With four million customers and operations in six countries, Birchbox has been at the forefront of innovation in the beauty sector.
Though it might be less well-known, Turkey’s leading ecommerce site Trendyol has been similarly innovative in understanding the fashion needs of consumers.
We’ve got some cracking stats for you this week, including news about Amazon’s marketing budget, Olympic advertising, AI funding and so much more.
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It was International Women’s Day this week, so you probably think I’m going to take an inspiring quote from a woman and replace part of it with ‘the weekly Econsultancy digital marketing stats round-up’ because that’s basically the only joke I’ve got.
In my right hand I have a mug of Brazilian coffee (Fruit and Nut Espresso).
The coffee was delivered through my letter box yesterday, courtesy of Pact Coffee, one of many coffee subscription services.
However, Pact doesn’t like to think of itself as a subscription service. Its founder, Stephen Rapoport, believes many subscription services work for the business but not for the customer.
So, if the model is often abused, just what makes a good subscription service?
For years people have subscribed to newspapers and magazines, but now consumers can subscribe to receive a wide range of basic products, from fashion to fresh vegetables.
As consumer buying habits are trending towards simpler, hassle-free shopping experiences, companies like Pact Coffee, Graze and Glossybox are invading the subscription space and seeing incredible growth.
While subscription selling may not be a new model of retail, it has the potential to up-end traditional shopping patterns.
Just this month, music streaming subscription services like Spotify were included in the UK basket of goods and services used to calculate inflation.
We’ve seen quite a few ecommerce sites built around subscription models in the past few years.
Netflix and LoveFilm are the obvious examples, while MyGlassesClub and PeriodBox are two we’ve covered recently. Kopi and Graze have also become well established.
So what are the advanatages and disadvantages of this business model?