Cratejoy 90 Day Review that Turned into Six Months

You may remember I started an “experiment” of sorts on Cratejoy about six months ago. I talked about my initial setup on Cratejoy in this blog post. I planned to do a 90-day trial and report my results back to you.  

My goal was to answer two questions for myself and all of you: 

1. How easy or difficult was it to get my subscription box set up on the platform? 
2. Could Cratejoy’s marketplace bring me new subscribers I wouldn’t otherwise have? 

That 90-day trial ended up turning into six months. Today, I’m going to take you through the ups and downs of this six-month experiment and give you my take on whether you should consider selling your subscription box on Cratejoy. 

The first 60 days on Cratejoy. 

At the end of 30 days, I had one subscriber. Thirty people visited my Cratejoy page and one of them became a subscriber. That means I had a 3% conversion rate on my traffic. The industry average is a 1-3% conversion rate so my results were in line with that. 

My goal was to let it sit for another 60 days and then analyze those results. Remember, I sent NO traffic to my Cratejoy listing. The only way people found my subscription box there was by searching the Cratejoy site for different types of subscriptions. 

My one subscriber quickly became zero due to a failed payment on month two. We reached out to her many times and were ultimately unable to recover the payment. 

Sixty days had resulted in one subscriber for only one month. 

It felt disappointing, especially knowing how many new subscribers I regularly get on my own website. I’ll share more thoughts on that later.  

Almost to the 90-day mark.       

As the 90-day mark came closer, I still had no more sales or subscribers. I was ready to shut it down and complete my test. But then, suddenly, there was subscriber number two! 

This newfound spark in my Cratejoy account led me to decide to continue my test and see how long I would keep subscriber number two. And who knew? Maybe number three would join soon. 

Subscriber number two stayed for two months and then canceled right before her third payment was about to draft. 

My Cratejoy test was officially over. 

What did I learn from my Cratejoy test?    

I gained a lot of insight from my 90-day turned six-month test on Cratejoy. As always, I want to share that learning with you. 

1. Cratejoy is a great platform to get you up and running with your subscription box. 

If fear of tech is holding you back, Cratejoy may be a good solution while you figure it all out. I had my listing up on their site within an hour. 

I had to do some photo resizing. Learn how and why I did that by reading my initial Cratejoy setup blog post. 

I only tested the basic plan with no upgrades, so it was free until I made a sale.

2. Without driving my own traffic to Cratejoy, it was slow going. 

You cannot simply list your subscription box on Cratejoy and walk away. Cratejoy will not magically bring you subscribers. That’s just not how it works. 

I got caught up and had the false hope that Cratejoy’s four million users meant thousands of shoppers would be lining up for my box. 

3. I was now competing with thousands of other subscribers with boxes very similar to mine. 

Those other subscribers? They offered free boxes and discounts, selling their boxes cheaply. That was not where I belonged. 

I didn’t want to be Walmart. I wanted to be Target. 

I don’t want to be the cheapest place, focused on mass-producing things at a low price. 

I want to be Target. You know how you feel when you go into Target. Stopping and grabbing a latte, checking out the dollar spot, strolling the aisles looking at everything - and falling in love with some of it. 

It’s the experience of Target that makes it different from Walmart. I want to create an experience with my box. 

4. My Cratejoy subscribers didn’t stay. 

They weren’t connected to me. They didn’t have a reason to stay. Those subscribers didn’t get to show up for a LIVE with me, comment on my funny posts, or even get to know who I am. They were in and out, just like that. 

Retention is built from our connections. 

Don’t ever forget that. How do you show up? How do you connect with your subscribers and make them feel seen and heard? 

Final thoughts on Cratejoy.    

The bottom line is Cratejoy is a tech tool that can get you up and running faster than anything I’ve seen. If tech is what’s stopping you, get over there and get your subscription box listed. 

But you have to show up and do the work. 

You have to drive traffic, you have to love on your people. Cratejoy won’t do that for you.  

So my question is… if you have to work it, wouldn’t you rather send people to your own website and skip the Cratejoy fees? 

To put it in perspective, during this same six-month period, we added over 400 subscribers on our own site. Two on Cratejoy, 400 on our own site. 

I drove the traffic to my website to create those sales. 

Would I really want to pay Cratejoy 11.25% for traffic I generated? 

Would I want to send my audience to a platform where they have lots of options to subscribe to other boxes similar to mine? 

The obvious answer is, “No!” 

I’m closing my Cratejoy account now that my only remaining subscriber canceled. It turns out, canceling isn’t easy. I had to log a ticket and I’m waiting for someone to get back to me so I can shut it down. I thought there would be a simple “Delete My Page” button somewhere, but there isn’t. 

Final words on Cratejoy: 

• Use Cratejoy as a tech tool, not a traffic source. 
• Get your own site up and running as soon as possible. 
• Own your traffic, your list, and your site. 

When you’re ready to get your own site up and running, this blog post will help you decide on a platform and inspire you to take that next step.