By default, changing the price of your subscription products within BigCommerce will only change the price on the storefront. Existing subscribers will remain subscribed to the product at the original price.
Bold Subscriptions’ Bulk Update tool allows you to update the price of products involved in existing subscriptions.
This article will walk you through the setup, functionality, and features of the Bulk Update tool, as well as outline some important considerations.
The Bulk Update tool will update the price of all existing subscriptions. You can update the prices and discounts of your customer’s subscriptions at both the product and the variant level.
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 variants which need to be updated. All subscriptions will be checked for updates during the process–even if only one subscription product is being updated. You can safely navigate away from the page while the sync is in progress.
Shipping rates will be 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 will outline all your changes in a CSV file. Summaries for all your bulk updates will be available in the Subscription admin once they’ve been completed.
The Bulk Update Report will contain 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.).
- current_currency: The currency the subscription is charged in.
- product_name: The name of the product
- platform_product_id: The ID of the product in BigCommerce.
- variant_name: The name of the variant.
- platform_variant_id: The ID of the variant in BigCommerce.
- price_before_update: The price of the product/variant before the update.
- price_after_update: The price of the product/variant after the update.
- result: The result of the update. The possible values are
- applied: The price update was successfully applied.
- not_applied: The line item was not selected to be updated.
- no_currency_match: The subscription did not match the store’s default currency so the update could not be applied.
- exception: The update was attempted but failed.
To create a bulk price update, please follow the steps below.
- From the Bold Subscriptions admin, navigate to Subscriptions > Bulk Updates.
- Select Create a bulk price update.
- Click Select Products.
- Select your product(s) and then click Confirm.
- Next to your product, select one of the following options:
- View X variants. This will allow you to update the price of each variant individually.
- Choose price for all variants. This will allow you to update all variants to the same price.
- Choose new Price. This will allow you to update the price of a product with one or no variants.
- Enter the new price in the New base product price field.
- Select one of the following options:
- Remove existing discounts.
- Apply a new discount to all subscriptions. This option will allow you to enter a new discount either by Percentage Off (%) or fixed Amount Off ($).
Note: For example, if you add a new base product price of $10, and apply a new discount to all subscriptions of 10%, your existing subscribers will receive the product for $9.
- Click Save changes.
- Repeat steps 5-8 until all the products you have selected are updated.
- Select Confirm Changes.
Note: You can safely navigate away from this page while the prices are syncing. The update can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.
- Recommended: Select Download Summary.
The Bulk Update tool will not update the price of your subscriptions on the storefront or in the BigCommerce admin—only those involved in your customer's existing subscriptions. Updates to your storefront price need to be done from the BigCommerce admin as usual.
Only one bulk update can be actioned at a time. The bulk update button will be disabled if a fixed shipping update is in progress.
Bulk price updates cannot be applied to subscriptions purchased in a currency outside of your store’s default currency.
The success message that is displayed after a price update indicates that all updates were attempted, however, it is still possible for BigCommerce to reject some updates. It’s best to download your Bulk Update Report summary once complete. This will allow you to check for subscriptions which may not have had their prices updated. If updates continue to fail after additional attempts, please reach out to our Customer Success team.
Your customers will not be notified when a bulk price update occurs. It’s best to ensure your subscribers are notified by email when your prices are updated.