A recurring subscription allows you to charge customers on a repeated schedule for products and services.

If you sell online with Lightspeed eCom, you can offer recurring subscriptions along with the standard one-time purchase to improve your customers' experience and grow revenue. The billing cycle for subscriptions can be set to daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, biannually, or annually. Customers can subscribe to food, daily products, cosmetics, access to membership, regular donations, and more.

You need to have Lightspeed Payments or Stripe to set up recurring subscriptions.

How recurring subscriptions work in eCom

To enable subscriptions in your store, you need to connect your online store to Lightspeed Payments or Stripe. Note that even though both Lightspeed Payments and Stripe offer Apple and Google Pay, your customers can't pay with Apple and Google Pay for subscriptions.

When you activated subscriptions for your online store, you then set a billing period for each product individually. The subscription period is displayed on the storefront. 

For each product that you sell as a subscription, you can also allow a one-time purchase. That means, shoppers can choose betweein a one-time purchase and subscribing to the product. If you allow a one-time purchase for an item, the subscription period will be displayed on the product page instead of the storefront.

Buyers can pay for their subscription with a debit or credit card. Once they subscribe to your product, they will be charged automatically. Shoppers can manage subscriptions in their customer account—cancel the subscription or change payment details. The subscription can't be paused. 

If a customer pays for the shipping, they will be charged for it every time during the subscription. For instance, a customer subscribes to a $10 shampoo that costs $5 to ship. In total, it’s $15. The next time they will be charged, it will be $15—exactly the same amount they paid the first time.

If you sell products with options and a customer subscribes for a particular one, e.g., a cookie box with mint flavor, they will be subscribed to that specific product variant. If a customer changes their mind, they have to cancel the current subscription and re-subscribe to another product variant, e.g., a cookie box with chocolate flavor.

You receive email every time a customer is charged for a subscription, in case of any charging issues, or when a subscription is cancelled. 

You can customize prices to make your subscriptions stand out:

1. Sign-up fee. Allows you to increase or decrease the price of the first subscription order. For example, you can set the price for the first subscription order for $10, and for every next subscription order for $15.
2. Free trial. If you set up the sign-up fee for $0, your customers won't be charged for the first order in subscriptions. That means you can offer a free trial for your clients.
3. Subscribe and save. If you offer a product for a one-time purchase, you can make its subscription price lower to entice customers into repeat orders. For example, a one-off price for coffee beans is $20, while the monthly subscription price is $15. You can also set different pricing for the product variants that you sell as subscriptions.

Changing the subscription price won’t affect existing customers, only new subscribers.

Subscription analytics is displayed in your eCom admin. To see subscription reports, in your POS, go to Online, scroll down and click to Go to eCom (E-Series), then on the Dashboard scroll down to Subscription performance.

Adding recurring subscriptions to your eCom store

To start selling subscriptions, you need to enable the subscription feature in your eCom and then edit products to add the subscription pricing.

Before you proceed with setup, make sure that your store meets the requirements:

• Connect Lightspeed Payments or Stripe as a payment method.

• Include rules for using recurring subscriptions in your store’s Terms & Conditions. For example, the refund policy, delivery details, etc.

  Make sure to include information about payment terms, non-refundable fees, restrictions on use, termination of subscriptions. You can read more about Terms & Conditions for subscription services in a TermsFeed blog post.

To add subscriptions to your eCom store:

1. From your POS, go to Online → Settings → General → Cart & Checkout.
2. Scroll down to the Subscriptions section and turn on the Allow subscriptions toggle.
3. From your POS, go to Online, scroll down and click to Go to eCom (E-Series) to open eCom admin.
4. In the eCom admin, go to Catalog → Products.
5. Select a product that you want to sell with recurring payments.
6. In the Pricing section in the product editing page, click Manage pricing options → Sell by subscription and turn on the toggle. Click Save.

7. In the Billing period dropdown menu, select how often you want to charge your customers for this product:

   

8. (optional) Tick the Allow purchase without subscription box, so your customers can choose between one-time purchase and subscription. Otherwise, they can only subscribe to a product.
9. (optional) Click Set up one-time purchase price and enter the one-off cost to make a one-time purchase more expensive than a subscription pricing. If the product has variants, you can set a different one-time purchase price for each variant.
10. (optional) Click Set up price with signup fee and enter the price for the first order on subscription. Enter "0" if you want to make the first order free of charge and offer a free trial.
11. Click Save.

That's it. Now your customers can subscribe to your products. With every new charge, your inventory level will be updated automatically. 

You can add options for the product to provide customers a choice. For example, meal kits can be offered with chicken or with shrimps. Note that if a customer chose a product with an option, they will be subscribed to that particular product variant. If a person changes their mind and decides they want to get a product with another flavor, color, etc., they will have to cancel the current subscription and re-subscribe.

Setting individual subscription pricing for product variants in eCom

When you sell products with variants as a subscription, you can set individual prices for each variant. Say, you sell poke lunches. You can set the $6 price for a large bowl and $5 for a small bowl.

The same way you can set individual pricing for each variant of a product that you sell both as a subscription and a one-time purchase. For example, meat and vegetarian poke bowls will cost different as a one-time purchase and as a subscription:

To set individual subscription pricing for product variant:

1. From your POS, go to Online, scroll down and click to Go to eCom (E-Series) to open eCom admin.
2. In eCom admin, go to Catalog → Products and choose a subscription product.
3. Click the Options tab, then click Variations.
4. Near a variant you want to change, click Manage.
5. In the Price field, enter the subscription price to assign an individual subscription price for the variant.
6. If the product is sold as a one-time purchase, you can set an individual price for the variant that is sold as a one-time purchase. In the One-time purchase price field, enter the price that is higher than the subscription price.
7. Click Ok.
8. Repeat for each product variant. Then click Save.

Managing subscriptions in eCom

To see all your subscriptions, from your POS, go to Online, scroll down and click to Go to eCom (E-Series) to open eCom admin. In the eCom admin, go to the My Sales → Subscriptions page. You will see all subscriptions your store ever had, including active, canceled, subscriptions with failed charges, and the ones that need to be confirmed.

To make it easier to find the subscription you are looking for, click Filter and select how you want subscriptions to be displayed. This can help you prioritize your order processing. For instance, you can click Filter → Next Charge Date and select Next 7 days. That way you will see what subscription products need to be prepared and shipped first.

You can also check all the orders that were made within one subscription. For instance, a customer subscribed to one cosmetic box once per month, one hair treatment box once per month, and one shaving set once per month. If you want to see all orders within a subscription, go to My Sales → Subscriptions in your eCom admin, find the subscription and click Orders created: 3 orders. You will see all orders that were made within the subscription.

While processing an order, you can change its status, edit order or print order on the My Sales → Orders page in your eCom admin.

Contacting customers

In case you need to specify the delivery address or clarify subscription details, you can contact your customer in person.

To find your customer’s email or phone, go to the My Sales → Subscriptions page in your eCom admin, find the subscription you have issues with, and look up the email of a customer to contact them.

If you want to send automated emails for a particular subscription, for example, an email with the instruction, you can do it with the help of Mailchimp. You need to connect Mailchimp to your eCom store and then create the email campaign for a certain product (subscription) in your store.

Editing automated emails for subscriptions in eCom

Customers that subscribed to your products will receive an email with order confirmation that contains a subscription summary. They will also receive automated emails if payment confirmation is required, if a charge has failed, or if the subscription is canceled. You can edit the email templates for these automated emails — change the appearance and texts. For instance, change font color to your brand’s colors, change the paragraph’s order, add image, and more.

To edit email templates for subscriptions:

1. From your POS, go to Online, scroll down and click to Go to eCom (E-Series) to open eCom admin.
2. From your eCom admin, go to Settings → Notifications.
3. Click Edit next to one of the templates you want to change — Subscription Canceled, Subscription Charged Failed, or Subscription Payment Confirmation is Required.
4. Make the changes.
   If you don’t like the result, click Revert to default at the bottom of the template to restore the default template.
5. Once you are satisfied with the result, click Save.

Canceling recurring subscriptions in eCom

A subscription can be canceled in three cases: 

1. You manually cancel a subscription
2. A customer cancels their subscription
3. A charge has failed—not enough money on a credit card or the card period has expired. The subscription will be canceled within 7 days if a customer doesn't add a valid card to their account.

To manually cancel a subscription:

1. From your POS, go to Online, scroll down and click to Go to eCom (E-Series) to open eCom admin.
2. From your eCom admin, go to My Sales → Subscriptions.
3. Select the subscription you want to cancel and click Actions → Cancel subscription.

After canceling the subscription, orders will no longer be placed automatically, and the customer won’t be charged any further.

Customer experience with subscriptions in eCom

Customers can subscribe to more than one product and manage their subscriptions in their customer account—cancel or change payment details.

Here’s how recurring subscriptions work for your customers:

1. Once in your store, customers will see what products you sell with recurring subscriptions. A price will be displayed along with a period of the subscription. For instance, $50 per week:

   

   Note that a period is displayed for items with subscription only. If an item has an option for a one-time purchase, a subscription period will be displayed on the product details.

2. If the product has two ways of payment, a customer can choose to buy only once or subscribe:

   

3. Once an order is placed, a new account for a customer will be created automatically in your store (if a person hasn't already created an account). A customer will receive an email with the subscription details and a link to log in to the customer account.

4. Customers can log in to their account and manage their subscriptions by changing card details, cancel subscriptions, check the delivery address. They will also see their payment details, payment history, and your store contacts:

   
    

   You can provide your customers with a direct link to the subscriptions page in their account (e.g., add such a link to your site's navigation). For example, if you have your online store on the https://www.mywebsite.com/store page of your website, customers can access their subscriptions by going to https://www.mywebsite.com/store/account/subscription .