Subscription Ecommerce: Revenue Soars - 4,461% Growth in 5 Years

Don’t even say it out loud:

Subscription boxes are not dead.

Heralded as the newest, greatest ecommerce strategy beginning around 2010, subscription box services like BirchBox, Trunk Club and Dollar Shave Club have not only made headlines – they’ve made billions.

In 2011, subscription brands made an estimated $57,000,000. In 2016, that revenue jumped to $2.6 billion – a 4,461% increase.

Even Amazon is in on the game (of course).

In fact, Amazon’s Subscribe and Save subscription service is the most used subscription service in the world, according to a McKinsey study.

Here’s a quick overview of the most popular services men and women subscribe to.

And while the most popular subscription sites above are focused almost exclusively on membership and subscription services, know this:

You don’t have to focus exclusively on subscriptions to make subscription ecommerce a profitable, predictable revenue driver.

In this post, we’ll look at the data available to help you determine:

• If a subscription service will work for your target customers (i.e. do they care?)
• The various types of subscription services (and if your business model currently fits)
• The right subscription ecommerce model for your products and what to expect (i.e. churn!)

We’ll also look at 20 example of subscription ecommerce services across multiple verticals including:

• Food & Beverage (the fastest growing subscription service vertical)
• Health & Beauty
• Fanatic (Niche segments, sports fans, etc.)
• Miscellaneous (gifts, crickets and other off the wall boxes you can send)
• B2B subscription ecommerce

Let’s dive in.

What is a Subscription Website?

A subscription website is a site that collects a recurring payment from customers in exchange for recurring product replenishment or on-going service.

Most popular subscription websites:

1. Arbor Teas.
2. NBA Thunder Shop.
3. Atkins.
4. New Chapter.
5. Fresh Fronks.
6. Spinning.com.
7. Sincerely Nuts.
8. NuSocks.
9. Fine Taste Club.
10. Beer Cartel.
11. Hawaii Coffee Company.
12. Marquis Wine Club.
13. Babeths Feast.
14. Invader Coffee.
15. Give Black Box.
16. Flucker Farms.
17. Lexli.
18. Savor Beauty.
19. Nutragen.
20. Enertion Boards.