NEW DATA: Subscription Commerce Top Performers

With so many subscription services available to consumers, what separates the wheat from the chaff?

According to PYMNTS research, it comes down to speed, security and choices. Data inside the latest Subscription Commerce Conversion Index, a Recurly collaboration, shows 100 percent of the top scoring merchants inside the Index offered a trio of features designed to deliver those three elements to customers.

Researchers found that each of the Top 20 merchants offered plan options, including the option to cancel subscriptions, and provided security passwords to customers. What’s more, the top scorers featured faster subscription times than their lower-scoring counterparts.

It took consumers an average of 135.3 seconds — just a few ticks more than two minutes — to subscribe to services from the Top 20 merchants in the Index. Meanwhile, it took consumers more than 20 seconds longer to subscribe to the average merchant.

Other key takeaways from the January 2018 Subscription Commerce Conversion Index:

61.9 out of 100 was the average Subscription Commerce Index Score, up roughly two points since Q3 2017.

SaaS/Cloud Computing retained its title as the highest-rated industry, receiving a score of 67.6 out of 100, compared to the worst performing industry, Consulting and Financial Services, which scored just 53.2 out of 100.

Subscription times are getting longer. It now takes consumers an average of 156.4 seconds to sign up for a subscription, 49.2 seconds longer than in Q3 of 2017.

A record club for a new generation

While most modern music fans are content with streaming services, a 1960’s anachronism — the vinyl record — has found a new generation of fans.

And to serve that growing base of vinyl record fans, subscription service Vinyl Me, Please is looking to provide a “record club for a new generation.” In a recent interview with PYMNTS, CEO and founder Matt Fiedler described how he and co-founder Tyler Barstow set out to create a monthly record subscription service that promises to give music enthusiasts a curated, new, special edition vinyl records.

“We’ve been hyper-focused on figuring out, as music fans, what we would want from our service, and creating a new kind of record club that’s more appealing to them,” he said. “I think that’s given a better path forward than looking at other companies that have been in the space, and it’s something we plan to continue going forward.”

To read the full story, download the Index.

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About the Index

The PYMNTS.com Subscription Commerce Conversion Index, a Recurly collaboration, measures frictions in the digital shopping experience for subscription services and products and how those frictions impact a merchant’s final conversion rate. This index analyzes why certain sites are better at converting sales than others, examining several pre-payment factors that generate either friction or sales.