Businesses Should Want a Membership—Not a Subscription. Why?

When talking about memberships and subscriptions, these two business models are sometimes interchanged but actually are different. They often differ in their pricing, customers, and offerings.  A subscription is often not a membership, but a membership often encompasses a subscription.  A membership is often an elevated and more powerful subscription that collectivizes and leverages the subscribers.

What They Have In Common
With both models, you often pay a fee and receive a service or content.

Siloed vs. Community Engagement
With the subscription model, there is often a one-way street between you and the provider where you simply digest the service or content. For example, you may get a magazine, Netflix, or Spotify “subscription.” You pay a fee regularly and get the latest content or software as it is distributed to subscribers.  You don’t interact with other magazines or Shopify subscribers like yourself. You are a siloed user.  You sign up, receive access to the software tools, and then you’re on your own.  For this reason, they don't call it a "magazine membership" or “Shopify membership.” 

In a membership model, you are often able to interact with other customers (aka members). That’s the case with a gym, university club, or Soho House membership.  When you join Bridge, you receive a membership and are welcomed into a community of like-minded retail business owners that share news, products, and files with each other. Members can find other stores and brands and do prospecting. Businesses can learn from the group and leverage its power.  Siloed subscription services miss these important benefits.

Benefits of Member Collaboration
In a world where e-commerce rules, indie stores and brands must choose their platforms carefully. A siloed subscription platform that leaves one alone in their online pursuits may result in higher costs, fewer sales, and be a recipe for failure.  In contrast, membership platforms can substantially reduce costs, increase selection, and boost sales via a crowd-sourcing, community approach.  Bridge’s 1,000 stores share 64,000 products with 110 brands. Collectively the stores are saving hundreds of thousands of dollars on website upkeep and years of labor. For example, The Ivy House, a tabletop store in Dallas, shares 50,000 products with brand members—saving $50,000 on product upkeep. The stores using Bridge also report selling 18% more due to the service.

Audience / Customer Base
There are often no criteria to start a subscription. Want to get People magazine or Shopify? Go for it. There’s no pre-qualifier. While subscriptions have few barriers to entry, a membership may. Bridge requires members to be in the retail industry and, if they are a retailer, have a physical location and a federal tax ID number. This ensures our members are qualified, professional, and serious about success. 

Customer Acquisition & Growth
Membership business models also help reduce customer acquisition costs—a Holy Grail of business management.  Bridge grows by its members inviting their business friends to join. In contrast, most subscription-based entities, since they lack a community, have to spend on adverting to acquire customers. The result is Bridge acquires customers for less compared to subscription services like Shopify. 

Bridge is one of the few e-commerce platforms that uses a membership model and believes this model will become more prevalent. 

Read more about memberships vs. subscriptions here:
https://www.paidmembershipspro.com/memberships-vs-subscriptions/

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