Many consumers using online subscription services have developed staying one step ahead of having to pay for them into an art form — a fact of life for companies offering streaming services and deliveries of specialty foods, cosmetics, fashion items and more. A new research collaboration between PYMNTS and sticky.io throws that reality into stark relief.
The numbers are unsettling for any company relying on recurring revenue: A full 60% percent of respondents surveyed for “The Subscription Commerce Conversion Index: The Challenge Of Cheaters,” admitted to gaming the system now and then. And elevated inflation and recession fears may be making the temptation worse as consumers look for new ways to cut expenses.
Download the report: The Subscription Commerce Conversion Index: The Challenge Of Cheaters
That activity runs the gamut from cycling through email addresses to take advantage of free trials and referral codes and exploiting discount codes to engaging in any number of other practices that don’t sound quite as innocent — buying discounted items in bulk and reselling them and disputing expenses for items they actually received with their credit card companies.
It’s a behavior that cuts across income brackets — and age groups, as we’ve noted elsewhere. More critically for companies concerned about preventing the problem, the research found, “More than half of all subscribers polled said doing so was very or extremely easy for six of the seven ‘cheating’ methods we studied.”
Among other significant statistics, PYMNTS and sticky.io found:
Add it all up, and you get a mounting challenge for subscription providers as they seek to strike a balance between creating more rewarding customer experiences and potentially damaging their top lines.
“Finding this balance may prove to be a cheat code for providers navigating a more competitive environment,” the report notes.
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