More than half of online shoppers have subscription box memberships. By 2027, the global subscription box market is predicted to almost double to nearly $60 billion. These five small businesses are leveraging this trend, knowing the convenience and personalization that their subscription services offer to their customers.
Driftaway Coffee
Brooklyn-based Driftaway Coffee has been roasting coffee from small-scale farmers since 2014. Owners Anu Menon and Suyog Mody realized how far coffee travels from the seed to the cup and wanted to pay homage to that journey through the company name. To take customers on their own coffee journey, Driftaway uses an unconventional approach for its subscription service.
Though Driftaway sells single bags of coffee, ideally everyone should start with the Explorer Kit. This box offers five sample roasts, ranging from light to dark, from around the world that are generically labeled as "blue" or "pink" so the customer doesn't have any preconceived notions about what they're drinking.
The kit comes with the option to do a self-guided tasting, or one can join a weekly Zoom tasting with a coffee educator. When the customer is ready to learn more about what's in their mug, they can read the enclosed postcards that tell the origin stories of each coffee. The customer can then set their subscription preferences such that they’ll receive roasts similar to those they favored.
Alternatively, customers can bypass the Explorer Kit and set up their taste profiles based on their past experience. The ultimate goal is to ensure Driftaway provides subscribers with the most personalized service possible.
Wax Buffalo
Woman-owned home goods brand Wax Buffalo started with Alicia Reisinger making small batches of candles in her kitchen. Since 2014, the brand has expanded into two storefronts that carry additional items, such as soaps, mini car diffusers, lotions, perfumes, and other lifestyle products. Soy candles, though, continue to be the core product for this brand.
Wax Buffalo candles are made from 100% domestically sourced soy wax and are hand-poured by Reisinger's team in Lincoln, Nebraska. They are vegan, cruelty-free, phthalate-free, and petroleum-free.
Since these candles are the company's bread-and-butter products, they're leveraged for subscription sales. There are two options to choose from: the classic collection subscription box and the seasonal collection subscription box. The classic box allows the customer to choose which scent they get each month, while the seasonal box leaves it up to Wax Buffalo to choose a seasonally relevant candle to send each month.
With a highly curated offering of houseplants that have been tested in small living quarters and selected for their resilience, Horti is eager to put more plants into people's homes and ease people’s anxiety about keeping them alive.
Horti
Sparked by conversations with friends wanting to add more greenery to their tiny New York City apartments but scared about killing their plants, Puneet Sabharwal and Bryana Sortino put their heads together to start Horti. With a highly curated offering of houseplants that have been tested in small living quarters and selected for their resilience, Horti is eager to put more plants into people's homes and ease their anxiety about keeping them alive.
Horti offers several subscription options, which range from a month-to-month plan to a 12-month subscription. Horti's subscription service is designed more like a program that takes the customer through different levels of plant care. As the months progress and the customer's confidence develops in caring for their plants, the company slowly delivers more challenging plants and exotic species. Horti also has a "My First Plant" kit that teaches children the basics of repotting, watering, and propagation over the course of three monthly deliveries.
Each subscription box comes with a hardy houseplant, a care card, tools, and sometimes a six-inch clay pot and saucer. Customers can opt for plastic grow pots if that is their preference. All of the plant species Horti carries are pet-friendly.
Sampl
Johan Eide and Kerry Thedorf, co-founders of the tasting room Region in California's wine country have developed a new way for wine lovers to enjoy tastings in the comfort of their own homes. As its name suggests, Sampl delivers samples of wine in a compact capsule for one-time purchases and quarterly subscriptions.
Customers who subscribe receive a set of seven wine samples four times a year from different wine-growing regions. Each capsule contains 100 milliliters of wine and a smart coaster that can be scanned to view detailed tasting notes, videos from the winemakers, recipes, and pairing suggestions.
Region's philosophy is to "craft relationships between the makers and drinkers" of wine. Eide and Thedorf achieve this by offering over 100 wines from independent wineries in the Sonoma and San Luis Obispo areas, respectively. Having established these partnerships through Region, Sampl provides small wineries with more exposure and, hopefully, drives more sales.
Fire Lake Soapery
Julie Zoller and her daughter Jaclyn Ubert started making natural soaps in 2015 and opened a shop in Paola, Kansas. Using plant-based ingredients and essential oils, the pair made bars of soap on-site in a back workroom. Laura Rozell took over Fire Lake Soapery in 2022, using the momentum of a burgeoning business to fulfill a longtime passion.
Rozell retired from the healthcare field after 35 years. Having made natural vegan products for about 25 years on a small scale, she decided to start a new chapter of her professional career and continue her mission to help others live healthier lives.
"Your skin pulls in everything, so what you put on your skin goes into your body," Rozell said. Each bar of soap is made with organic olive, coconut, castor, and meadowfoam seed oils. Fire Lake's soaps contain no synthetic colors or dyes, nor do they contain preservatives, phosphates, parabens, or sulfates.
Fire Lake soaps are sold by over 1,500 retailers nationwide and in five different countries; however, the small business also offers subscription boxes. Subscribers receive four hand-stamped bars each month and may request specific scents such as oatmeal lavender or lemongrass in the Notes section during checkout. The website claims, "We may even throw in a little extra gift now and then!"
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