Delivering gifts to each other is a key way people display how much a person means to them. This is something Shopify app Govalo takes to heart. The company works to help retailers on the platform offer consumers a seamless virtual gift card experience. Today, Govalo is growing into a new sector thanks to a recent partnership with Austin’s Bold Commerce.
Atlanta-based Govalo has been hard at work since Built In last spoke with the company. Since March, it has grown its merchant count by 38 percent and more than doubled its revenue, according to Rhian Beutler, Govalo’s CEO and founder. Its latest move will help keep that momentum going strong.
The company and Bold Commerce’s subscription platform, Bold Subscriptions, are teaming up to help retailers provide gift subscriptions to shoppers. The goal is to give retailers the chance to convert one-time gift recipients into long-term subscribers.
“Gifting is a cornerstone of our culture,” Beutler told Built In via email. “We love sending gifts for multiple reasons, and the easier Govalo makes it for customers and merchants to send gifts, the more gifts will be sent. This positively impacts both the giver and receiver, as well as the merchant. We can put a smile on everyone’s face.”
Bold Subscriptions lets brands configure, customize and tailor their subscription offerings, from generating custom onboarding and rules to giving customers flexibility in how they manage their subscription. The platform’s features allow brands to quickly launch subscription programs while its APIs let them create their own offerings.
Govalo will appear as an integration on Bold Subscriptions’ platform. In addition to sellers’ existing revenue stream, they will be able to create and customize a gift subscription product that can easily shift to a normal subscription once the gifting period is over, according to the company. Retailers will be able to decide how that product appears online, down to the item, image and subscription cycle times. From there, retailers can launch the subscription for customers to purchase on their e-commerce site just as they would buy a subscription for themselves.
Subscription recipients will have the ability to manage their subscription by changing dates and swapping items. They’ll also be able to choose whether to bill the subscription to their own credit card when the gifting period ends.
“Gifting subscriptions has been a problem in the subscription and gifting market that has needed to be solved for years,” Beutler said. “Making it easy for customers to gift their favorite subscriptions to their friends and family not only will make it easier for the customers to send gifts, [but] it will also increase the lifetime value of each customer while reducing the cost of acquisition for merchants.”
This idea is fueling consistent growth in the global e-commerce subscription industry. Subscriptions have grown in popularity as of late due to their convenience. As more people adopt subscription programs, the market is projected to reach a value of $904.2 billion by 2026.
“It’s rare a store has the ability to intimately know the recipient of a product purchased on their site as a gift. When subscription gifting is done properly, the experience of the handoff from the giver to the recipient, through to the brand, is seamless,” Jay Myers, co-founder of Bold Commerce, told Built In via email. “That’s exactly what we anticipate with the integration between Bold Subscriptions and Govalo. ... Subscriptions are the gifts that keep on giving, and with this partnership, we’re making that true for both consumers and brands.”
