Delay Retention Rate: What it is and why it matters for subscription businesses

What's your delay retention rate? 

It's the percentage of subscription customers who delay a subscription then go on to have a successful charge. This metric helps sellers understand how powerful offering easy delays can be. 

Subscribers want the flexibility to delay, either because they have too much, need a little break, or will be away during the next scheduled delivery. It's easier to keep them as a subscriber if they can simply delay (vs cancelling then needing to be won back). 

At ARPU, we're obsessed with delivering subscriber experiences that extend LTV. Easy peasy delays are a big part of that. 

During this session, Ashley Guttuso from ARPU unpacked

How Delay Retention Rate is calculated

Industry benchmarks from our merchant data (in 2021, ARPU merchants saw an average DRR of 63%) 

How one company added delays and saw a 50% drop in "too much product" churn 

If you learn something from this discussion, we'd love to have you join us next time. Learn more about this series here: https://liveseries.getarpu.com/  

This series is brought to you by GetARPU.com, which helps subscription sellers make more money and retain more customers with upcoming shipment notifications that offer 2-click upsells and delays. Check us out if you want to provide an amazing experience for your subscription customers. (Syncs with ReCharge (Shopify + BigCommerce)). 

Timestamps

• 0:00 Intro
• 2:04 Why you should offer your subscribers the option to delay their order
• 4:42 How offering a delay option can influence your subscribers’ LTV
• 6:35 How to calculate Delay Retention Rate (?)
• 9:33 How Jimmy Joy used delays to cut “too much product” churn in half
• 13:29 Sneak peak of what’s coming to the Merchant dashboard in ARPU
• 21:12 Why ARPU is invested in Delay Retention Rate
• 23:47 The future of Subscription Ecommerce Live