Step 2 — Adding Subscription Offers To Products

The following article will guide you through adding subscription offers to your products using sticky.io Subscriptions for BigCommerce!

Zakk Sykes avatar
Written by Zakk Sykes
Updated over a week ago

Now that we've created your first billing model using sticky.io Subscriptions for BigCommerce, the next step is appending your billing models to your products!

Similar to deploying billing models, appending them to products can be done in just a few clicks.

Without further ado, let's begin!

In a hurry? Watch our Onboarding & Training Specialist guide you through appending your Billing Frequencies to your products. As well as review alterations that can be made to how they're presented on your Product Display Page in just 4:34.


Navigation to Subscription Products

To begin, from your storefront navigate over to Apps > My Apps > sticky.io > Subscription Products.


Here, merchants can get a direct view of all of their goods and services.


Appending Billing Frequencies to Products

It is important to note that appending billing frequencies to products can be done per product or in batches.


Appending Billing Frequencies Per Product

Once on the Subscription Products tab, navigate to the product that you would like to append a billing frequency to, then click Manage under the Actions column.


Appending Billing Frequencies In Batches

Once on the Subscription Products tab, navigate to Show All and change to Show Non-Recurring Products.

Then, under Create Subscription Frequencies > Checkbox to select your desired products > Manage Products.


Understanding the Manage Product User Interface

Now that we have our product or products selected and ready to append billing frequencies, let's take a moment to understand user interface elements.

  • One Time Purchase: Checking this box will make your selected product(s) available as a one-time purchase.

  • Subscription Type: A combination of your products and billing models. Today, the sticky.io Subscriptions app for BigCommerce supports the Standard and Prepaid styles of offers.

    • Standard subscription types are recurring in nature and each billing event will correspond with a shipment or delivery of a product. An example standard offer is depicted below with a billing frequency of every 30 days with a savings of 5% over the standard product price.

    • Prepaid subscriptions have a single billing event associated with multiple upcoming orders. An example prepaid offer is depicted below with a monthly shipment frequency and three total shipments across the lifespan of the subscription.

    • Prepaid subscriptions can be configured as "auto-renew" or non-renewable. The above subscription is not configured as "auto-renew" and as such, will self-terminate at the end of the specified number of shipments. In this case, the user will receive 3 shipments, spaced monthly and then the subscription will terminate.

      • It is important to note that prepaid subscriptions are not currently compatible with Memberships.

  • Subscription Frequencies: The billing models or frequencies at which you intend to bill your consumers. If you missed it, we covered Subscription Frequencies in Step 1, click or tap here.

  • Display Type: How the subscription widget will display on the Product Display Page. Available options include Dropdown, Rectangle List or Radio Buttons.

  • Subscription Name: The label for the selectable group of subscription frequencies or offers on the Product Display Page. This will show above the Dropdown, Rectangle List or Radio Buttons by default.

  • Offer Name: Standard or prepaid offer names will be displayed on the Product Display Page as the selectable option for consumers. For example, configuring your standard offer name as "Monthly" with a billing frequency of "Every 30 days" would show to consumers as "Monthly" on the Product Display Page.


    Configuring Subscriptions On Selected Product(s)

    To configure subscriptions on a given product, enter a Subscription Name, select a Display Type and then specify your desired Subscription Type(s).

    Then, configure your subscription offers as desired using the on-screen fields.

    It is important to note: Products can support more than one subscription frequency. As such, we could, for example, offer a product as a Monthly Subscription or Annual Subscription.

    To add multiple standard offers to a given product, simply click Add Standard Offer and configure your details as desired.

    The above subscription offer has been configured as an annual subscription with a 10% applied discount.

    We can also offer standard and prepaid subscriptions for the same product. To do so, simply click Standard and Prepaid within the Subscription Type dropdown, ensuring both options are checked. Thereafter, configure your offer details, including offer name, shipment or billing frequency, discount and number of shipments.


Adjusting Product Price Per Billing Frequency

After selecting your Subscription Frequencies, a new table will appear below. This enables merchants to adjust price points respective to the billing frequency as an incentive to increase continuity conversions.

  • Add: Add a dollar or percentage amount to the product price. Increasing the product price of the base product for a straight sale option can be a huge incentive to customers to make the leap to one of your continuity models and in turn, likely saving some money in the long run.

  • Remove: Remove a dollar or percentage amount to the product price. In our example, we're removing $3.50 from the $15.00 product price equating to $11.50.

    This is often referred to as 'Subscribe & Save' among the industry and can be a huge incentive to driving continuity with your goods and services.


Once you're satisfied with your selections and configured subscriptions for a given product, click Save Changes. If successful, you'll be presented with: Product subscriptions saved successfully screen.



Adding Subscription Frequencies in Bulk

The sticky.io Subscriptions application also allows for bulk uploads of subscription frequencies.

Please note that uploading subscriptions to products with existing subscription frequencies will overwrite those frequencies and may cause existing subscription chains to encounter billing failures.

To begin, you'll need a CSV file containing the relevant product IDs for the products you would like to append subscriptions to. Only one column of information is necessary and that should be column A which contains all pertinent product IDs.

Once your CSV file is prepared, navigate to the Products tab of the sticky.io Subscriptions application and click into Bulk Subscription Assignment.

Click Start New to begin a new upload.

This will bring you to the Bulk Subscription Product Assignment view. Here, you'll build the subscription frequencies you want to add to your existing products and then upload your CSV file to assign those frequencies to the uploaded product IDs.

Add a name for your subscription offering. This will appear on the product display as the header for your available subscription options.

Choose a display type for your bulk subscription products. Available options include dropdown, rectangle list and radio buttons.

Choose a subscription type. Available options include standard (billing and shipping events are coupled) and prepaid (billing occurs upfront, and shipping occurs thereafter).

Both options can be selected simultaneously if desired. To do so, simply ensure both options are checked.

For this example, we will choose standard only.

Toggle One Time Purchase on or off according to your preferences. Leaving this untoggled will ensure products are only purchasable as a subscription.

Add a name for your offer using the corresponding text field. This will appear on the product display page as the selectable option for your customers.

Select a billing frequency for your offer using the corresponding dropdown. This will determine the frequency with which products are shipped

If desired, add a discount to the offer by selecting a discount type within the dropdown (flat $ or percentage) and entering a discount amount into the corresponding field.

Add additional offers by clicking the Add Standard Offer button and filling out the requested information as above.

If configuring a Membership subscription, toggle the Membership box to checked. For more information on Membership subscriptions, please reference this article.

Once satisfied with your selections, upload your CSV file by dragging and dropping or choosing the file for upload.

At this phase, it is crucial that you confirm your selections are accurate! Selected frequencies cannot be edited once processed.

If all information is confirmed as accurate, click Process.

A success message will confirm that the CSV and offers have been accepted for processing.

Click OK to advance. You will be able to monitor the progress of your upload as it is processed.

Once processing is completed, you will receive a confirmation email describing the status of your upload. A sample email is depicted below.

If product IDs are improperly entered into the CSV file, you may see this reflected in your confirmation email. Below, we can see a snippet from a sample email where 29 products were unable to have subscription frequencies associated with them.

With each confirmation email, you'll receive a report that showcases the status of each individual product ID. If we were unable to add subscription frequencies to a given product, you will see that reflected in the report.


Congratulations, you're officially an expert on adding billing models to your products using sticky.io Subscriptions for BigCommerce!

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