funnel tactic to drive more customer acquisition right and you know it's outside of those partnerships it's just having conversations with individuals to learn like what's working really well
18:45 for you how are you upselling at checkout that's another great way to increase LTV so they sign up for the candle subscription and then at the checkout it says add a package of scents uh you know you know cents uh for $10
18:59 you do that at purchase you know you're now you're now increasing LTV and so you know that's what also makes like the subsummit community so great is everybody's there to help each other win and we promote co-opetition which is your competitor might be in the room but everybody's here there's enough fish in
19:17 the sea for everybody to eat let's work with each other the other part of it too is I think one big misconception that people have is they think that let's say that they have a candle subscription. They believe that the other candle
19:30 subscriptions are their competitors. Well, that's not true. You know, we're in a day and age where man, you know, most consumers have 15 to 20 subscriptions. So, if you go really back and look at all the different
19:40 subscriptions you have, you probably have way more than you think. So, you're competing for share of wallet. It's not competing with just a competitor. So, when a consumer is doing their monthly budget, they're looking at all their
19:51 subscriptions. And what you want to make sure is that your subscription isn't one of the ones that gets cut if they're making financial changes in their life.
19:58 So it's comp competition for share of wallet and you want to build a brand and an experience where the consumer doesn't look at your subscription as the first one that they're going to cut when time comes. You come to SubSummit to learn the different ways to build a brand that isn't going to be the first one that
20:15 somebody wants to cut when they're thinking about financial changes in their life. Yeah, absolutely. And there's apps now. I see them all. I haven't got one myself. Um I keep I think as I run a business, I keep quite a tight knit on my own um subscriptions, but there's
20:28 apps now that will tell you by looking at your bank balance for the last 12 months. You because of open banking, you connect them and it goes these are all your subscriptions. Um and then you just look at it and go Netflix, I haven't used Netflix in ages. Like right, call
20:40 that. And as you say, you don't want to be the one that gets cold. I say the biggest one's called Rocket Money. It was originally called True Bill. And he was at our conference in 2024. We did a keynote together and
20:50 that's that's where we learned about that consumers it so if you're looking at the consumer behavior consumers were adding subscriptions and then they were cancelling and in 2024 those finally crossed. So what that meant was if a consumer was going to add a new subscription they were going to cut one.
21:10 Before they were adding three or four and they were cutting only one. Now, if consumers are going to add a new subscription, they're likely going to cut one. And so, again, this comes down to like how do you build an experience so that yours is the one isn't the one that's cut. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I just want to interrupt today's episode to tell you
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22:02 With the UI within the subscription app, so when they go to manage the subscription, how do you build a UI that stops people or encourages people even at that point of not canceling? I mean, look, you got to ask questions number one. You can't just have a button. It's like why, right? Good point. And then and then you got to have AI
22:21 tools. There's another part of it which starts to talk to the consumer because depending on why they're going to cancel, you might be able to save them.
22:28 Is it because they didn't like the product? Like, suggest another product and stay on for another month. Is it because they can't afford it? Offer them a discount to stay on another month. Is it because they didn't get the product in shipping? It's like okay like any any
22:42 reason that somebody goes to cancel needs to be an automatic trigger to customer service so that they can sort of take that opportunity to have a conversation with the consumer and find out why because in a lot of cases it might be something that you can fix and make good on the consumer. And if the consumer is saying and then by the way
22:59 also one of the reasons might be like let's say Netflix you go to cancel and it's like well I'm going to be in Europe for the next three months. Okay let's pause it. we don't need to cancel your subscription and in three months it'll start again.
23:10 So instead of losing the customer, they're just pause and it'll automatically renew in three months. So the number one way is just ask questions. Don't make it difficult to cancel because nobody likes that. But make it so that you at least gather
23:23 some data. you have an opportunities to save the consumer and then you get to take that data and apply it and review it and see these are the changes we need to make to our business so that less people are potentially going to cancel
23:35 which actually is a I would say a massive advantage you don't get if you're not running subscriptions because if you're not running subscriptions they
23:40 just don't come back and buy if you're running a subscription you you've got you've got the opportunity to have this conversation and they want to get to the end of that short process to click cancel so yeah I think it's a a brilliant brilliant idea I think an important point in this as well is with
23:53 that cancellation process is not just to drop the price is it I think too many companies on too quick to go like what if it was half price for like maybe for a temporary time but so many like I do it with a couple of my TV subscriptions
24:05 every year I'm like I know at the end of the football what's sorry but what is what we call it real football you call it soccer but for real when I cancel my TV subscription to watch football in the UK and Champions League and and and FIFA
24:17 World Cups and stuff when I go to cancel that they always give me a deal and I always do at the end of the season they give me a deal for like at least 9 maybe 12 months which means every year I'm always on a deal and I know they're going to do that. So they've kind of lost that money now. So brands have got
24:30 to be careful not just to drop the price, haven't they? It's important they don't just devalue it. The the better the better thing to do is say, "Look, if you stay one month, we're going to add an item to your next shipment. Give them something of value. Give them a $50 product which has like a $10 cost to you. You're better off giving them a $50
24:46 product that cost you $10 and then give them $10 off the next subscription." You know, I'm a big advocate of not discounting. Like I I think every brand should all the brands should all the brands should just come together and remove the coupon code spot and then
25:00 nobody would have this like idea that they can get things on discount. That'll never happen. But if you look at the most successful brands in the world like [snorts] Apple, right? Apple doesn't even have a coupon code spot. Yeah. You never get an iPhone on discount. You look at Lego never discounted,
25:18 right? So the best brands in the world understand the value of their product and they don't need to discount it in order to get the consumer to make a purchase and if anything it brings more value to your your product offering. So if you can avoid discounting but instead give them a product like an additional product on their next shipment one
25:37 you're going to get more revenue from the consumer but two I actually think the consumer is going to be happier. Yeah. Yeah. Apple's a great example. I I sometimes buy refurbished items from Apple. This is why when a new iPhone comes out, I wait 2 or 3 months. Now
25:50 they've got a couple of refurbished ones. You but you don't save much. Like they they say our refurbishment at Apple is as good as new. So we'll give you a tiny discount cuz yes, there's been a few cycles of the battery or something,
26:01 but it's you won't even know it's secondhand. It's going to look like it's completely new. If anything, we're just giving you a smaller bit of packaging around it. And I just as a marketeteer, I get that and I go they're just so smart. They know their brand. They know
26:14 their value. And they will not be done on price. But again, it goes back to the point of going if you buy an Apple computer or an Apple phone or any Apple device, you know it's always going to work. You know it's not going to lag. You know it's going to do exactly what you need when you need it. And actually
26:27 the competition now is can you afford the M5 or the M6 chip which just come out, you know, and they make it like an aggressive, but it's it's fun. People like paying money to be like, I've got the M6. The M6 is awesome. And I I don't need it. I get sucked in every time and buy the best, you know, shiniest. They bring a new color out. I get a new laptop. And it's like when I when you
26:45 take a logical view, it makes absolutely no sense [snorts] with with subscriptions. Then what do you think is going to change in the next couple of years? You mentioned quite a few things already. What are some of the big challenges or threats do you think to
26:57 subscriptions that brands need to be aware of? I would say the one challenge I addressed already is is understanding that you're competing for a share of wallet, right? So you need to think through that. I also, you know, I'd say
27:09 like I don't know that there's other there's any threats. It's more of more and more brands are moving to the subscription model and they should be. And the reason why you want to do that is because
27:23 you're building a relationship with the consumer. The biggest threat is that you don't consistently and continue to evolve your own brand and product, right? You have to consistently do that.
27:34 You need to consistently get creative. And as long as you're doing that and keeping your current customers engaged, you'll have a much better chance for success versus ones that build the product, don't look at the data, make it difficult to cancel. They're just like waiting until their death of the brand.
27:52 Yeah. Yeah. I I hear you. And I guess to ask two more quickfire questions then. First one is what what industries, what spaces, what product types are doing really really well on subscriptions.
28:06 Yeah. I mean, look, anything that's the depleting product. So, anything that needs to be refilled absolutely is going to crush and those do the best. And and then I'd say secondary is access when you're giving access to exclusivity, whether that's content or product,
28:24 right? So, like let's a good a good example, and I've had conversations with uh Nike regarding this, but if Nike released a Nike subscription that gave you early access to the drops of the sneakers, people would be selling those
28:42 memberships secondary to other people at a much higher price because of the demand and the opportunity for exclusivity. Like you know who's a you know who should be building out a subscription that would just crush
28:54 should be like Pokemon. Pokemon is so hot right now and you've got all these scalpers in the game and people are complaining about them and the hype is around it and kids aren't getting access
29:05 and if you built a subscription model that gave you access to exclusive sets. Oh my gosh. I don't like Pokemon if you're listening to this like call me.
29:18 I'll help you. I'll help you build it. It would just crush like like like real deal like crush. So what does that tell other brands out there that aren't Pokemon and Nike? Build [snorts] a product that's got exclusivity. People like things that other people can't get. Yeah. Yeah. No, I love that. And you're absolutely spot on with Pokemon. Um, we
29:39 have a client that sells limited edition Pokémon cards and they will get like a limited run of them 24 hours before they arrive at my client's office is when he will know how many he's getting, how much he's spent on them. You literally
29:51 just you just go, "Yeah, we'll take a lot." And it could be anything from like £10,000 to £200,000 that he's take, but he knows that any drop on Pokemon, Yugo, and a whole load of other games. He knows they will all be gone within hours of hitting his website. So, we run all his PPC and SEO. We do SEO for the brand
30:09 Pokemon as a whole, but we do not run any ads on any of this stuff because he's like, I send one email, it's all gone. And it's it's just a license to print money. Like, it literally is a license to print money. And he's he's bound by Pokemon or the distributor as
30:21 to what the price is. I think some areas like that are incredible. My second introduce him to me. I'm a I'm a Pokemon collector, so send me the site. I would Does he ship Does he Does he ship to the States? I'm sure he would if I asked him to.
30:34 He should come to the conference. You should tell him to come because he should be building out a membership. I bet you if he charged $10, if he charged $10 a month, okay, $10. Joe, I'm going to send you this by the way. You need to watch this, Joe.
30:47 Yeah. If he if he's if he charged $10 a month and there was an exclusive group that got access to his drop 10 minutes before everybody else. He's now he's now got this other there going to be a thousand people that are on to you. He'll love this.
31:04 Yeah. It's like a It's like a no-brainer. Yeah. Yeah. And my other question I think relates not to that kind of business, but you know, when you're on a site as a consumer and you get offered, do you want to buy this product? is is literally just Amazon subscribe and
31:17 save. You get offered a subscription with a discount or you can just buy one and there's no discount. Do you find that works best for consumers? Do you think it's best for a brand to present that so you get the option or do you think actually if you just say it's a subscription only product but you can cancel anytime or the first month is
31:33 half price or what do you think it's better just to jump straight in with subscription or do you think actually let them buy one and then try and upsell the subscription later? look at you definitely want to get you definitely want to get them on the
31:45 subscription first no matter what right but it also depends on what the product offering is so you know it's a lot of times in consumables you'll see that it's buy one time purchase or subscribe
31:57 and save which by the way a quick tip for everybody listening you should change the word subscribe and save to auto ship auto ship will perform better it'll convert better if you look you know chewy.com I had a conversation with their CMO they made this change all they
32:09 did was change the words from subscribe and save to auto ship They saw an 30% increase in conversion. It makes sense. Sometimes people get shied away from the word subscribe. They think that they're tied into something where auto ship is
32:21 like, "Hey, we're just going to deliver this for you every single month." But I think it's the product offering. So if it's a consumable good, likely that's the way you're going to need to build it. If it's not and it's tangible products, you want to get them into a subscription first.
32:33 Cool. Love that. And I mean, there's so many quick wins. We we've even done things recently where we've had like a 20% increase in conversion rate just by next to the add to cart button putting 30-day free free no question returns like just super simple like 30-day money back guarantee next to the add to cart button go well there's nothing to lose
32:52 and because what you're doing with marketing is and I love the example you gave if you're changing the question the question isn't should I sign up to this
32:59 every month the question is oh how much time is that going to save me by auto shipping especially as you said earlier consumable you know like I'm going to run out of deodor Why don't I just have an auto ship and I can change the frequency of auto ship? It's genius. It
33:11 makes so much sense. Yeah, there's other things you can do too at check out and you you need to ask John Roman about this because I gave him this tip. I gave him this tip. He's coming on in a week or two as well by by the way guys. So, battlbox.
33:22 He um I gave him this tip like six or seven years ago and he wrote an article that said a fiveminute conversation with Chris George netted me six figures in 30 days. But what I had suggested, such a John title [laughter] to say, "True, it happened. He's probably made millions off of this now." But, you know, after they at the checkout process
33:41 for his subscription, I suggested that he had a little box that had a blinking red arrow that said, "Add a mystery box for $25." We've spoken about his mystery boxes before. Yeah. So, it was adding a secondary item right
33:55 at checkout and it was a little box with a blinking red arrow and he had like in 30 days he did six figures. like he's probably done millions by far now. But it's again, I won't give any spoilers, but his
34:06 shoppable video figures, guys, the amount of revenue they've increased in eight months, and it'll be on the title of the episode. But yeah, don't say anything, Chris. It's all to be revealed in a few weeks. People have got to wait for that. Um, got to treat them mean, and keep them keen as as our listeners.
34:19 Um, last question then, uh, Chris, we are we're coming out to Subsummit. We're sponsoring the podcast show. We've done an incredible um, link up with you guys. I'm super excited to be there. If people are listening to this and going, "All
34:31 right, I need to check this thing out." How can they get involved? How can they get in touch with you guys? How can they get to the summit? And how can they get that free ticket? Most importantly, look, I think one, connect with me on LinkedIn. It's uh you can find me on
34:43 there. It's Christopher George subsummit. The website's subsummit.com. I'm sure we'll drop it in here. Right there, you'll see the ticket options. You'll see the opportunity for hosted tickets. If you're listening and you're a solution provider or a technology company, you should reach out to me. We've got a lot of different ways for you to get involved and we've got a lot
35:01 of different opportunities for you to have one-on-one conversations with the brands that are in attendance, but it's real simple. Just go to subsummit.com,
35:07 connect with me on LinkedIn. Happy to chat with you. Uh we're going to expect 1,600 to 1,800 attendees this year. It's May 13th to the 15th in Kansas City. We do it right in the Midwest because we want the East Coast and the West Coast
35:20 to fly in from the States. And we got tons of people coming in internationally. You're going to be there, so I think they need to come and meet you as well. and along with a bunch of other great brands. Just to name a few, Coinbase is going to be speaking,
35:31 MasterClass, Bark. Nice. Uh Kiwi Co, Butcher Box, Good Ranchers, uh if they've got a subscription membership or loyalty. They're at SubSummit every single year.
35:42 Yeah. Amazing. Well, look, thank you so much, Chris. And and just to say as well, it's only $10 a selfie with me if I'm joking. My wife would kill me if she heard me say that. She'd be like, "You was you're not bigigh bigheaded enough to make such claims." But look, Chris,
35:54 thank you so much for coming on the show today. I mean, so much good stuff about subscriptions, but also, yeah, come to SubSummit, guys, if you can. We'll put, as Chris says, we'll put some links in the descriptions below. If you got any questions or even if you want to book a time with me or anybody else that's
36:07 there, feel free to reach out to people. Um, you know, drop me a note. Um, we are going to be meeting some brands as well. So, if you uh if you find me sending you a note from my agency being like, "Hey, I want to meet." And it's part of that free ticket deal that uh that Chris mentioned as well. We're going to be
36:19 doing that. It's such an amazing process and we hope to be there for many, many years. We'll obviously see how it goes, Chris, and you guys are going to make it a success for us. But uh super excited. Thanks for tuning in everybody as well. And on Tuesday be back with Tea Break
36:29 Talks. And as I mentioned, we're going to have John from BattleBox back on the show. You can go and check out his old episode in advance as well. He's good friends with with Chris. And almost everyone I meet now, I'm like, do you know John from Battlbox? They're like, yes, I do. He's a bit of a legend. Um so
36:41 yeah, thanks for tuning in. Hope you can join us next time. And if you haven't already, hit that subscribe button. See you next time. Yoast have just launched something that is absolutely gamechanging. Their new AI brand insights tool is now in beta and it's
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