Exchange Groups: Unleash the Power of Streamlined Choices
Did you know that consumers are more likely to take action when presented with a limited yet personalised selection of products?
Research shows that 87% of customers appreciate curated experiences that alleviate decision fatigue and guide them towards making confident choices.
Explanation Video
Article overview
- Background
- Technical setup
- Process for your customers
- Process for a circuly user
- Business cases and ideas
Background
The Problem
In today's fast-paced world, the abundance of choices and information can often overwhelm online shoppers, tarnishing their experience and hindering their decision-making process.
The Implication
Even though consumers generally like to have some level of information and choice when purchasing, the overload of information and choices can lead to frustration and hinder the overall experience.
Your customers may find themselves lost in the different choices available to them and may not take any action.
The Solution
Strike the right balance between providing relevant and comprehensive information while ensuring a user-friendly and intuitive purchasing journey is crucial.
Liberate your customers from the weight of overwhelming choices and information overload by curating a tailored selection of bundled products. Provide them with a refined experience that offers a handpicked assortment of options to choose from.
The Feature
Introducing exchange groups - a circuly feature that empowers your customers to swap their subscription products and choose a replacement product from a predefined and curated group of products tailored to their needs and preferences.
The Benefit
By simplifying the decision-making process, you create a personalised and memorable experience that instils confidence and loyalty. Your customers will appreciate the invaluable gift of time and the freedom to explore a thoughtfully limited selection that truly resonates with their individual tastes and requirements.
Additionally, your customers can rely on your expertise and benefit from the curated experience created by you.
Elevate your customer's journey to new heights, where frustration is replaced with excitement, and indecision is transformed into swift action.
Technical setup
The technical setup provides comprehensive instructions on configuring the exchange groups feature and making it accessible to your customers in the Self-Service Portal.
One-time feature setup
Step 1: Create an exchange group collection
Step 2: Map variants to the collection
Step 3: (Optional) Go over the swap settings in the Settings tab
Step 4: Enable the "Check System Stock" setting
Good to know
1. Your products and product variants are always set up in your individual shopsystem. circuly only takes over the product information (product name, price etc.) from your shopsystem via a product sync and displays the information under the Product tab in the circuly Operations Backend.
2. The product prices are also taken from the shop system, and the exchange group feature makes use of the default shop system prices (as set up by you). However, it is also possible to have the same price for the entire bundle collection, irrespective of the product selected. If you would like to have this logic, kindly get in touch with us via service desk.
3. The possibility to select products from a predefined collection is only available for new orders. If you want to make the feature available for your old subscriptions, get in touch with circuly via service desk.
Step 1: Create an exchange group collection
To create a collection in the circuly Operations Backend:
- Go to Products > Navigate to the Exchange Groups tab.
- Under the Exchange Groups tab > Click on “+ Exchange group” to add a new collection.
- In the Create Exchange Group window > Add a title, description and an exchange discount (optional).
- Select the variants that belong to this Exchange Collection.
Note: There are two possible option for assigning variants to the Exchange Collection.
Option 1: From the Product variants dropdown menu that is available in the Edit Exchange Group window.
Option 2: From the Variants tab (explained in detail under Step 2).
The Product variants dropdown option
The Product Variants dropdown menu option provides you the possibility to select variants while you are in the process of creating the Exchange Collection. If you have a long list of available variants kindly note that not all variants will show up in the dropdown menu. You can search for the variant by typing the variant name in the given field.
However you can also ignore the Product variants dropdown menu and assign the variants to the Exchange Collection from the Variants tab where you can see all your variants at the same time (explained below under Step 2)
IMPORTANT: An exchange groups can have up to 1000 product variants.
- Click on the CREATE button to save your newly created collection.
Step 2: Map variants to the collection
- Next, navigate to the Variants tab.
- Select the variants you want to group together by checking the checkbox > Click on the MAP TO EXCHANGE COLLECTION button.
- In the Map to exchange collection window > Click on the dropdown menu to see your available collection list.
- Select a collection from the available list > And finally click on the MAP TO GROUPS button.
You can find an overview about the existing mapped collections by scrolling left to display the Exchange Group column. The exchange group column shows information about the collection the variant is mapped to.
Step 3: (Optional) Go over the swap settings in the settings tab
Since exchanging a product from an existing product collection is also a swap, the feature and the operations associated with it make use of the swap settings.
Make sure that you go over your swap settings or set them up if you haven't already done so.
Continue reading the article about Swap settings in the circuly Operations Backend to know more.
Step 4: Enable the Check system stock setting
By activating the "Check System Stock" option, you ensure that customers can only request products that are currently in stock. This prevents scenarios where customers try to request products that are unavailable. If you've already turned on this setting for your checkout process, the Self-Service Portal will also apply the same stock-checking configuration.
To access the setting > In your circuly Operations Backend > Go to Settings > Checkout > PRE CHECKOUT > Check System Stock.
Process for your customers
We recommend adding a how to guide on your website about swapping products to make it easier for your customers to take the right actions.
Given below is an overview of how the process looks for your customers. Kindly be informed that the subscription menu options and some display options can vary depending on your settings and setup.
- Your customer is in their Self-Service Portal.
- Your customer clicks on the dropdown button to access the subscription menu options.
- Your customer selects and clicks on “Change product” from the menu options.
- Your customer then clicks on the CONFIRM button.
- As soon as your customer clicks on the button > A window slides in from the right.
- Your customer clicks on the dropdown arrow to see the available product options.
- Your customer selects a product from the available collection options.
- When your customer selects a product, the product image and price is displayed.
- Your custom clicks on the SAVE CHANGES button to confirm their selection.
Note: at this time a stock validation check is being done. If the selected product is not not in stock then an error message will be displayed.
The stock validation is done after the customer selects a product from the dropdown menu options. If you have stock sensitive items (like limited number of refurbished products) kindly update your exchange groups on a regular basis. You can also get in touch with our Customer Success team to figure out a solution together.
- The subscription status changes from “active” to “pending replacement”.
- The process ends for your customer.
Note: If you wish to display your custom terms and conditions text , kindly send us your desired text and we will add it to your White-Label Self-Service Portal.
Refer to the image below to see an example.
Process for a circuly user
Like with any replacement order, a new order is created in the circuly Operations Backend (unless you have the Delay swapped orders setting enabled). Process the order like you normally would that is either creating a subscription manually, or changing the status of the order to “fulfilled” in your shopsystem if you have the automatic flow enabled depending on the order status in your shop system.
Learn more about creating subscriptions in the circuly Operations Backend manually.
Learn more about updating orders into subscription with the BULK UPDATE button.
Business cases and ideas
In this section we’ve highlighted some possible use cases of the bundle swap feature. The list is of course not limited to the ideas mentioned below and can be expanded upon.
1. Bundle swap for consumable subscriptions
Let’s imagine that you have a subscription service for protein powder and you want to offer your customers the possibility to exchange one flavour with another throughout the length of the subscription contract.
What you need to do: all you need to do in this case create a bundle collection (something like flavours for Black Edition and map the variants (Cookie dough, vanilla, chocolate etc.) to this collection in your circuly Operations Backend.
Follow the steps mentioned above under technical setup for a detailed description on the setup process.
What your customers can do: your customers can then select their desired flavor from their Self-Service Portal.
Similar logic can be applied to other consumable products such as coffee, baby diapers, wine etc.
2. Bundle swap for tangible-product subscriptions
Tangible products such as bikes, baby strollers, furniture etc can also use the bundle swap feature in different ways. Here are a few examples:
Bundle swap for Strollers
You can offer your customers the possibility to swap a small stroller for a big one or vice versa or perhaps a lightweight stroller in exchange for a double stroller.
Bundle swap for bikes
You can offer your customers the possibility to swap a small sized kids bike with a bigger bike as the child grow and their needs change.
Bundle swap for furniture
You can offer your customers the possibility to exchange various furniture items to fit the season.