Basics of WooCommerce Subscription
In this post, I am going to explain how subscriptions work on your WordPress/WooCommerce with the SUbscription plugin.
A Subscription is just a contract between your site and customer. It charges the customer in provided payment method in certain frequency for X amount(whatever the product this customer subscribed).
All products are not available for subscriptions by default. You might create a plan and add certain products as a subscription type.
When a customer sign up for subscription on your website, the customer chooses the frequency of the orders. for example, every 2 weeks, month, 2 monthes and so on. And the end of the check out page for the subscription, the customer enter the payment information (credit card) and make a first purchase. This creates a NEW subscription and a NEW order on you dashboard.
When you go to dashboard, WooCommerce > Orders. You will see a new order as an order. But now there is a new column which identifies they are subscription related orders.
#1 Parent Order – This is an initial order customer just signed up a new subscription.
#2 Renewal Order – This is any following order from the related subscription. You can tell this is a repeat order.
A subscription generates these orders in a set frequency, days, weeks, months, or years. You don’t have to do anything unless you encounter some problems. Just watch orders as you usually would.
What should I do when the expected order didn’t come?
As your subscription customers grow, you might remember who’s orders come on what day. And you might realize a gap or no order. If this happens, check the subscription status.
Go to WooCommerce > Subscriptions
Find the subscription you are expecting to generate a new order. Check the status.
- If it says “Active” it should have created a new order. Click the subscription number and see in detailed page. Scroll down to see related orders. See what orders are there and the details.
- If the subscription status says other than active, you might need to investigate. Read what each status means from the link here.
How to process orders created by a subscription?
Do exactly like any other order. Just make sure you have already gotten paid.
What should I do if customers call me to set up a subscription for them?
Refer to this article for how to create subscription manually
Customers want to cancel their subscriptions. How do they cancel?
- Direct them to go to My Account > Subscriptions.
- Choose and click a subscription number they want to cancel or click View.
- Click the “Cancel” button
Customers want me to cancel the subscription, how do I do?
You can edit a customer’s subscription from Dashboard. Read how to edit a customer’s subscription.