MASTER THESIS Typologies of Subscription-based Business Models Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University T.P. van Letht 418718 Supervisor: dr. G.J. Rietveld Co-reader: prof. dr. ir. G.H. van Bruggen Rotterdam, June 2016 The copyright of this master thesis rests with the author. This thesis is original work and no other sources were used aside from the sources that have been indicated in the text and named in the References section. The author is responsible for its contents. RSM is only responsible for the educational coaching and cannot be held liable for the content. 2 Preface This thesis marks the conclusion of a great journey I have had at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. I would like to thank dr. Joost Rietveld for coaching me how to conduct the research. I appreciated our insightful feedback sessions at the university and his valuable suggestions to enhance this research. I would also like to thank Prof. dr. ir. Gerrit van Bruggen for his inspiring courses on Marketing Strategy and critical eye as a co- reader for this thesis. Finishing my MSc and this thesis takes a lot of time and patience, also for the people close to me. I am especially thankful to my wife Liesbeth for her endless support. And of course I would like to thank my employer Achmea and direct colleagues for giving me the opportunity to finish this study. 3 Table of contents 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 6 2 Literature review ............................................................................................................... 10 2.1 Business models ......................................................................................................... 10 2.1.1 Value creation ...................................................................................................... 10 2.2 Subscription-based business models .......................................................................... 11 2.3 Factors of Subscription-based business models ......................................................... 12 2.3.1 Loyalty / Lock-in ................................................................................................. 13 2.3.2 Personalization, mass customization and curation .............................................. 16 2.3.3 Convenience ........................................................................................................ 17 2.3.4 Expert role/curation ............................................................................................. 18 2.4 Summary .................................................................................................................... 19 3 Research design ................................................................................................................. 21 3.1 Research data .............................................................................................................. 21 3.2 Measures ..................................................................................................................... 22 3.3 Factor analysis ............................................................................................................ 24 3.4 Cluster analysis ........................................................................................................... 25 4 Research results ................................................................................................................. 26 5 Discussion ......................................................................................................................... 30 5.1 Limitations and future research .................................................................................. 32 6 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 34 7 References ......................................................................................................................... 35 8 Appendices ........................................................................................................................ 38 8.1 List of Subscription-based companies ........................................................................ 38 8.2 Checklist observations ................................................................................................ 40 8.3 Observations/data collection ...................................................................................... 44 8.4 STATA results ............................................................................................................ 52 4 Abstract This research looks into developing typologies of Subscription-based Business Models (SBMs), resulting in three new typologies for SBMs: Curation, Exclusivity and Personalization. With the absence of Network effect, Switching costs and also a negative loading of lock-in on the Exclusivity typology, we also see that SBMs do not create any barriers for customers to unsubscribe. These typologies resulted from a literature review on factors of SBMs. We compared these typologies to 84 companies that are practicing an SBM from three industries - Food, Cosmetics and Media. Traditionally, subscriptions have been offered for products such as newspapers. In more recent years, companies like Netflix, HelloFresh and Birchbox have been offering their products via subscriptions, creating an extra experience for customers. With their popularity rising, the media and business community have been showing a growing interest in SBMs. As far as we know, this is the first academic research specifically on SBMs. We add new insights that could be valuable for both companies and researchers who want to learn more about this business model. 5 1 Introduction Companies that sell their products through subscriptions are using a Subscription-based Business Model (SBM). Subscriptions offer a way for customers to sign up to receive a product or service at regular intervals. Instead of paying per product or every time a customer uses the service, these subscriptions are paid in advance and over a longer period of time. SBMs are the future for many industries, they bring value to companies and to customers (Longanecker, 2015). That is why some predict that they will become important for every industry (Hill, 2015), or could also function as a tactical move or as ‘a gift-wrapped Trojan horse’ (Gayomali, 2015). The popularity of this business model is more mature in North America than in other regions such as Europe. This research looks into developing typologies of SBMs. Traditionally, companies have been offering subscriptions for e.g. receiving a newspaper every morning or getting access to cable TV channels. More recent examples include companies offering subscriptions for unlimited music streaming (e.g. Spotify) or video streaming (e.g. Netflix). And even more recently, we have also seen companies in other industries adopting SBMs. For instance, in the food industry these days, multiple companies are offering subscriptions to food ingredients and recipes selected by experts to be delivered at customers’ homes every week. For example, HelloFresh is a subscription recipe delivery service in the Netherlands that quadrupled its sales in 2015 compared to 2014. And in the cosmetics industry, Birchbox is a company that offers a monthly delivery box consisting of personalized beauty samples. There is a growing interest in new business models because of changing consumer behavior. People hold higher expectations of products and services than ever before, and for companies it is becoming increasingly difficult to expose unique selling points to distinguish themselves from their competitors. We can see three main trends in the way companies are offering their products and services to customers. First, experience economy companies go beyond selling a product or service. They create experiences to influence perceptions of their offerings and buying decisions in their favor. Commodities are exchangeable, goods tangible, services intangible, and experiences memorable (Pine II & Gilmore, 1998). The experience economy is showing companies and customers that not only products or services themselves are enough. Second, the sharing economy is creating a big impact on the traditional role of buyer and seller. With platforms like AirBnB and Snappcar consumers are getting used to buy products or services under other conditions, not necessarily from companies. Finally, the rise of online businesses is a positive impulse for subscription-based models. To create online value as a business, new strategies need to be created and applied to attract customers. 6 Creating value has become increasingly about efficiently offering products or services as well as delivering ‘stickiness’ to have returning customers (Zott, Amit, & Donlevy, 2000). These trends strongly relate to SBMs. First, subscriptions bring new experiences to known products or services. Second, buyers and sellers need to build a connection before a subscription is started. Finally, SBMs create new opportunities for companies that sell products online. With the digitization of news, newspaper subscriptions have been replaced by advertising business models, and with consumers now blocking these advertisements, SBMs are again becoming more popular. But not only the media got digital, other businesses also created new opportunities using the internet for their