Migrated to Recharge with 0 storefront downtime
About
Wohven offers a better way to buy quality men's essentials like graphic t-shirts, blank t-shirts, socks, and boxer briefs on a monthly subscription basis at a fraction of the price of retail. Each item is uniquely and intentionally crafted by a career designer who takes time to contribute a unique design they genuinely enjoy to the brand.
When the team at Wohven decided to lean into the subscription business, they knew they’d need to move away from Cratejoy to better accommodate their unique business model. Because their subscription offerings weren’t box-based, but rather product-based, they wanted a selling platform that was less rigid and allowed for greater customization. They started the search for a new ecommerce platform and subscription billing tool that would make migration as pain-free as possible.
“Our migration process went more seamlessly than I ever would've anticipated. I expected it to be pretty darn painful. But it wasn’t, and any time that there was an issue that came up, there was never a time where anyone at Recharge couldn’t help.”
Drew Carson
Founder, Wohven
Challenge
Customization and flexibility were two top priorities for Wohven as they looked for a new ecommerce subscription solution.
“We needed a platform that would allow for a lot of interaction with our subscription customers and that was generally easy to use,” said founder Drew Carson. “The other platforms I was seeing really focused on a single box subscription, which we were not. That meant they only offered one checkout flow, giving the customer just a few options. For our customers, we needed multiple options and a cart system that allowed shoppers to build their own subscriptions.”
They ultimately chose Shopify because of its flexibility and ease of use. As for their integrated subscription billing tool, Recharge made sense because it also offered a flexible platform that would give their customers options and customization opportunities around their subscriptions.
With those choices in place, they then dove into the migration process and prepared to make the switch—but the transition wasn’t without its own set of fears, worries, and anxieties.
“The idea of moving all of our customer data and introducing a brand new system to our customers scared the hell out of me. The whole idea of changing things was especially intimidating since we were averaging eight or nine months with our current set of buyers,” Drew said. “They were all very comfortable with the existing system, so changing things seemed insane. In fact, multiple times I almost talked myself out of migrating altogether.”
However, thanks to the experienced team at Recharge, in just a few weeks Wohven had their new store and subscription products launched on Shopify.
Solution
For Wohven, the entire migration process from Cratejoy took about two months from prep to launch. As no migration is flawless, there were a few minor hiccups with data, but the Recharge team was right there to work through those issues the moment they popped up.
“One of the bright spots of the migration process for me was that Recharge was by our side the whole time and helped resolve anything that came up right away. When we had some customers get started at the wrong price point during migration, within the same day I was able to work through that with the team and move all those people to the right price,” said Drew. “I felt like I had somebody at Recharge that was on call for us during migration, and I can't think of any scenario where we had an issue and the support team at Recharge didn't have some sort of solution for it.”
Post-launch, Wohven ramped up and started introducing new products on a subscription basis, thus increasing opportunities for greater revenue.
“What really drove home the effectiveness of Shopify and Recharge for us was that when we started to introduce more products (like socks and boxer briefs), we realized we were now able to let our customers shop like they would in any other store...but within a subscription model. That would've been difficult without Recharge and its tools that make for such an easy cart system.”
Results
Despite what initially felt like an intimidating move, the team at Wohven is reaping the benefits of a migration to Shopify. Thanks to this new platform and the introduction of Recharge for subscriptions, the brand has reduced its churn rate to a mere 3.5% and is experiencing growth around average order value, with 15% of current customers purchasing an add-on to their existing subscriptions.
“I felt like I had somebody at Recharge that was on call for us during migration, and I can't think of any scenario where we had an issue and the support team at Recharge didn't have some sort of solution for it.”
Drew Carson
Founder, Wohven
