Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Appstle General
Appstle is a SaaS B2B company in the e-commerce space. Founded by an Apple-Siri Engineer, and a former BCG Consultant and ex-Amazonian, Appstle uses revolutionary technology, to build unique, tailored, and affordable applications that enable e-commerce stores to provide the best end-to-end experience to their customers/shoppers.
Appstle℠ Inc. is headquartered in the heart of the Silicon Valley Bay Area in Sunnyvale, California. Appstle also has business offices in Vancouver, British Columbia and South Asia.
Appstle’s revolutionary solutions focus on customer loyalty, retention, and customer wallet share (AOV) spaces within e-commerce.
Appstle’s flagship product Appstle Subscriptions, as well as Appstle Memberships, and the recently launched Appstle Loyalty, help merchants establish a strong and lasting relationship with their customers though automatic recurring orders, membership programs, and rewards/loyalty programs. Appstle’s products and solutions also enable merchants to increase their share of wallet from customers by improving Average Order Value and overall Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV).
Appstle’s products and solutions are currently available on Shopify and Shopily Plus. Expansion to Woo Commerce and Big Commerce are in the longterm pipeline
Payment for all Appstle products and solutions are currently through Shopify billings only.
Appstle Subscriptions
Subscriptions or recurring orders are when your customers or shoppers checkout a product or products from your store, but instead of it just being a one-time sale, the product is sold and delivered to them on a recurring basis. Their billing and shipping information are pre-saved (on Shopify) when they first checkout, and you get recurring revenue from the sales.
Subscriptions or recurring orders can be for multiple periods – weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc based on your store, products, and customer needs! We, at Appstle support all!
We, as a subscription app on Shopify and Shopify plus, integrate with Shopify to automatically process an order on recurring basis, and charge customers on pre-set intervals (set by merchants).
For example, if a customer is signed up for a Weekly subscription plan on your online store, our system will place orders on the customer’s behalf (through Shopify) every week, and charge them for each order automatically 🙂
Yes, Appstle supports Shopify Theme Extension and is hence Shopify OS 2.0 compatible.
Appstle Subscriptions is a Shopify V2 (version 2) subscription app. We are deeply and seamlessly integrated with Shopify checkout and operate according to Shopify guidelines. Given that, the payment gateways currently supported by Shopify for subscriptions, and hence supported by Appstle are:
- Shopify Payments
- PayPal Express
- Authorize.net
- Stripe
- ShopPay
- Apple Pay
For more information on Shopify payment payment guidelines, please review – https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/payments
Yes! Our subscription widget can be integrated to your homepage/collection pages. The core need for the integration, is to have the ADD TO CART button enabled for the products in the product page. Once this is availabel, please contact our team (available 24/7/365). We will do a quick manual addition of script from our end, and you will be all set.
We have a demo store built just for merchants to preview the look and feel, and some key functionalities that Appstle Subscription provides, before they install the app! You can visit – demo-appstle-subscription.myshopify.com (the password is 123456).
Also, our tech engineers and product support team provide 1:1 live demos of our product, on request. Please contact us at subscription-support@appstle.com, to schedule a meeting!
You will be able to do that from the Subscriptions option of your merchant’s dashboard/merchant portal. All you need to do is to click on the Subscriptions tab in the navigation menu on the left, as shown below:
Open the contract by clicking on the subscription ID, and you will be able to edit from the available settings.
One of the coveted functionalities of Appstle is the ‘pre-set’ fulfillment dates, which allows the merchant to consolidate recurring order shipments and order fulfillments on specific dates (days or week or dates of the month) for efficiency of operation.
Connected to ‘pre-set’ dates is ‘cut off dates’. The function of cut off days while setting pre-set delivery dates, is to filter out just or newly created subscription orders that are too close to the pre-set delivery date.
For instance, lets assume you have a weekly subscription plan. You have set the pre-set day as Saturday. This means that all orders that are a part of this subscription plan will be fulfilled on Saturday. Now, lets assume that you set the cut-off day as ‘1’. What this means is that in any given week, all subscription orders that were created at least ‘1’ day before Saturday (i.e Friday or earlier) will be fulfilled on that immediate Saturday. Any order that was created on Saturday will be considered too close for fulfillment, and its delivery will start from the next week.
Setting cut off days is purely optional; its sole purpose is to reduce the stress on merchants!
For more information you can view this article – https://app.intercom.com/a/apps/x4xb7xfy/articles/articles/5213425/show
Yes, the shipping profiles created in Appstle Subscriptions can be edited! If you want to update the shipping rates or make name any other changes, you can do so by editing the existing shipping profiles from the Appstle dashboard.
Yes, the price of products will be updated automatically in subscriptions orders IF the auto sync feature is enabled. If this feature is not enabled, the prices will not be automatically synced, and would have to be done manually. Appstle also offers other ways such as Bulk Automations and manage/edit subscriptions, to update pricing.
Ofcourse! Customers can buy subscriptions as a gift 🙂
For example, if I am a customer and want to buy a subscription plan for a product/products for one of my friends, I will enter my billing details and my friend’s shipping details at the time of checkout 🙂
Appstle offers three types of billing – a) Pay as you Go b) Prepaid One Time and c) Prepaid Auto Renew. The core functionality of all plan types is the same, to charge customers upfront for their upcoming subscription order or orders. The difference lies in how many upcoming orders the customer is charged for at the time of payment processing.
The Pay as you Go type charges just for the ‘immediately next’ recurring order or delivery. In other words, it covers just 1 order cycle. It is the most commonly used billing type.
For example, when you provide ‘pay as you go’ billing for your subscription orders, and offer monthly subscriptions, your customers will be charged on a monthly basis, for their orders. The payment will be processed before their product is shipped every month.
The Prepaid One Time billing type goes a few notches above the pay as you go model, and allows the merchant to receive the payment for multiple periods of future orders at the same time. For example, Instacart, a well known delivery subscription service operates on monthly subscription (pay as you go) payment model. But it also offers the option to customers, to pay for a full year (12 months) at one time, for a small discount (prepaid billing).
Please note that in ‘Prepaid One time Billing’, the contract pauses at the end of the billing cycle (in this example, 12 months), and needs to be manually renewed by the customer.
The Prepaid Auto Renew plan is very similar to the prepaid billing type, except that the contract does not pause at the end of the billing cycle (in the above example, 12 months), and auto renews, until the customer expressly cancels the subscription 🙂
Appstle Membership
Memberships, is simply put, a system to provide your customers with a status in your store. For a set price that is auto-billed to your customers at recurring and regular intervals, your customers become your members!
Offering memberships is one of the most basic ways to increase your brand’s reach, loyalty, and market share, and can be based on exclusive perks to members (e.g. Amazon Prime’s free shipping), or access (e.g. Costco’s exclusive service to members).
Appstle℠ Memberships is a top Memberships app on Shopify and Shopify Plus. It belongs to Appstle℠ Inc, which also owns Appstle Subscriptions.
Appstle℠ Memberships is the only end-to-end Memberships app on Shopify that covers all 4 facets of offering membership plans to your customers – a) Creating and managing membership plans b) Offering unlimited, tiered, and customized member perks c) Member and member order tagging d) Auto billing.
To create and run your membership programs through Appstle℠, you would first need to create ‘membership’ plans. You can create multiple membership plans for your store. You can set each of these as Daily, Monthly, Weekly, Yearly, or any other custom timeframe, per your requirements.
You can then add specific perks (discounts, exclusive (full or part) access) to the Membership plans. This way, any customer who becomes your store’s member by purchasing a membership plan will be eligible for the special benefits. Appstle℠’s in-built auto tagging will automatically tag all members and their orders, to connect them to their eligible perks.
As a membership app on Shopify and Shopify Plus, Appstle℠ Memberships seamlessly integrates with Shopify Checkout to automatically charge the customer for their member plans.
Appstle℠ Memberships is a Shopify V2 (version 2) membership app. We are deeply and seamlessly integrated with Shopify checkout and operate according to Shopify guidelines. Given that, the payment gateways currently supported by Shopify for memberships, and hence supported by Appstle℠ are:
- Shopify Payments
- PayPal Express
- Authorize.net
- Stripe
- ShopPay
- Apple Pay
For more information on Shopify payment guidelines, please review – https://shopify.dev/apps/subscriptions#known-limitations
These are the benefits/privileges businesses offer customers who purchase the membership plans and become loyal members of their store.
Currently, we’re offering two types of membership perks.
- Exclusive Membership Access
- Limit Access to Add to Cart Button
- Limit Access to Specific Product Pages
- Limit Access to Specific Blog Pages
- Limit Access to Specific Collection Pages
- Limit Access to Specific Pages
- Alternate templates
- Member Discount
- Free Shipping Discount
- Percentage Discount
- Fixed Amount Discount
- Buy X Get Y Discount
- Email Discount Code to Member
We have a demo store built just for merchants to preview the look and feel of our Memberships widget, and check real time, some key functionalities that Appstle provides, before you install our app! You can visit – demo-appstle-membership.myshopify.com to view the demo store (the password is 123456).
Also, our tech engineers and product support team provide 1:1 live demos of our product, on request. Please contact us at subscription-support@appstle.com, to schedule a meeting!
Yes! Our Membership widget can be integrated into your homepage and collection pages. The core need for the integration, is to have the ADD TO CART button enabled on the pages. Once this is done, please contact our team (available 24/7/365). We will do a quick manual addition of the script from our end, and you will be all set!
Appstle Loyalty & Rewards
Loyalty programs are one of the most popular customer retention strategies, used to incentivize customers to stick with a particular store or brand. This is done by offering them benefits (e.g. loyalty points) for purchasing products from a store, or sometimes even visiting a store, that can be redeemed for things like a free product, store credits, discount, etc.
A loyalty program is ideal for stores or brands that have a considerable amount of competition (i.e. similar products and services). By offering loyalty programs, businesses can turn their customers’ attention to their brand, and sustain it for a long time.
Activity rules are a set of rules or guidelines set by the merchant for customers to follow, in order for the customers to earn loyalty points.
Currently, we offer the following activity rules:
Core:
- Purchase (any product)
- Purchase Subscription Product
- Buy Specific Product
- Buy Product From Collection
- New Customer
- Visit Store
- Birthday or Special days
Social Media:
- Like page or follow any URL on
- Follow on Instagram
- Follow on Twitter
Reviews:
- Leave a review via
- Stamped.io
- Leave a review via Loox.io
- Leave a review via Judge.Me
- Leave a review via Product Reviews
At Appstle, we are constantly expanding the activity rules we support. So, if there is an activity rule that you would like us to add, feel free to ping us!
While activity rules determine what actions the customers should do to gain points, reward rules determine the ways in which the customers are allowed to spend it. Setting attractive rewards are essential to make the customer feel valued, and to sustain their interest and loyalty for a long period of time.
Currently, we offer the following reward rules:
- Discount (any product)
- Free Shipping
- Free Product
- Product Discount (specific)
- Collection Discount
At Appstle, we are constantly expanding the reward rules we support. So, if there is a reward rule that you would like us to add, feel free to ping us!
Appstle Loyalty will integrate with other subscription applications, and not just Appstle Subscriptions!
That said, you may have the easiest time integrating with Appstle Subscriptions because Appstle Loyalty will work alongside it natively. All that is needed is to use the API (available in the application) to link up our Loyalty application with our Subscription application.
Absolutely! Feel free to reach out to our support team for more information about the migration process.
Yes. We have a dedicated section inside the Appstle Loyalty merchant navigation (app dashboard within Shopify) for tutorial videos. They will cover all the important aspects of the application.