International Subscription Selling and Delivery—Overcoming the Common Challenges

Subscription services are an effective tool in the hands of businesses, but they also pose some delivery-related challenges. Customs complications, timely delivery, managing peak seasons and preserving reliability may generate difficulties, but if you manage to overcome them, you’ll gain a competitive advantage.

After all, subscription models are excellent for maintaining high customer loyalty. This, on the other hand, is critical currently, since customer acquisition costs have been skyrocketing for the past few years. How to solve these challenges and achieve excellence in subscription delivery? Find it out in this article.

Delivering International Subscriptions: The Challenges

Let’s begin with the common challenges that you’ll need to tackle. What are they and how can they impact your business?

• Customs—the main challenge with customs applies to bundle packages, where various products might fall under different regulations. This can generate issues and make customs clearance more challenging to navigate.

• Timely delivery—you also need to deliver your products at the agreed-upon times when subscriptions are involved. The whole model relies on customers having permanent access to your products, and even a short delay may lead to termination.

• Maintaining your brand promise—customers will also expect your products to arrive in perfect condition, which might be difficult to achieve in cross-border e-commerce.

• Subscription deliveries during sales peaks—you may also struggle providing all your customers with products during sales peaks, since you will have to balance between fulfilling subscription products and covering increased demand.

Overcoming the Common Subscription Delivery Challenges

Delivering international subscriptions might be difficult, but it is not impossible. There are effective ways to overcome these common challenges—let’s discuss them now.

Customs Brokers’ Aid

When tackling the first challenge, you should work with on-site customs brokers at every border crossing point. This way, you’ll have their expertise at your disposal, which will enable you to avoid legal issues.

Scalable Logistic Partners

To maintain timely deliveries (even during sales peaks), you need a strong, scalable and dependable logistics partner. A partner like Landmark Global—an experienced international delivery company, with procedures in place that minimise the possibility of delays.

Proper Packaging

You should also invest in secure e-commerce packaging to minimise any damage that could occur during shipping. This way, you’ll maintain your brands’ promise more effectively.

Local Infrastructure

You can also consider investing in local storage space—rent out a portion of a warehouse in your target country. This way, you can send your products earlier, creating a buffer safeguarding you against potential delays and disruptions.

Remember About Non-Delivery-Related Challenges

While you need good international subscription delivery solutions, you also should bear in mind that not every challenge in the process is related to shipping. You might also need to overcome additional obstacles, such as:

• complex payment systems,

• maintaining personalisation,

• scaling your online platforms for increased traffic as more users opt for your subscription models,

• organising your fulfillment data to ensure all subscriptions are carried out and to track all transactions.

Are Subscriptions Really Worth It?

Seeing the number of challenges, an important question may pop into your head: Are subscriptions really worth all the hassle?

Yes, they are. Subscription models enhance customer loyalty by providing your shoppers with:

• convenience,

• consistency,

• regular deliveries.

You can use them to build customer engagement and deliver better experiences, hence to maintain higher retention rates and extract more value from each of your customers. Therefore, they are worth the effort despite the trouble.

At the same time, you need to remember that subscription models work better in certain industries. You need to sell products that deplete regularly, like cosmetics, coffee, utility chemicals or office supplies, to achieve success.

The Takeaway

Subscription deliveries pose some challenges, but you can overcome all of them with a good logistics partnership and the right approach. The real remedy in this case is to work with experts, as they will provide you with ready solutions for navigating the obstacles. At the same time, delivery is not the only area that might generate challenges if you sell physical goods via subscription programs, so don’t focus purely on shipping—look at your business holistically and address all the potential problems before they occur.

You might also read: Seamless Returns Policy: Boost Customer Satisfaction and E-commerce Success