The "Subscription Economy" is booming in the UK. From coffee beans to contact lenses, customers love the convenience of "set and forget." But for business owners, adding subscriptions to a standard e-commerce store is often a nightmare.
Most off-the-shelf platforms treat subscriptions as an afterthought. They struggle when a customer wants to buy a single t-shirt (one-time) and a monthly supply of vitamins (recurring) in the same transaction. This is known as the "Mixed Cart" problem.
At Custom Coded Websites, we engineer sophisticated subscription engines using Django and Stripe Billing. Here is how a custom approach turns subscription headaches into recurring revenue.
1. Solving the "Mixed Cart" Conflict
In a standard plugin environment, mixing purchase types often breaks the checkout. The system doesn't know whether to charge shipping once or monthly, or how to handle the tax implications.
With a custom build, we treat the checkout as a unified experience. We write logic that separates the cart items on the backend:
- Item A (One-Time): Charged immediately, inventory deducted, shipping label generated.
- Item B (Subscription): Charged immediately, then a "Subscription Object" is created in Stripe to trigger future payments automatically.
The customer sees one total and enters their card details once. The code handles the complexity.
2. The "Self-Service" Retention Engine
The number one reason for customer churn isn't product dissatisfaction; it's inflexibility. If a customer is going on holiday and can't pause their vegetable box delivery, they will cancel it.
We build comprehensive User Portals that put the customer in control. Instead of emailing support, they can log in and:
- Skip a Month: "I have too much product, skip the next delivery."
- Swap Products: "Send me the darker roast coffee this month."
- Change Frequency: "Switch from every 2 weeks to every 4 weeks."
By empowering the user, you save the sale. This logic is difficult to achieve with standard templates but is standard practice in our Python applications.
3. Smart Dunning (Failed Payment Recovery)
Credit cards expire. Banks decline transactions. If you don't have a system to handle this, you lose revenue silently.
We implement Smart Dunning logic. When a renewal payment fails:
- The system retries automatically after 3 days.
- If it fails again, it sends a branded email: "Your coffee subscription is on hold—update your card to keep brewing."
- When the user clicks the link, they are taken to a secure, pre-filled form to update their details without logging in.
4. Inventory Syncing for Recurring Orders
A major risk with subscriptions is selling stock you don't have. If you have 100 subscribers expecting a box on the 1st of the month, your inventory system must "reserve" that stock before you sell it to one-time buyers.
Our custom architecture creates a "Virtual Reserve." It calculates your upcoming subscription obligations and deducts them from your available stock on the website, ensuring you never over-promise and under-deliver.
Conclusion: Predictable Revenue Requires Predictable Tech
A subscription business is the holy grail of cash flow, but only if the technology works. Broken renewal links and rigid customer portals kill growth.
Invest in a platform that handles the complexities of recurring billing so you can focus on the product.
Book a Subscription Strategy Call with our development team today.