E-commerce has experienced significant growth in recent years, but what about merchants who sell digital products and services? Music, videos, e-books, e-learning, online events, virtual concerts — there are endless ways to sell online that let you skip the shipping and warehousing headache. 

Many customers had their first taste of digital products and services during Covid-19. When we couldn’t gather for someone's birthday, we bought them a Cameo of their favorite TV character or celebrity. When we couldn't go to school we signed up for an online masterclass. We even paid admission to watch concerts virtually. Covid might be in the rearview, but this industry is showing no signs of slowing down. 

• In 2020 alone, it is estimated that 2 billion shoppers purchased digital products. 
• 83% consumers expect the demand for digital products to increase even further in the post-pandemic stage.

The sky’s the limit

The subscription economy is set to reach $1.5 Trillion by 2025. If you sell digital products or services, there’s no excuse to not get in on this revenue. Thanks to a recent integration between Shop Circle’s Sky Pilot app and popular subscription solution Loop, it’s easier than ever to start selling subscriptions. 

We built Sky Pilot with the goal of providing Shopify stores with a reliable solution to manage and sell digital products and services. Some key features include: 

• The ability to instantly deliver the content customers have purchased, while easily managing your images, videos and files. 
• Complete customization of your purchase and delivery experience. 
• Direct on-brand hosting and access to enterprise grade security. And more! 

But what if you want to unlock revenue selling digital products or services as a subscription? 

Sky Pilot comes with a built-in integration which works seamlessly with the Loop app to sell subscriptions. 

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What is Loop? 

Loop is a customizable subscriptions solution that lets you level up your customer experience through personalization and gamification. Create and automate subscription flows, increase repeat purchases and recurring revenue, and grow the lifetime value (LTV) of your customers. 

Why integrate with Loop?

Thanks to recent updates, you can now easily integrate Loop into your Sky Pilot workflow. Add these exciting features to your digital products offering: 

Performance 

• Avoid affecting page speed and load times with Loop’s high-performing subscription widget. 
• Migrate easily with free white-glove management and support (phone, email, Slack).
• Reduce support tickets with a mobile first & self-serve customer portal. 

Customer Centric 

• Designed with direct insights from the DTC community. 
• Customize your customer portal and exit surveys with Instagram and Tik Tok integrations. 
• Create personalized & gamified subscriptions with a no-code-required workflow builder. 

Grow Revenue

• Sell subscription boxes, bundles, or any custom subscription program imaginable.  
• Personalize and gamify your subscription flow from first touch to exit for optimized retention. 
• Stop losing subscription revenue to credit card failures with intuitive dunning management.

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Here’s how it works

Are you ready to integrate Loop and Sky Pilot to start selling your digital products as subscriptions? Here’s a step-by-step guide to make it easy: 

First, make sure Sky Pilot is installed on your Shopify store and your account is active. Next, ensure at least a Growth plan of Loop Subscriptions is enabled. 

Once you have both apps active, follow these instructions: 

Step 1: In your Loop admin, Create a selling plan and map relevant products you want to sell as subscriptions. 

Step 2: Open:

1. Active Subscriber Tag: Choose this option to send digital content to all active subscribers for a selling plan.
2. Active Subscriber Tag with Product Info: Choose this option if you want to send different content to different customers based on the subscription product purchased.

Step 3: Copy the tag generated in Step 2. If you chose Option B, put in the exact product name in place of {{PRODUCT_NAME}}. 

Step 4: Open your Sky Pilot app and select Settings > Subscriptions.

Step 5: Locate the selling plan created in Step 1 on Loop and click on Add button.

Step 6: Paste and save the tag that you copied in Step 3.

Step 7: In the Sky Pilot app, find your subscription product by clicking on the Products icon on the left-hand column. Here you can attach a digital file or a video which subscribers will receive upon purchase.

That’s it! View your newly activated product in your storefront and test the entire purchase journey to ensure it is customer ready. Let’s now look at a common use case:

Use Case: How to distribute personalized digital content to specific subscribers

For this case, let’s imagine you run a yoga studio that sells memberships as monthly subscriptions. Let's say you want to send subscribers beginner videos in their first month, then send subscribers intermediate videos in their second month.

Customers under Condition #1 Yoga Trial Subscription and Condition #2 Meditation - Charged Every Month will receive the tag Meditation_Begineer. Now you can ensure customers tagged this way receive beginner videos. 

In this similar example, Customers under Condition #1 Yoga Trial Subscription and Condition #2 Meditation - Charged Every Month are tagged with Meditation_Intermediate. Customers tagged this way are able to receive intermediate videos. 

Setting up custom content flows to ensure the right customer receives the right content is key in creating subscription glows that feel personalized and tailored to each customer's experience.

Read: The future of digital products in an evolving e-commerce world. 

Wrapping Up

It’s that easy to enhance your digital products offering with just two easy-to-use and seamlessly integrating apps. 

To get started with Loop, check out different plans available on the Shopify App Store. Remember, you will need at least a Growth plan to access the functionality we covered today.

Try out Sky Pilot today FREE for 14-days. That should buy you enough time to assess whether it is the right solution for your Shopify store. We think you’ll love the results!

If you have any questions, or need help managing advanced or custom business logic, feel free to reach out to Shop Circle’s customer support team. 

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