Subscription Management: Customer Perspective

After purchasing a subscription product on your store, your customers can make adjustments to their subscriptions in the customer portal. Some of the adjustments they have access to depend on the customer portal settings you have enabled.

Pro-Tip: If your customer forgets their password they can click the forgot password link on the login page.  Shopify sends an email with instructions to reset their password. If your customer is unable to login, they may not have signed up for their account yet. In this case, you can send an account invite from within their customer profile in Shopify. For more information about managing your customer's account, please visit Shopify's help center article.

This article will outline the changes that a customer can make to their subscriptions, as well as list the steps they can take to make those changes.

Change upcoming order date

Allowing customers to change their next order date reduces the number of canceled subscriptions on your store (churn). When this permission is enabled, your customers can choose a new date for their next order from within the customer portal.

Your customers have two options when changing the upcoming order date:

1. Only update next order date: This option updates the next order date in the cycle and skips the previously scheduled next order date. For example, if a subscription generates monthly on the 15th, and the next order date is changed from September 15th to September 10th, the next order will generate on September 10th and then will be skipped on September 15th. All future orders remain set to recur on the 15th.
2. Update all future orders based on the selected date: This option changes the next order date as well as the future order dates. For example, if a subscription generates monthly on the 15th, and the next order date is changed to the 10th, the next order will generate on the 10th as will all future recurring orders. 

Orders changed to today's date can take up to 60 minutes to process as Bold Subscriptions runs batches for recurring orders every hour starting at midnight.

Setup

To allow your customers to change change their next order date, please follow the steps below.

1. From within Bold Subscriptions, navigate to Settings > Customer portal.
2. Enable Customer can change their next order date by moving the toggle to the right.

To change the next order date, your customers can follow the steps below.

1. Log in to the customer portal.
2. Under Active subscriptions, click Edit future orders under the product that you would like to adjust the order date for.

   

3. Click on the existing order date and select a new order date.
4. Select Only update next order date or Update all future orders based on selected date.
5. Select Save Changes.

Generate the next subscription order now

If your customer runs out of product and would like to process their next order right away, you can allow them to use the Order now button in the customer portal. When this button is clicked, a subscription order processes within 60 minutes, and the original next order date is automatically marked as skipped. If your customer would like the original next order as well, they can recover the skipped shipment.

Note: While the order is processing, the next order date temporarily updates to the current date, and your customer will not be able to place an additional order until the order completes.

Setup

To allow your customer to use the Order now button, follow the steps below.

1. From within Bold Subscriptions, navigate to Settings > Customer portal.
2. Enable the Customer can create an additional order setting by moving the toggle to the right.

To generate a subscription order now, your customer can follow the steps below.

1. Log into the customer portal.
2. Under Active subscriptions, click the Order now button.

   

3. In the pop-up confirmation window, click Ok.
4. Optional: To recover the original next order, expand the Manage upcoming orders section, and click Recover shipment.

   

Change order frequency

Active subscribers may need to change the order frequency for their active subscription on your store. For example, your customer may wish to adjust an order frequency from recurring every two weeks to every week to receive more of a product.

Customers can only select from the frequency options that are built into the existing subscription groups.

Note: Changing the order frequency will not update the next order date. Frequency changes will come into affect once the next order has passed.

Setup

To allow your customers to change their order frequency , please follow the steps below.

1. From within Bold Subscriptions, navigate to Settings  > Customer portal.
2. Enable Customer can change their order frequency by moving the toggle to the right.

To adjust the order frequency of their subscription, your customers can follow the steps below.

1. Log in to the customer portal.
2. Under Order frequency, click Change frequency.

   

3. Use the dropdown menu to select a new frequency.
4. Select Save.

Once the order frequency has been updated, it's best to check the upcoming order dates to ensure they are correct and match the new frequency selected.

Pause and resume a subscription

Within Bold Subscriptions, you can allow your subscribers to pause and resume their recurring orders. This gives your subscribers the ability to put their subscriptions on hold whenever they need to, for as long as they need.

During this time, they will not be billed or receive any orders that have not already been sent.

This helps to reduce churn for subscription orders as it gives your customers the flexibility to temporarily stop their subscriptions instead of cancelling.

Setup

To enable the pause/resume feature for your customers, please follow the steps below.

1. From within Bold Subscriptions, navigate to Settings > Customer portal.
2. Enable the setting Customers can pause and resume their subscriptions by moving the toggle to the right.

To pause or resume a subscription, your customers can follow the steps below.

1. Log in to the customer portal.
2. If you have more than one subscription, click Show details under the one that you would like to pause.
3. Click Manage upcoming orders.
4. Click Pause Future Orders.

   

If your customer would like to resume their subscription, this can be done by selecting Resume future orders near the top of the subscription details:

Change product quantity

Note: Only an admin can update the quantity of a product for an existing prepaid subscription. For more information, please see Subscription Management: Merchant Perspective.

Customers can adjust the quantity for a product on a subscription from within the customer portal. This allows existing subscribers to easy increase or decrease the amount of products they are receiving, without the need to make another purchase.

Setup

To update the product quantity within an existing subscription, your customer can follow the steps below.

1. Log in to the customer portal.
2. If there are multiple subscriptions, click Show details under the subscription you would like to change.
3. Click Edit next to Products in my subscription.

   

4. Adjust the quantity to the desired amount for each product that is in the existing subscription.
5. Click Save.

Cancel or reactivate a subscription

Alert: Prepaid subscriptions can be canceled at the end of the prepaid cycle by changing the renewal method. Otherwise, only an admin can cancel a prepaid subscription in the middle of a prepaid cycle. For more information, please visit Subscription Management: Merchant Perspective.

If a customer needs to cancel their existing subscription, they can complete this within the customer portal. 

Some common reasons a customer may look at cancelling their subscription on your store are as follows:

• The product is too expensive.
• Unhappy with the product.
• Receiving too much of the product.
• Prefer to make one-time purchases of the product.
• Moving out of delivery area.

Setup

To allow your customers to cancel their orders, please follow the steps below.

1. From within Bold Subscriptions, navigate to Settings > Customer portal.
2. Enable the Customers can cancel their subscriptions setting by moving the toggle to the right.

To cancel an existing subscription within the customer portal, your customer can follow the steps below.

1. Log in to the customer portal.
2. If there are multiple subscriptions, click Show details under the subscription that needs to be canceled.
3. Click Cancel Subscription three times.
4. If you have set up a cancellation flow, your customer will need to either choose a cancellation reason, or follow the instructions you've provided. If you have not enabled a cancellation flow, your customer will be able to cancel without selecting any further options.

   Note: For more information, please visit Cancellation & Dunning Management in Subscriptions for Shopify Checkout.

   

5. Click Confirm.

If your customer needs to reactivate a subscription, they can follow the steps below.

1. Log into the customer portal and select View Inactive Subscriptions at the bottom of the page.

   

2. Under the desired subscription, click Reactivate Subscription.

   

3. Click Yes, Reactivate Subscription.

Update account information (name, email, phone number)

Subscribers are able to change their account information within the customer portal. This includes updating their email address, first name, last name and phone number.

Updating information within the customer portal also changes the information within their customer account in Shopify.

Note: If your customer changes their email address in the customer portal, they must then use the new email address to log into their account going forward. 

Setup

To change their account information, your customers can follow the steps below.

1. Log in to the customer portal.
2. Near the top of the page under My account info, make the necessary adjustments.
   
3. Click Save Changes.

Update payment method or billing address

If a customer's payment method or billing address needs to be updated, they can start this change through the customer portal.

It is important that your customers know that they have the ability to update their payment details as their subscription may be canceled depending on your store's failed transaction handling in the Cancellation and Dunning Management settings.

Setup

Customers can start the process of updating their payment method or billing address using the steps below.

1. Log in to the customer portal.
2. If there are multiple subscriptions, select Show details under the subscription you would like to update the payment method or billing address for.
3. Click Payment information.
4. Click Change Payment Information.
5. Check the email that is registered to the subscription account.

   Note: If you are having issues receiving the email, please check your spam and junk folders.

Note: Once Change Payment Information is clicked by the customer, an email is sent from Shopify that contains a link that the customer can use to update their payment method within the Shopify checkout. For step-by-step instructions, please refer to Shopify's article for the most up-to-date information.

Update shipping address

Alert: When updating the shipping address on a prepaid subscription, customers are not automatically billed or refunded any differences in shipping costs on orders they’ve already paid for. Any costs associated with shipping updates are applied to the next prepaid order if it is set to continue.

Customers are able to adjust their shipping address directly within the customer portal. If the correct information is not updated, there is a strong possibility that the future recurring orders will fail due to a payment error with the payment method being used.

Setup

To update their shipping address, your customer can follow the steps below.

1. Log in to the customer portal.
2. If there are multiple subscriptions, click Show details under the subscription you would like to update the shipping address for.
3. Click Edit next to Address and shipping information.

   

4. Select an existing address or enter a new address.
5. Click Save Changes.

Swap a subscription product

If a customer would like to subscribe to a different product, they can swap their current product with a new one. This allows them to avoid cancelling and resubscribing.

Setup

To swap a product, your customer can follow the steps below.

1. Log in to the customer portal.
2. If multiple subscriptions are present, click Show details under the subscription you would like to swap.
3. Click Products in my subscription.
4. Select Swap product next to the product you want to swap with.

   

5. Click Select product next to a product you would like to swap the original product with.

   

6. Select OK.

Add a discount code

You can provide subscribers with a discount code at any time. Your existing subscribers can add a discount code to their order from within the customer portal. If an existing discount code is already applied to the order, then that will need to be removed first. For customer facing instructions, please view the information below, under Remove a discount code.

Certain discount codes like Buy X Get Y discounts are not eligible for subscriptions. Additionally, when a discount code is applied to a subscription, the price will not be noted as discounted in the customer portal, the price will simply reflect the new amount. To read more about this and other limitations, please visit Discount Codes in Subscriptions for Shopify Checkout.

Setup

To add a discount code, your customer can follow the steps below.

1. Log in to the customer portal.
2. If there are multiple subscriptions, click Show details under the subscription you would like to add the discount code to.
3. Click Discount code, then Add discount.

   

4. Enter the discount code and then click Apply.

Remove a discount code

In order to add a new discount code to an existing subscription, any existing or inactive discount codes will need to be removed first. Inactive discount codes remain visible on your customer's subscription even when they are expired.

Setup

To remove a discount code, your customer can follow the steps below.

1. Log in to the customer portal.
2. Click Discount code, then Remove discount.

   

Skip an upcoming order

Customers can skip an upcoming order within the customer portal. If they change their mind at a later date, they can also recover the order.

Some possible reasons a customer may want to skip an upcoming order are as follows:

• Insufficient funds in the payment method on file.
• They are moving.
• They just need some extra time between orders.

Setup

To skip an order within the customer portal, your customer can follow the steps below.

1. Log in to the customer portal.
2. Click Show details under the subscription that you would like to skip.
3. Click Manage upcoming orders.
4. Click Skip shipment next to the upcoming order that you would like to skip.

   

If a subscription has an order that was skipped that needs to be reversed, you can follow steps 1-6 and select Recover shipment to reverse the change that was made earlier.

Add a product to a subscription (one-time or recurring)

When this feature is enabled, your customers can add a product to one of their active subscriptions from within the customer portal. The options available are as follows:

• Add to this subscription. This adds the product as a recurring order along with the existing subscription.
• Add to next order only. This adds the product to the next subscription order as a one-time purchase only. It will not recur.

The options available to your customers depend on the options you’ve made available for the product on your storefront. These are as follows:

• If the product is available as a subscription only, your customer will only see the option to Add to this subscription.
• If the product is available as a one-time purchase only, your customer will see the option to Add to next order only.
• If the product is available for subscription as well as one-time purchase, your customers will see both Add to this subscription and Add to next order only.

If a subscription product is added to the existing subscription, the new subscription product will share the same order frequency of the existing subscription. In addition, the added product will take the discount of the subscription group it belongs to. If it belongs to more than one subscription group, the discount from the last group it was added to will apply.

A new shipping rate is calculated at the time the new product is added.

Setup

To allow your customers to add a new product to their existing subscription, please enable the settings as shown below.

Caution: When this setting is enabled, customers are able to add any product regardless of the available inventory. Our team is working to update this feature to match your Shopify inventory settings for the near future.

1. From within Bold Subscriptions, navigate to Settings > Customer portal.
2. Enable the toggle next to Customer can add products to their existing subscriptions.

To add a product to an existing subscription, your customer can follow the steps below.

1. Log in to the customer portal.
2. Within the active subscription overview, click Add Products.

   

3. Select the desired product.
4. If applicable, select the size and quantity.
5. Choose an available option.

   

Remove a product from a subscription

If a customer has multiple products in an existing subscription, they might consider removing a product temporarily and adding it back later, replacing it with another product altogether or simply removing an unwanted product.

Setup

To remove a product from a subscription, your customers can follow the steps below.

1. Log in to the customer portal.
2. Click Products in my subscription.
3. Click Remove product next to the product you would like to remove.
   
4. Click OK in the browser popup confirmation.

Change prepaid subscription renewal method

To allow your customer to change the renewal method on their prepaid subscription, please follow the steps below.

1. From within Bold Subscriptions, navigate to Settings > Customer portal.
2. Enable the Customer can change their prepaid renewal method setting by moving the toggle to the right.

To adjust the renewal method, your customers can follow the steps below.

1. Log in to the customer portal.
2. Locate the prepaid subscription.
3. Click Change renewal method.
   
4. Select a new renewal method from the dropdown menu.
   
5. Click Save changes.

Troubleshooting

My customer is unable to add a product to their subscription

To ensure your customer can add a product to their subscription, you must:

• Enable the setting to allow this.
• Ensure your customer is using the same currency as your store's currency.
• Have the product available for subscription.

If the product doesn't belong to an existing subscription group, but you'd still like to allow your customer to add it to their existing subscription, you can add the product on their behalf. To see how this is done, please visit Subscription Management: Merchant Perspective.

If your customer is seeing an error when trying to add a product to their subscription, please view the troubleshooting step below, under I am seeing an error when trying to add a product to an existing subscription.

My customer is not able to log in or access the customer portal

There are a few reasons your customer is not able to log in or access the customer portal. Some of these are as follows:

• Shopify customer accounts are disabled.
• Your customer has not yet created an account.
• The customer portal page has been deleted or not yet created. 

For solutions to these issues, please view the information below.

Shopify customer accounts are disabled.

If your customer is unable to log into their account, please make sure you have customer accounts enabled and accessible on your Shopify store. The customer portal resides inside the Shopify customer account area. If your Shopify customer accounts are disabled or hidden, your customer will not be able to log into the customer portal.

Customer hasn't created an account.

If Shopify customer accounts are enabled and your customer still cannot log into their account, it may be due to the fact that they have not yet created an account. In this case, you can send an invitation to create an account from within their Shopify customer profile. 

As Shopify makes new customer accounts available to merchants, we are working to support this feature in Bold Subscriptions. At this time we recommend that you use classic customer accounts to ensure your customers are still able to access their customer portal. For more information, please visit Shopify's support article, Customer Accounts.

Missing customer portal page

If your customer can log in but they are seeing a blank page, this means your customer portal page has been deleted or not yet created. To correct this, please follow the steps below.

1. From within the Shopify admin, select Online Store > Pages.
2. Select Add page.
3. Name the page Manage Subscriptions.
4. Select the Show HTML button, then add the following line of code to the input box:
   

   <div id="customer-portal-root"></div>

5. Select Save.

Admin customer portal link does not match the name of the customer portal page

If the name of the customer portal page is different than the admin customer portal link in Bold Subscriptions, the user will be directed to a 404 error or blank page.

To correct this issue, please follow these steps:

1. Login to the Bold Subscriptions admin.
2. Navigate to Settings > Customer portal.
3. Under Admin customer portal link, update the link to match your customer portal page name.

   Note: The link is set to "pages/manage-subscriptions" by default.

4. Click Save.

Error message: "error getting delivery options: No applicable delivery options found for the subscription contract"

The following message: error getting delivery options: No applicable delivery options found for the subscription contract, may appear when a subscriber attempts to change their shipping address in the Customer Portal to a new address that your store does not have an eligible shipping rate for. Please ensure your Shopify shipping zones are configured to cover the new address that the subscriber is trying to update their subscription to.

This error can also occur if third party shipping rates are used on your store, as Bold Subscriptions can only retrieve Shopify shipping rates.

If your subscribers are still experiencing this error when trying to update their shipping address while an eligible shipping rate is available, please reach out to our Customer Success team.

Error message: 'undefined method `session_id' for an instance of PaymentsApi::Inputs::StripeCustomerRecord. The next order attempt will be made on *Month* *Day*, *Year*'"

The following message: undefined method `session_id' for an instance of PaymentsApi::Inputs::StripeCustomerRecord. The next order attempt will be made on *Month* *Day*, *Year*', may appear when a subscriber needs to authorize their payment method due to SCA (Strong Customer Authentication). Please visit Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) in Subscriptions for Shopify Checkout for more information on authorizing the payment.