It’s a busy life for Mumbai’s Arushi, amidst the hustle and bustle of the city. The 24-year-old, who lives alone, is always swamped with so much work that she often misses stocking her fridge with daily essentials.
Apart from supplements, even the cosmetics space is gearing up to leverage the model.
Dheeraj Bansal, Co-founder of cosmetic brand Recode Studios says that several elements determine whether the industry as a whole is fully ready for such a model. Whether or if consumers in the cosmetics sector are interested in subscription services is one of the important elements.
“There is an increasing industry trend toward customization and sustainability, which can make subscription models appealing to some customer groups who regularly need carefully picked eco-friendly options,” Bansal said.
Along with the rising trend of subscriptions, the trend around consumers’ willingness to experiment with new brands is also on the rise massively, especially in the D2C beauty and personal care space.
Bansal feels that this willingness to experiment may make the consumers less likely to sign up for subscription services.
Achyut Daga, General Manager - Marketing, The Mom’s Co, echoes a similar opinion and says that on the face of it, beauty and personal care subscription seems a difficult idea to digest since India is a trust economy and BPC consumers like to experiment with their choices. “Makeup, haircare and face care are categories that see high levels of experimentation and consumers are always looking for the next novelty product,” Daga mentioned.
He says that while subscription models might be difficult for a stand-alone brand to run, one way of making this work could be via subscription models run by a group of brands. “It allows consumers to enjoy the best of both trust-based shopping and the thrill of experimentation, all while reaping the conveniences and benefits of a subscription service,” Daga added.
However, Shrivastav mentioned that FMCG will eventually be the key driver for the subscription economy. “As for other industries, I’d still say that the recall of a subscription model would be very less,” he said.
Path to Customer Loyalty
Be it any industry, the core purpose of deploying a subscription model is when brands seek customer loyalty and want to build on retention. With consumers being open to trying new brands as and when they feel, retention is a task.
Khanna believes that a subscription model is one of the easiest ways to make sure that the brand is tapping into customer retention. He shared that this can further be enhanced by personalising the experience for the consumer.
He explains, “For instance, if a consumer is subscribed to protein supplements, why not send a recovery product with the next month’s delivery along with a note? This is possible today, given that the brands are able to leverage the data very well.”
Experts thus opine that subscriptions can be a good way for D2C brands to retain consumers and gain their trust, provided they are efficiently able to overcome the difficult part – conversion from one-time purchase to subscription!
