| Weekly News Roundup |
| 1. Danish-Swedish furniture-as-a-service bags SEK 1.2 BN in funding – Dagens industri Nornorm, a Danish-Swedish company, partly owned by IKEA, offering subscriptions on furniture to customers such as Volvo, Electrolux and Netflix, is raising SEK 1.2 billion in an investment round. Next year, Nornorm will launch in the US. “A transition from disposable to circular use is needed throughout the economy. Nornorm wants to extend the lifespan of office furniture from six years to 20 or even 30 years. As most office furniture still ends up in a landfill, this would be an important step for the circular economy.” Read more 2. Discord opens up paid subscriptions so servers can sell premium perks – Techcrunch After launching premium memberships as a pilot late last year, the chat service Discord will now allow more servers to offer paid memberships in exchange for special server-specific perks. Plenty of Discord communities were already using third-party services to offer access to premium content, but the expanded feature will allow communities to manage that process from within the app itself. “The subscriptions offer server owners quite a bit of flexibility on what their monetization will look like. They can set subscriptions to be anywhere from $2.99 to $199.99 and decide what kind of perks to associate with the tiers they come up with. Discord’s cut of subscription revenue is 10%.” Read more 3. On-demand car rental company Kyte is now offering car subscriptions – Techcrunch Car rental delivery startup Kyte will offer a car subscription service, following what the startup says was a successful subscription pilot with Teslas. The three-, six- and 12-month subscription plans will be available to all 14 markets in which Kyte operates, such as San Francisco, Chicago and New York City. “Kyte began offering Tesla Model 3s for $995 per month earlier this year; the company’s Tesla’s are only available for subscription, whereas the rest of the fleet will go between subscriptions and short-term rentals […]” Read more 4. Apple updates App Store pricing structures, allowing developers to charge up to $10,000 for apps and subscriptions – The Apple Post Apple has updated the available pricing structures for apps and subscriptions on the App Store, allowing developers to choose from a total of 900 price point options, from as low as $0.29 up to $10,000. “The update today offers Apple’s most comprehensive upgrade to pricing capabilities since the App Store first launched, providing developers with 700 additional price points and new pricing tools to set prices per App Store country or region, manage foreign exchange rate changes, and more.” Read more Weekly Analysis Roundup 1. Car subscriptions are starting to challenge ownership, renting, and leasing – Consumer Affairs More and more automotive experts are predicting that by 2030, the relationship between consumers and cars is going to be completely different than it is today. The experts say that the trend is definitely emerging, but still has to prove itself profitable, writes Consumer Affairs. “Putting the squeeze on ownership and leasing are vehicle subscriptions, a model that meets many of those under-40 needs: convenience and the flexibility to lock in short-term commitments of three to 18 months without the drag of a monthly payment or paying for pricier short-term rentals.” Read more 2. Streamers focus on local content and establishing subscription models to succeed in the Middle East – Variety While the young market is of great appeal to streamers wanting to venture into the Middle East, many industry heads have mentioned the difficulties in setting up subscription tiers as one of the biggest challenges in the region, writes Variety, describing how streamers are now tackling the problem. “Subscription is an issue for us,” said Karim Safieddine, founder and executive producer at Lebanon’s Cinemoz. “When we started, half the customers in Egypt didn’t have a credit card. We were just waiting for the market to evolve.” Read more 3. Coffee subscriptions wake up and smell consumer thirst for flexibility – PYMNTS Studies show consumers are dropping retail subscriptions, yet coffee is in its own category. Jim Fosina, founder and CEO at D2C brand Amora Coffee, tells PYMNTS that retail subscriptions are a luxury, and it’s best to market them that way and simply let the consumer drive the outcome. “The consumer needs to be in full charge of their subscription,” he said. “If they want to pause, if they want to skip, if they want a refund, we have no-questions-asked policy. Maybe they just didn’t like the bag of coffee. Maybe the bag was ripped. Maybe they just had too much. We’re not going to ask you to send it back. Keep it. Fantastic. Order again when you’re ready.” Read more 4. TIME and Mather Economics on optimising subscription pricing analytics for the magazine industry – FIPP TIME Magazine has joined forces with Mather Economics, a subscription analytics and yield management firm, to enhance its pricing strategies and tactics through the use of data science and econometric modelling. In this article, they share their learnings. “The data science team will always look for the perfect answer. The most important part of the subject matter expert relationship is to put guard rails on the data scientists. We need to understand what we are trying to accomplish, and the fastest way to get there. Those rules come from the subject matter expert.” Read more |
