How can you sell your products online with recurring billing? The answer is not always so simple, especially if your recurring billing / subscription billing requires any sort of customization.
What are the foundation pieces you need to sell recurring subscription billing products or services? The answer is simple:
- a website
- a billing system that will allow customers to purchase subscription products and have their billing info. stored and charged on a frequency basis
…but the solution is not always so straight forward.
A Website
You may already have a website which is good. You may also have an online store which is good as well to sell one time purchase products. Now, depending on the type of customer experience you would like, you must integrate or connect with a recurring billing solution.
Connecting Recurring Billing to your Website
This is where things can get tricky. Depending on your website solution and online store solution, the answer to how to proceed will vary. Typically, you will have 2 options:
- Integrate a 3rd party recurring billing solution directly into your website with embed code or custom programming (most professional)
- Just link from your website to the 3rd party recurring billing solution so customers are brought to the 3rd party site to pay (not the most professional)
Customer / User Experience
This is the most important part of creating a recurring billing membership solution, customer’s must be able to easily make payment, update payment information on file, and perhaps even upgrade or downgrade an existing or multiple subscriptions on file.
- Integrating recurring billing into your website directly is the most seamless solution and typically best user experience
- Ability for customer to update their billing info. on file is a must for when billing info. on file expires or a new card is issued for example
- Ability for customer to upgrade or downgrade their subscription package is a huge value but requires custom programming
- Ability for customer to apply a coupon to receive a discount on the first or all recurring payments
- Ability for website to calculate custom package pricing for the customer’s recurring billing subscription is an option with custom programming
Earth Skater specializes in custom eCommerce recurring billing and subscription payments with complimentary website setup and transfer. We’ve helped hundreds of merchants make an easy transition into the world of websites and selling online with our online store platform.