Juniper Books drove retention with subscription programs
About
As a voracious reader and avid book collector, Thatcher Wine appreciated the magic of one-of-a-kind books. After sourcing rare book collections for clients, he started designing book jackets, customizing classics with original and delightful flair. Seeing the potential for a business, Thatcher founded Juniper Books in 2001 to bring customers curated book sets, helping people around the world rediscover the power of print.
Juniper Books crafts everything by hand, each creation sourced from the same elements: high quality, careful curation, and creative design. They offer a number of services, from building custom libraries for homes to unique book sets for hotels. They believe that books encourage good habits—Thatcher refers to reading as a “monotask,” something that requires full attention and presence, and invites people to slow down and spend time with a story. Juniper Books wanted to create a program that nurtured this practice and helped people build a book collection over time.
“Our subscription product is very durable and long lasting. Whether you keep our books on your own shelves or gift them, they last forever."
Thatcher Wine
Founder & CEO of Juniper Books
Challenge
With an endless world of books to choose from, Juniper Books narrowed down titles and developed three unique plans. They wanted to deliver these creative plans through a subscription model. With subscriptions, their customers could build libraries over time, and each month be reminded of their membership and encouraged to interact with their new book. Juniper Books could plan a full collection thoughtful of design and detail, to stand the test of time on bookshelves. They needed to provide their customers with a seamless experience to select a program, manage their subscription, and adjust order details as needed.
Solution
With Recharge’s platform, Juniper Books was able to offer their customers access to the Books Everyone Should Own program. Using Recharge’s powerful set of API’s, Juniper Books offered this program in three different versions. Customers can subscribe to the Books Everyone Should Own program for timeless novels, 20th century classics, or contemporary fiction. For the timeless novels and 20th century classics program, customers receive 12 incredible novels once a month for a year. But for their contemporary fiction version, they extended program access indefinitely, so customers can receive new and fresh literature for life.
Results
For a mission as personal as building a library, Juniper Books wanted to create distinct plans to meet customer needs and wants. By optimizing with Recharge, Juniper Books drove interest and retention. The company went its first 18 years without a subscription program, now subscription accounts for 5% of the company’s revenue and is steadily growing. Since the company was established to spread the joy of reading, Juniper Books also wanted to make it easy for customers to give subscriptions as a gift. They saw 30% of subscription orders placed as gifts, contributing to their mission to share the power of storytelling.
“We've been very pleased with how subscriptions have done and how happy customers have been with them. Our subscription customers tend to make additional purchases from us with greater frequency than other customers as well.”
Thatcher Wine
Founder & CEO of Juniper Books
