Subscription boxes allow retailers to communicate directly with consumers, design at-home experiences, and create brand loyalty. Shopping essentials can often be driven more by convenience than brand loyalty and the benefit of a subscription service is that once consumers sign up, they are less likely to go through the effort of switching brands and will just auto-renew.
DTC selling enables brands to gather valuable consumer data, which can be leveraged in product and service development phases. Subscription services may be useful for market research, allowing brands to test new products with subscribers, and can act as market research for brands. For local brands who might not have the resources to test new products, including those products in subscription boxes as complimentary items would allow them to gauge consumer responses.
Sustainability
As consumers become more mindful of environmental issues, “brand purpose” has become vital for the overall positioning of brands. Retailers are working on making their offerings more transparent to gain consumer confidence. Nike, which operates through both iwts own and franchise stores, announced that it has plans to generate 50% of its sales from its own store and e-commerce platform, to make its operations more transparent and have more control over its distribution.
Similarly, Eileen Fisher, a retailer of launched a sustainable fashion initiative to reduce wasteful purchasing. With this initiative, shoppers are allowed to return old/torn or worn out Eileen Fisher clothing at any of its stores for recycling and receive $5 in recycling rewards for each donated item. It helps the brand to maintain appeal among shoppers prioritising sustainability over fast fashion range. Other brands such as Allbirds are manufacturing comfortable shoe ranges following guidelines on natural material consumption.
