Digital Subscriptions

Digital subscriptions provide consumers with ongoing access to non-physical goods such as memberships, eLearning, streaming content, IOT access, and more. Unlike physical subscriptions, which involve logistics and inventory, digital subscriptions are fulfilled instantly and continuously through digital entitlements. This unlocks new monetization opportunities for merchants of all kinds:

• Stores that sell both physical and digital subscriptions (e.g. supplements and membership program)
• Stores that sell a physical product with a digital subscription plan (e.g. fitness tracker)
• Stores that sell only digital content (e.g. eLearning platform)

How Digital Subscriptions Work

Shared Domains

Digital subscriptions share a majority of the Ordergroove platform with physical subscriptions, which provides many efficiencies for both you and your customers. All of the follow data models are shared:

• Products and Items
  • Product type plan
• Subscriptions
• Orders
• Customers
• Payments

Digital Domains

There are two digital domains that are key to running a digital subscription program and are not leveraged when running physical subscription programs.

• Entitlements
  • Entitlements are the ledger of what of digital resources a customer currently has access to
  • Entitlements can be granted based on an order placed through the eCommerce checkout or via a recurring subscription order placed by Ordergroove
  • Entitlements remain available until their expiration date, even if a customer has canceled their subscription and does not have an upcoming renewal
  • API Reference
• Resources
  • Resources are the specific benefits that can be accessed via an entitlement
  • Resources can be any product in your catalog, physical or digital
  • Each subscription to a digital plan will grant at least one resource upon signup and subsequent renewals
  • API Reference

Example (click to view full size)