The Subscription extension is one of the most popular WooCommerce extensions our there, I can attest to that as I have used it myself over the years. It has also had some notable improvements over time.
But as with any extension or plugin, you only want to load it with so many features. Features that some may want to offer to their customers. That is where the Toolbox for WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin comes in. Trust me. It’s really cool.
If you have a store and are using WooCommerce subscriptions for recurring orders, let me show you what you can do with this plugin.
The Toolbox for WooCommerce Subscriptions Plugin
The plugin essentially adds these new options for customers in their account page:
- Skip Next Shipment
- Ship Now
- Change Next Payment Date
- Change Frequency
- Edit Existing Subscription
- Add Products to Existing Subscription
- Edit Product Quantities in Existing Subscriptions
There is a setting page where you can activate or deactivate any of the plugin settings, which is all of the actions you want to give your customers. Here is what that looks like with an explanation of what each of them do.
Multiple Subscription Options
If you multiple subscriptions, when you visit the subscription tab on your account page, you have these bulk options.
Ship Now/Reschedule – this will charge the customer, create an order and change the next payment to when the customer requested it.
Ship Now/Keep – this charges the customer, creates an order but also keeps the scheduled date for the next order.
Save Quantities – here you are able to change the number of quantities for the next order.
What Can Be Changed on Single Subscriptions
If you have a single subscription or click through to one subscription, there are several settings you can activate offer your customers. Here I have them all toggled on.
Three of those I have already explained, and Cancel, Change Address, Change Payment and Renew Now are self-explanatory.
You will notice that there is a Ship now, reschedule from today that allows you to change the shipping date completely.
And if I did choose to Skip the next payment, originally it was set for this date.
Now you can see if has been moved one month ahead.
And here they are able to change the next payment date.
Adding to an Existing Subscription
This is an interesting option as it allows a customer to add a new subscription to an existing subscription. Let me give you an example.
So I am signed up for my monthly chocolates. Well, I am finding out it’s not quite enough for my craving, but I don’t want to double the amount. So instead I am going to choose the weekly subscription, add it to my existing one, and I’ll get that smaller amount each month instead.
I didn’t have to checkout or anything, it was automatically added. Now if I go into my account page, I will see that it is added as a monthly subscription.
This would also work if you have a product that you did not normally offer as a subscription, it could still be added.
If your store is a mix of subscriptions and single purchased products, and you don’t want that option available for the latter, you can toggle it off in the product settings.
Adding Dates to Button Text
Back in your settings that I showed you before, add fields to reflect any dates on select buttons
As you can see, these are just a few features that can extend the Subscriptions extension and offer more options for your customers.
When adding options such as skipping a payment, etc., keep in mind your products and your customers. Think through how this will add a benefit to your customer but also not affecting your bottom line with drastic influxes of income. Although these are powerful features to have, make sure you fully understand how and when your customers will use them.
You can learn more or purchase the WooCommerce Subscription Toolbox plugin here.