There may be times when a subscription product is deleted on purpose or by accident. Bold Subscriptions’ Bulk Update tool allows you to remove a deleted product from all of your customers’ existing subscriptions and replace it with another.
This article outlines the functionality, important considerations, and steps for using the Bulk Update tool to swap one deleted product for another in your customers’ existing subscriptions.
Functionality
When the Bulk Update tool is used for a deleted product swap, it checks all products in your customer's existing subscriptions and makes the product swap wherever it is applicable.
The update can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours depending on the number of subscriptions your customers have, the amount of products in each subscription, and the amount of products or variants which need to be updated. All subscriptions are checked for updates during the process–even if only one subscription product is being updated.
Shipping rates are also updated on subscriptions which qualify for a new rate due to a price change.
Once your updates are complete, you can download a summary of the Bulk Update Report. This outlines all of the changes in a CSV file. You can read more about this below.
Important considerations
Please read through the considerations below before performing your bulk update.
Subscription groups
Deleted products that are being swapped with a replacement product must belong to the same subscription group.
Prepaid subscriptions
If a product that belongs to an existing prepaid subscription is swapped for a new product with a different price, your customers are not charged or refunded any differences on orders that have already been paid for. The price of the prepaid subscription will update when it is set to renew. This is also true for changes related to new shipping rates.
We would recommend using the Preserve old variant price option if you want the price of the prepaid product to remain the same as the deleted product that is being swapped out.
Multiple bulk updates
Only one bulk update can be actioned at a time. The bulk update button is disabled if a fixed shipping update is in progress.
Success message
The success message that is displayed after a price update indicates that all updates were attempted, however, it is still possible that a product wasn't swapped. It’s best to download your Bulk Update Report summary once complete. This allows you to check for subscriptions which may not have had their prices updated. If updates continue to fail after additional attempts, please speak to a member of our Customer Success team.
Customer notification
Your customers are not notified when a bulk price update occurs. It’s best to ensure your subscribers are notified by email when one product is exchanged for another.
Setup
To create a product swap bulk update, please follow the steps below.
Step 1: Add the new product to the same subscription group of the existing deleted subscription product.
From within Bold Subscriptions, navigate to Subscription groups.
Click on the ellipsis under the Actions column next to the group you would like to edit, and select Edit subscription group.
Click the Select products button, and add your new product.
Click Confirm.
Click Save changes.
Step 2: Use the Bulk Update tool to perform the deleted product swap
From the Bold Subscriptions admin, navigate to Subscriptions > Bulk Updates.
Select Create a bulk update.
Using the dropdown menu under Update type, select Swap deleted variant.
Find the Product ID and Variant ID for the deleted product you want to swap out.
In the Shopify admin open an order with the deleted product
In the address bar at the top of the browser add
.jsonto the order IDAdd
.jsonto the end of the order number like this:https://admin.shopify.com/store/store-name/orders/123456789.jsonHit Enter on the keyboard
Find the
product_idandvariant_idof the deleted product under theline_itemson the order
Enter the Product ID
Enter the Variant ID
Click Select New Product
Select the new product, and click Confirm.
(Optional) Check Preserve old variant price if you want the new products to keep the same price or leave unchecked to have the new products price receive the groups subscription discount (if a discount exists on the group).
Click Confirm changes
After ensuring your products are correct, click Start Update.
Note: You can safely navigate away from this page while the updates are processing. The update can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.
Recommended: Select Download Summary.
Bulk Update Report
Once your updates are complete, you can download a summary of the Bulk Update Report. This outlines all of the changes in a CSV file. Summaries for all your bulk updates are available in the Subscription admin once complete.
The Bulk Update Report for a deleted product swap contains the following information:
subscription_id: The ID of the subscription. This can be found on the Subscriptions page in the Bold Subscription admin.
line_item_id: The ID of the line item. This is not displayed in the Bold Subscription admin but can be accessed through Bold’s APIs.
subscription_status: The status of the subscription (i.e., paused, active, inactive, etc.).
email: The email addresses of subscribers who've had their subscription product swapped.
old_product_name: The name of the product that was swapped out.
old_platform_product_id: The ID of the swapped out product in Shopify.
old_variant_name: The name of the swapped out variant in Shopify.
old_platform_variant_id: The ID of the swapped out variant in Shopify.
new_product_name: The name of the product that was swapped in.
new_variant_name: The name of the variant that was swapped in.
new_variant_id: The ID of the swapped in variant in Shopify.
new_product_id: The ID of the swapped in product in Shopify.
result: The result of the update. The possible values are as follows:
applied: The swap was successfully applied.
not_applied: The line item was not selected to be updated.
Any other result other than the two noted above indicates that the swap was not successful and provides the reason why.