Breaking Barriers: Amazon Subscribe & Save For Breakthrough Growth

How to Boost Sales and Customer Loyalty with Amazon Subscribe And Save

Amazon Subscribe and Save is a powerful program that allows Amazon shoppers, including Prime members, to sign up for recurring, scheduled deliveries of items they use frequently and get Subscribe & Save deals for doing so.

The Subscribe & Save program can be an excellent way for Amazon sellers to drive consistent repeat purchases, encourage customer loyalty, and grow their business on Amazon. Enrolling a product in Subscribe & Save drives an average of 20% incremental revenue growth for that ASIN.

If you sell eligible products on Amazon and use Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA subscribe), it’s well worth understanding how Amazon’s Subscribe & Save program works and its benefits.

What is Amazon Subscribe & Save?

Amazon Subscribe & Save is a program that lets Amazon Prime members and all customers subscribe to recurring deliveries, from monthly to every 6 months, on thousands of eligible Subscribe & Save items. Shoppers get the convenience of automatic, regular delivery of essential products they use often, along with Subscribe & Save deals and discounts.

When customers have active subscriptions for 5 or more Subscribe & Save products arriving in the same delivery, they unlock a 15% discount on all their subscribed items. That’s on top of the 5–10% discount Amazon offers on each individual Subscribe & Save product. Amazon also frequently runs promotions offering coupons and extra discounts on the first Subscribe & Save order of select items.

The Subscribe & Save program helps turn one-time buyers into loyal, repeat customers for Amazon sellers. The deals and convenience motivate shoppers to keep their subscriptions active, driving consistent revenue for your Amazon business.

How the Subscribe & Save Program Works for Amazon Sellers

Here’s a quick overview of how Amazon’s Subscribe & Save program works from an Amazon seller perspective:

Eligibility: To participate, you must agree to the Subscribe & Save user agreement, have an FBA subscribe account in good standing, and meet certain performance requirements related to order defect rate, cancellation rate, and more. As of December 2019, new Subscribe & Save product enrollment is limited to brand owners.

Product enrollment: If your items meet the Subscribe & Save eligibility requirements, Amazon may choose to enroll them in the program, but it is not obligated to do so. You or Amazon can cancel a product’s enrollment at any time. Eligible, replenishable FBA subscribe items are often automatically enrolled.

Discounts: As an Amazon seller, you agree to fund an additional Subscribe & Save discount on top of what Amazon provides. Currently, sellers fund 5% off, and Amazon gives subscribers another 5% off for a 10% discount on subscriptions of 4 or fewer Subscribe & Save products. On 5 or more subscriptions arriving in the same Subscribe & Save order, Amazon kicks in an extra 5% savings for a total 15% discount.

Fulfillment: All Subscribe & Save orders for your products must be fulfilled through FBA subscribe. Participating in the Subscribe & Save program does not guarantee receiving subscription orders, as Amazon may allocate them to other sellers.

Inventory & performance: To meet customer expectations, your Subscribe & Save offers may be paused if you run out of inventory or have performance issues. It’s crucial to maintain healthy stock levels and strong Amazon seller metrics. Use the Subscribe & Save forecasting report in your Seller Central account to plan inventory and avoid missing Subscribe & Save order deliveries.

Cancellations & Subscription Settings: Customers can adjust their subscription settings or cancel anytime. If your offer becomes unavailable for 14+ days, Amazon will automatically attempt to transfer the subscriptions to another seller with an identical Subscribe & Save offer.

Amazon Subscribe & Save Benefits for Sellers

Increase repeat sales: Subscribe & Save turns one-time Amazon shoppers into repeat customers, driving consistent revenue as people keep their subscriptions active to save time and access Subscribe & Save deals.

Build customer loyalty: The Subscribe & Save program creates a recurring, positive experience with your products that encourages long-term loyalty and higher lifetime value per Amazon customer.

Gain incremental revenue: Many Subscribe & Save customers purchase items they would not have bought as frequently, leading to incremental sales and revenue.

Improve search rankings: Increased sales velocity from Subscribe & Save orders can help boost your products’ search rankings and organic visibility on Amazon. Consider using Amazon Advertising, such as Sponsored Product ads, to drive more traffic to your Subscribe & Save listings.

Cross-sell and up-sell: The Subscribe & Save storefront exposes shoppers to related items they can add to their subscriptions, providing cross-sell opportunities. You can also up-sell customers to larger pack sizes that offer better unit economics with the Subscribe & Save discount.

Amazon Seller Success Stories

Here’s what Amazon sellers are saying about their success with the Subscribe & Save program:

“It’s really just a no-brainer. You’ll get more sales. You’ll get repeat customers.” — Schwartz Bioresearch, Health & Household category.

After joining Subscribe & Save, Schwartz Bioresearch saw repeat customers jump from 10% to 30%. “The strongest benefit is customer loyalty. We get repeat customers with minimal investment.”

“It’s business you can count on.” — Puracy, Health & Household category

Subscribe & Save grew to 20% of Puracy’s Amazon sales in one year. The company says the program lowered acquisition costs, provided predictable revenue, and expanded brand reach.

“It’s really convenient for consumers.” — Vital Proteins, Health & Household category

Vital Proteins loves how Subscribe & Save benefits their Amazon customers.

“People are increasingly busy. Subscribe & Save is convenient, and they don’t have to remember to reorder.”

Tips to Maximize Your Subscribe & Save Sales

Choose the right products: Focus on items Amazon shoppers buy regularly that are a good fit for subscriptions — consumables, household essentials, pet supplies, office products, personal care, etc.

Promote your offers: Advertise your Subscribe & Save deals on and off Amazon. On Amazon, run Sponsored Product ads and coupons targeted to your offers. Outside Amazon, use email, social media, and other channels to highlight the value of Subscribe & Save.

Constantly monitor performance: Use the Subscribe & Save sales and forecast reports in Seller Central to track key metrics like subscription sales, inventory levels, etc. Regularly audit your Amazon account health to avoid disruptions to Subscribe & Save offers.

Manage your inventory wisely: Accurately forecast demand and maintain sufficient FBA inventory to cover your projected subscription orders and regular deliveries. To inform your planning, the Subscribe & Save forecast report shows estimated sales for the next 8 weeks.

Be a Data-Driven Subscribe & Save Seller

To optimize Subscribe & Save performance, tracking key sales and inventory KPIs is critical. There are two primary reporting datasets to fuel program insights;

Subscribe & Save Performance Report: This report tracks the performance of various products enrolled in the Subscribe & Save program. Key metrics include units shipped, out-of-stock rates, sale prices, and discounts over multiple weeks. Understanding these metrics helps businesses monitor the effectiveness of their Subscribe & Save offerings, ensuring that products are always in stock and priced competitively.
Subscribe & Save Forecasting Report: This report forecasts the number of units scheduled for shipment in the coming weeks for products in the Subscribe & Save program. It includes data on active subscriptions and scheduled units over eight weeks. Accurate forecasting allows for better inventory planning and ensures customer demand is met without overstocking.

Both reports are crucial for effectively managing the Subscribe & Save program, driving customer satisfaction through reliable deliveries, and optimizing inventory and promotional strategies to foster growth.

You can access this data manually in the Subscribe & Save reports in your Seller Central account:

Log into Seller Central
Go to Reports > Fulfillment > Subscribe & Save
Download the Sales Diagnostics report for detailed subscription sales and units by SKU and period
Get the Forecast report to see estimated upcoming subscription sales for the next 2 months

However, manually downloading Subscribe & Save reports is tedious, especially if you need to analyze the data alongside metrics from your other sales channels frequently. Manual exports are also prone to errors when merging data.

Automating your Subscribe & Save data feeds

Automation allows for fast, centralized access and saves hours versus manual reporting. With Openbridge, you can automatically pull Subscribe & Save sales and forecast data into a cloud data warehouse like Redshift, Snowflake, BigQuery, or Azure to combine with your other datasets.

A data warehouse gives you a reliable source of truth to power holistic analytics without manual data wrangling. Openbridge has plug-and-play data connectors to sync Subscribe & Save data to leading cloud data warehouses.

With unified Subscribe & Save metrics in your data warehouse, you can make smarter decisions to optimize your strategy and performance. Openbridge makes it simple to feed this data into BI tools like Tableau, Data Studio, or Power BI for powerful reporting.

Getting Started with Subscribe & Save Data-Driven Insights

Ready to streamline your Subscribe & Save reporting? Automated data feeds provide the insights to improve your Subscribe & Save performance. Leverage the data to increase retention, optimize inventory, and grow your Amazon sales.

Openbridge seamlessly delivers Subscribe & Save data to your cloud data warehouse or data lake, creating an analytics-ready single source of truth to guide decisions that maximize your subscription sales. Easily connect the data to your BI tools to spot trends and opportunities.

Openridge supports a broad collection of feeds for data-driven Amazon analytics. If you are an Amazon Seller or Amazon Vendor, Amazon Advertising offers a collection of data feeds to assist with broader store insight efforts:

In addition to Amazon Ads data, there is a broad collection of retail information available to assist with your analysis efforts:

Start today — it’s easy.

Everything you need to quickly unify your data, streamline processes, and supercharge insights that deliver data-driven growth. Take control and own your data with code-free automation to Amazon API data.

> Sign up for a 30-day free trial for direct, code-free access to Amazon Subscribe and Save Insights Data.

Breaking Barriers: Amazon Subscribe & Save For Breakthrough Growth was originally published in Openbridge on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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