The research has established:

· 86% of purchases are self-gifting. The top three categories for self-gifting are: Food, Beauty and Male Grooming / Drink.

· As a gift for someone else; Food, Beauty and Art & Crafts are the top categories

The top ten influences on the decision to purchase a subscription service are:

Whistl research understanding subscriber churn rate

· There is a high churn rate for boxed subscription services with 44% not continuing a subscription. The top three high churn categories are Food; Beauty; Books & Magazines.

· Male subscribers have a lower churn rate (33%) than female (51%).

· The highest churn categories purchased by males Food; Drinks; Books; Grooming. For females, the rate of churn is highest for: Food; Beauty; Arts & Crafts.

· The top three significant reasons to continue an online subscription are:

· I always have it / I won’t run out; It’s personal / I can pick what I want; It’s flexible / I can pause or cancel when I want.

· 57% of users have only ever subscribed to one category and 33% are currently subscribed to only one. 43%, in the past or currently, subscribe to more than one category and 23% are subscribed to more than one currently.

· Those subscribed to more than one category are more likely to be: Male; younger; with children under 18; and living in London.

· The most effective source of creating awareness about an online subscription service are:

Promoting subscription box services

Social media is the most effective way of creating awareness of an online subscription service with women and web adverts for men.

The most effective way to create awareness for different categories of an online subscription service are:

Food Recommendation; TV advert; leaflet through the post

Drink Email; online search; leaflet through the post

Beauty Social media; recommendation; online search

Male Grooming Website advert; social media; TV advert

The importance of discounts and trials

· Initial offers / discounts / one off/trials have limited impact on influencing a purchase with 76% saying they have no influence and only 7% respondents saying that it was the only reason for purchase.

· However, 75% of respondents who had taken a subscription service had received a sign-up discount of which 47% would continue when the subscription discount ended.

· 61% of subscribers have not been offered an extended discount period yet 23% accepted and extended their subscription at a discounted rate. 13% declined to continue without the extension. Of the 23% who extended a subscription with a discount the most popular categories were Food and Beauty.

Managing and paying for the subscription

· 77% of subscribers manage their subscription via the supplier’s website but those who offer an app to manage a subscription have the lowest churn of customers with 77% currently signed up.

· Two thirds of subscribers pay by a recurring card payment or direct debit with 33% through a one-off payment.

Why subscriptions are cancelled

· The top ten reasons for cancelling a subscription are:

Targeting non-users of subscriptions services

· Non-users of subscription boxes are typically male, older and less affluent and live in Northern Ireland. Availability of food and shaving boxes is best known by men with 27% unaware of any subscription service.

· Female non-users are generally more aware of subscription brands than men with Graze; Hello Fresh; and Abel & Cole the best known. For men Dollar Shave Club and Harry’s lead the awareness popularity table however, over a third unaware of any brand.

· Non-users would be more open to considering taking out a subscription service if it was: Cheaper than the alternatives; free/ discounted trial period/ Finding a product that I need; better range of products; as a gift for someone else.

· 39% of respondents would not find any subscription box service beneficial but the top five categories of most interest to non-users are: