How to increase sales with a sub -school? Introducing examples of EC stores that operate Subsque EC

Many companies have adopted Shopify to operate their e-commerce sites and subscription businesses. By implementing Shopify, what kinds of features can businesses take advantage of? In this article, we’ll introduce case studies of e-commerce sites running subscriptions with Shopify.

We’ll also explain key points for boosting sales through subscription businesses. If you’re considering starting a subscription business on your e-commerce site or are struggling with sales, be sure to check it out for reference.

Shopify, the world’s largest e-commerce platform, is operated by a company based in Canada and launched in Japan in 2017. It is used in countries around the world, including Japan, and is said to have over 2 million stores globally.

Here, let’s briefly go over an overview of Shopify.

As of May 2024, there are 34,046 Shopify stores operating in Japan.

In Japan, the most common category of Shopify stores is apparel. This is followed by food and beverage products, and then home and garden products.

Additionally, the majority of Shopify stores operate in conjunction with social media. Instagram, Facebook, and X are among the most commonly used platforms.

We also introduce ways to effectively use social media!

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The basic plan for individual entrepreneurs is 4,850 yen per month, while the recommended Standard plan for small teams is 13,500 yen per month. Shopify offers over 100 templates and more than 8,000 apps, allowing you to expand your store’s functionality to suit your needs.

With high customizability and access to a wide range of convenient features, Shopify is considered a high cost-performance e-commerce platform.

Some people are considering sub-businesses with an eye on cross-border e-commerce when running their online stores.

Shopify supports multiple currencies and languages, making it easy to sell overseas from Japan. It also accommodates various electronic payment methods such as PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay, which is a major benefit when it comes to checkout.

Our company also provides information about Shopify Markets features for cross-border e-commerce.

Please check it out as well!

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What is Shopify Markets? Introducing the best features for cross-border e-commerce!

In Japan, there are many stores that have adopted Shopify and operate subscription boxes. Many Shopify stores run subscription boxes alongside their regular online sales.

We will introduce the types of subscription boxes each Shopify store operates, as well as the features of their sites and the products offered through regular subscriptions.

Orion Beer, based in Okinawa, offers a fully membership-based subscription service. There are three types: premium course, Okinawa craft course, and Chu-Hi & beer course.

With the subscription service, members can enjoy priority access to new and limited-edition products, as well as receive exclusive special offers. Another appealing feature is that the lineup of products delivered changes every month.

With the launch of our subscription service, Orion Beer's revenue base has been strengthened.

As a result of building our e-commerce site with Shopify, we were able to significantly increase our product lineup, which was previously quite limited. In addition to beer, Orion Beer now also focuses on selling Okinawan specialty products, original goods, and gift items.

Nikuya Daishi has been supplying high-quality meat to over 600 restaurants for 54 years since its founding. Triggered by the spread of the new coronavirus, the company has expanded beyond being a meat wholesaler and started offering products directly to general consumers.

At Nikuya Oishi, we offer two types of regular meal plans: the standard plan and the low-fat plan. Each month, 6 to 7 carefully selected meats—pork, beef, and chicken—are delivered right to your door. Our regular meal plans have even been featured on TV in the past. The reason for their popularity is that you can enjoy ingredients chosen by meat experts at reasonable monthly prices.

Soup Stock Tokyo mainly operates as a specialty soup shop with locations centered around the Tokyo metropolitan area, offering soups, curries, and similar products as their main menu items.

On the Soup Stock Tokyo online shop, they also run a subscription service. Currently, there are three types of subscription plans available, each featuring a monthly menu tailored to the season, so you can enjoy a different lineup every month.

Kinniku Shokudo is an e-commerce site specializing in muscle-building meals, selling frozen home-delivered bento boxes. To support customers in maintaining consistent dietary management and improving convenience, they operate a subscription service called Kinniku Shokudo DELI. The subscription plan offers three courses: Every Day Course, Diet Course, and Bulk Up Course.

The Kinniku Shokudo subscription provides benefits for regular users, such as member-exclusive products, menus available only to subscribers, and discounts for ongoing purchases. This encourages customers to use the service continuously, making it more rewarding. As a result, customer retention rates appear to have increased.

HACARI is a greengrocer specializing in direct-from-the-farm bulk vegetable sales. In addition to regular online sales, we also operate a subscription EC service on our Shopify store.

With our "Saikuru" subscription service, you can receive around 10 types of fresh vegetables and fruits delivered straight from farms across Japan. You can choose from three different box sizes and select your preferred delivery frequency—monthly, bi-weekly, or weekly—making it easy to find an option that fits your lifestyle. This flexibility is a key feature of our service. Subscription sales account for a significant portion of HACARI's overall revenue.

Go Go Curry is a Kanazawa-style curry chain, and its EC site features a subscription service for regular Go Go Curry deliveries. Customers can choose to receive deliveries once every one, two, or three months, and some plans include topping tickets that can be used in-store. These features are designed to encourage continued use by customers.

A large portion of EC site sales comes from subscription boxes, and by implementing measures such as discounts and special offers that can be used on first-time orders, we are able to increase customer satisfaction.

KURAND is an EC site that sells a wide variety of alcoholic beverages, including Japanese sake, wine, and craft beer. Through their fully membership-based service, KURAND CLUB, they offer a subscription box for Japanese sake that can be purchased on a regular basis.

KURAND CLUB membership perks include exclusive access to limited-edition products and a 10% discount that can be used on the EC site. The share of subscription purchases has a significant impact on the overall sales of the site.

At AuB STORE, we offer health foods and supplements that help maintain a healthy gut environment. We provide subscription services for many of our products, and considering the effectiveness of our health foods and supplements, the regular delivery subscription service helps raise our customers’ health awareness.

Because we offer products that show their benefits with long-term use, it’s characteristic that sales from subscriptions account for more than half of our total revenue.

To grow sales and maintain stable profits with subscription business on your e-commerce site, you’ll need to implement the following strategies:

Acquiring new customers is essential for the success of a subscription business. To attract new customers who will use the service for a long time, it's important to enhance the content of your products and services and to offer things like free trial periods.

You need to understand your customers' needs, create and provide content that satisfies them regarding your products and services. Even after acquiring new customers, it's crucial to continue focusing on customer retention.

Customer loyalty refers to the degree to which customers feel trust and affection toward your products and services. To increase customer loyalty, it is important to understand how customers evaluate your offerings and how much they trust and love your products and services.

It’s important to provide courteous customer service through methods like phone calls and emails, and to continually address and correct any areas needing improvement. Some companies have even implemented their own evaluation standards to understand current issues and areas for improvement.

If you can make improvements to enhance the quality of your service, it will likely lead to higher customer loyalty.

The cancellation rate refers to the percentage of people who cancel or the proportion of revenue lost due to cancellations within a certain period. With subscription services, once a customer signs up, they will continue to purchase the product or service until they cancel. Because of this, the longer you can keep customers subscribed without cancellation, the more directly it contributes to your sales. The lower the cancellation rate, the higher your profit margin will be.

The reasons customers cancel their EC site subscriptions include things like “there are too many or too few products,” “I want deliveries to be more frequent, or less frequent,” and “I want to be able to change the lineup of products each month.” In many cases, cancellations are due to a mismatch with the customer’s lifestyle.

To lower the cancellation rate, it’s important to improve the factors that lead to cancellations.

For monthly subscription services, the retention rate refers to the percentage of new customers who continue their contracts for two months or more. While acquiring new customers is important for subscription services, it’s also crucial to increase the retention rate of existing customers, or it will be difficult to secure stable revenue.

Methods to increase retention rates include sending personalized emails or DMs based on past purchase or browsing history, or including pamphlets designed to boost customer retention with products and sets in the same package.

Other effective strategies include offering special deals to customers who have maintained long-term contracts, or setting up surveys to find out why customers are canceling.

Our company highly recommends Klaviyo, a marketing automation tool with excellent compatibility with Shopify.
We also provide guidance on setting up email marketing in Klaviyo, so please be sure to check it out!

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Referral marketing is a method of acquiring service contracts or purchases through word-of-mouth recommendations or introductions from family members and acquaintances. For customers, being introduced by family or friends who actually use the service gives them peace of mind and makes them more likely to sign up or make a purchase.

Referral marketing also provides incentives to the referrer, which helps maintain relationships with existing customers.

Go Sub is an app that allows you to operate a subscription business in Japanese. In order to increase sales through subscriptions, your EC site must be easy for customers to use.

Go Sub includes features such as the skip function and cancellation survey described below.

From the customer account settings, you can choose whether or not to display the option to skip the order cycle on the subscription status page. If enabled, customers will be able to skip their next order cycle.

There is also a feature to display a cancellation survey when a customer cancels, allowing you to understand their reasons for canceling the subscription. The cancellation survey supports not only checkbox format but also free-text responses. This feature can help you consider measures to prevent cancellations.

To increase sales through subscription business on your e-commerce site, it's crucial to enhance your content and improve customer loyalty. In order to boost customer retention rates, you must implement measures to reduce cancellation rates.

If you're starting a subscription business, we recommend implementing Go Sub, which can be installed on Shopify. It supports both Japanese and English, and you can use it with no monthly fees.

[About GoSub]

Click here to learn more about GoSub.

GoSub Help Page is here.

Click here to install GoSub.

We regularly publish articles on GoSub’s new features and usage tips!

See the list of GoSub-related articles here.