SSCI report finds most subscription services struggle to acquire new customers

By

Obi Anyanwu

Published
May 22, 2017

Numerous fashion and beauty companies like Trunk Club, Birchbox and Five Four have exhibited how lucrative the subscription service model can be. With services like Five Four launching apparel and footwear collections and Nordstrom acquiring Trunk Club, the subscription service model looked to be without fault.
 

However, the newly released Subscription Commerce Conversion Index (SCCI) found that not even subscription services are immune to pitfalls. After analyzing 2,000 data points across 176 subscription commerce merchants in nine different categories, the SCCI, a collaborative effort between Pymnts.com and Recurly, found that 84% of subscription businesses struggle to find new customers.
 
Subscription box services have grown by 3,000% from 2013 to 2016, and traffic grew from 772,000 visits to subscription box service sites in January 2013 to 21.4 million by 2016. This statistic comes with friction from customers that prefer a smoother sign up or ordering process.

The SSCI scored every subscription service and found that only 28 websites out of 176 scored 70 points or more (the average SSCI scale is 57.1). The top performers excelled at providing product details and messaging services, requiring passwords, and offering free trial, easy cancellations, plan options and plan changes.
 
Business-to-business SAAS/Cloud Computing subscription services scored highest on the SCCI, education ranked third, followed by consumer goods and publishing and entertainment.