Digital commerce has certainly played a role in elevating competition beyond everyday transactions.

Along with subscription boxes, membership models and delivery passes, item-level subscriptions, and even the lock-in effects of devices like the Echo, are eroding traffic and baskets in brick-and-mortar retail.

I agree with the guidance to retailers above. Traditional loyalty programs are losing relevance compared to the convenience and comparatively greater value of membership, auto-replenishment and easy re-ordering programs.

For select categories (high frequency items, heavy items, etc.) subscription makes sense. Now is the time for retailers to try to claim their benefit from subscriptions or manufacturers will beat them to it.

“Should all retailers offer subscription services?” Why not? This is another way for smaller retailers to punch above their weight against the big ones. And I don’t think this has significantly impacted in-store traffic by any means. It will be a while before that happens.

This is a tiny part of the shopping universe. It depends on a regularity of usage that many of us do not achieve, as well as systems for delivering items correctly (Walgreens take note: your system is particularly plagued by this and CVS is not far ahead of mediocre fulfillment on prescriptions). It doesn’t take many misses or substitutions (like feeding my dog hamburger occasionally) to throw the timing off. Retailers have better things to do.

There is no doubt that more customers are using subscription services because of the convenience. More retailers would be wise to offer this service to their customers. However, brick-and-mortar retailers have other opportunities they need to take advantage of because many items still need to be seen, touched and felt before purchase.

Retailers need to decide who they wish to be, what their strengths are and what appeal they have to customers. They can’t be everything to everyone and need to find their niche and focus on that. Moreover retailers need to look at their customer as one group and not the online customer vs. the in-store customer.

It’s the experience that matters. When the customer wants to shop online they will and if they need to come into the store they will. The focus has to be on giving them an outstanding customer experience no matter where they shop. When that happens they remain loyal, and that’s how to compete with other retailers.

Whether or not they are a drag on store traffic today, subscription services will become a significant drag or specific segments of the retail industry. Specific product categories, such as pet food and personal care products, are natural fits for subscription. This is especially true of established brands where the consumer already knows what they’re getting. The service can be enhanced by allowing the consumer to adjust the frequency by product, depending on personal experience and/or by the retailer’s use of predictive analysis to determine the optimal replenishment frequency for each consumer.

I sure like Jackie Breen’s equation. Every retailer, especially the CEOs, should hang it on their wall: “Regardless of the channel being shopped: convenience + happy customers = increased sales.”

There used to be a subscription model, way back when. Remember the milkman?

The real answer of course is, why not? For those out there who have their life together this makes huge sense. I wish I had my life together.

There’s a subscription service now for sneakers. I don’t get it and doubt, outside of a small core, that it is very useful to many consumers. I don’t see how jewelry stores could do a subscription either. Like most have noted, for high volume consumables it can make sense. While dogs won’t protest the same food week after week — outside of commodities like toilet paper and razors, how many consumers want the exact same thing every month?

Subscriptions have already had an impact on store traffic, especially for grocery and household goods. Admittedly the magnitude is currently small, but it is noticeable and is also increasing. Our research shows that visits to the center of grocery stores — and in particular aisles like laundry detergent, pet food, household cleaning and paper products — have dropped. One of the reasons for this is the rise of subscription services. This has enormous implications for in-store brand marketing, space requirements, layouts and configurations, and the ways in which shops can elevate other areas of the proposition.

Subscription services are the Holy Grail for any retailer who is evolving into an increasingly digital-first footprint. Any positive interaction with a retail brand, regardless of which channel it originates or ends with, is a net benefit for the retailers. Therefore the majority of retailers should pursue opportunities to have a subscription model in place whenever possible.

The products best offered via a subscription model will not be the fashion-forward, trendy items, but could most likely be commoditized, repeatedly used items, which would help remove friction and an extra few trips to the store.

If executed properly, a subscription model can evolve into an exclusive, “members only” offering and an enhancement of a retailer’s loyalty program. There are a multitude of ways this could work, and it may take some experimentation to get it right. All-in-all, if anything this would increase the engagement with the retailer and lead to additional store traffic.

“Future retail success is not a selling model, but a mosaic of customer services.”

Above from the IMS article link listed prior to the discussion question … I agree with this and retailers should be taking a close look their “art of the possible” around a subscription model to help them deliver that present and future-forward “mosaic of customer services,” etc.

Challenge: Not all retailers are positioned to even do a good—never mind a great—job executing a subscription model. But, if a given retail brand can 1) differentiate a subscription value proposition; 2) meet (preferably exceed) the expectations of their member base in terms of executing the delivery of a subscription model, that is a nice way—for starters—to recognize and stay in touch with your most-valuable customers.

What does “Great job” mean? Well the bar is high in terms of offering the “robust” value and execution management of Amazon Prime (originally modeled on Costco’s membership (subscription) model where customer satisfaction in quite high and renewal rates run in the mid 90%).

The subscription model can be powerfully successful and should be considered by every retailer (actually every business). Any time you can automate a service that is beneficial to the customer (and the retailer), you have the opportunity to create a steady revenue source with possible customer loyalty. It needs to be convenient, simple and bring value to the customer.

Just in the past few years online retail subscriptions companies are popping up with more frequency. The traditional retailer can’t sit on the sidelines and watch this. They must decide if it is right to get into this model, and if so, do it. The retailer must not only balance their in-store offerings with online offerings, they must now consider getting into another version of online, which is the subscription model. The best retailers will find the balance between these models, bringing the best of each to their customers.

There are number of issues hinted at in this set of questions about subscription services. One being brand erosion — for high frequency consumable goods, many consumers do not care about the brand, they only care about the category. At the same time, there are highly consumable items where brand loyalty is everything to the consumer. Both of these in my mind are great candidates for subscription services where the shopper knows what they want and the subscription box isn’t about discovery of new items. Retailers selling merchandise in these categories should offer subscription services. It will be the new version of loyalty programs for many consumers.

Other categories (jewelry, electronics) don’t lend themselves to this purchasing model so they don’t make sense for those retailers. I also see this as something smaller retailers should be able to exploit better than Amazon or Walmart to help retain their customers. They should be able to offer a better level of personalization. This may even give these smaller retailers a better competitive leg to stand on!