How to set up a Scheduled quarterly shipments experience

Use the Scheduled Quarterly Shipments Automate experience to offer a true quarterly subscription experience. Automate lets you process and ship orders every 3 months on the same date for all eligible customers, regardless of each customer’s initial order date. This ensures that each shipment is evenly spaced throughout the year.

This guide explains how to create an automated and consistent quarterly subscription experience.

How it works

Create a Scheduled Quarterly Shipments experience to simplify order fulfillment and align quarterly offerings with seasonal events or promotions.

After orders enter the experience, the Conditional Branch node routes customers to the correct quarter based on the processed charge date and the products on the order.

Each branch is assigned a Subscription node, which defines the action to be executed on the customer’s next order. Use the Subscription node to swap the existing product with the next item in the quarterly subscription, and set the charge date for the quarterly subscription to ensure all orders ship on the same day each quarter.

Example

A winery offers a quarterly subscription so that all customers receive a box of wine on the first day of every quarter. They use the Scheduled Quarterly Shipments Experience to:

• Change the product subscription each quarter
• Update the customer’s next upcoming charge date to the unified quarterly date

This template streamlines quarterly subscription shipping and fulfillment, so you can manage everything efficiently. It also creates a predictable, consistent schedule for customers, allowing them to anticipate upcoming orders and even build wine clubs around the product.

Video walkthrough

Editing Automate flows

You can edit an Automate flow at any time. Once a flow has been activated at least once, saving changes creates a new version of the flow. This lets you update the flow without rebuilding it from scratch.

To learn how flow versions behave and how analytics are affected, see How to edit Automate flows using flow versioning.

Step 1 - Create your products in Shopify and add subscription plans

Create the starter product used at checkout, plus the products customers will receive on all future orders in Shopify, and add subscription plans in Recharge so that customers can purchase the product:

1. Log in to your Shopify admin and create the checkout and quarterly products. Recharge recommends keeping the checkout product unpublished in Shopify until you’ve activated the automated experience to prevent customer confusion.
2. After creating the product in Shopify, navigate to your Recharge merchant admin and select Products from the Products menu.

3. Locate the checkout product in the product list and add a subscription plan.

   • Note: Create a product subscription if you do not use Product Subscription Plans, or convert to Product Subscription Plans immediately.
4. Add subscription plans to all quarterly products available in the quarterly experience if you haven't already.

You should now have the checkout and quarterly products configured in Shopify and Recharge.

Step 2 - Create the automated experience

Create the Quarterly Subscription automated experience in your Recharge merchant portal:

1. In the merchant portal, click Products, then select Automate.
2. Select Create from template.
3. Click Scheduled quarterly shipments and select Get started.
4. Select Manage settings to add a title and a description to the experience.

You can now access the flow canvas and build the quarterly automated experience. This experience uses a standard template designed by Recharge. By default, you cannot change the Smart loop node.

Step 3 – Configure trigger conditions

Trigger conditions determine which orders can enter the experience. Recharge recommends configuring trigger conditions so only orders containing the starter product enter the quarterly automation.

To configure trigger conditions:

1. On the canvas, click the Trigger node.

2. Click Add to create a trigger condition.

3. Select Processed charge line item.

4. Choose the appropriate operator (for example, Equals).

5. Select the starter product.

6. Click Apply, then Save.

Only orders that meet these conditions will enter the experience.

Step 4 - Configure the Conditional Branch node

After setting trigger conditions, use the Conditional Branch node to route qualifying orders to the correct quarter based on charge date and order history.

The Conditional Branch node is crucial for building the quarterly automated experience. You must create multiple branches, one for each quarter, to ensure customers receive the correct products at the right time.

Each branch should include two conditions. If either condition is met, the order enters the flow to receive the next quarterly subscription product:

• Starter product: Checks the order’s charge date and whether it includes the starter product
• Previous quarter product: Checks if the order contains the past quarterly subscription product

Follow the steps below to edit or add branches. Click the pencil icon next to Branch 1 and 2 to edit the default branches. Click Add branch in the Conditional Branch node to add the two additional branches.

Step 1 - Set Condition 1

Create two rules for Condition 1 connected by the AND operator:

• Rule 1: Confirm the order contains the starter product.
  • Object: Processed charge line item
  • Attribute: Variant
  • Operator: Equals
  • Product: Select your starter product
• Rule 2: Confirm the charge date is before the start of the quarter.
  • Object: Processed charge
  • Attribute: Processed charge date
  • Operator: Before
  • Charge date: (See table below)

This guide assumes you’re creating a quarterly automated experience that ships products on the first day of the first month of each quarter. You can adjust the charge dates in Rule 2 to reflect different dates, such as popular holidays within each quarter.

Step 2 - Set Condition 2

Click OR to add a secondary condition to check if the order contains the previous quarter’s subscription product:

• Object: Line item
• Attribute: Variant
• Operator: Equals
• Product: Select the previous quarter's subscription product

Once you configure all conditional branches, the flow routes customers to the correct quarterly subscription product based on their order history.

Duplicate a branch

If your branches use similar logic, you can duplicate an existing branch instead of creating a new one from scratch.

To duplicate a branch:

1. Open the Conditional Branch node.

2. Select the branch you want to copy.

3. Click Duplicate branch.

4. Update the condition values as needed.

5. Click Apply.

The duplicated branch appears directly below the original and includes all associated nodes on the canvas.

Step 5 - Set the branch action

Use the Subscription node to swap the customer’s subscription product on their next order.

1. Select Swap subscription products from the list of available actions.
2. Click Add product and select the next quarterly subscription product based on the branch.
3. For example, the product used for the Action node on Branch 1 is the same product used to create Branch 2’s condition in the previous step.
4. Select Add date-based day under the Order date and set the next charge date based on the chart below.
5. Optional - Update any other product or order settings if necessary.

Optional - Select a plan

If the selected product variant has subscription plans, you can choose a subscription or quantity upsell plan instead of setting a custom order frequency. When you select a plan, the plan determines the price, and Recharge disables price overrides. If the selected plan is a quantity upsell plan, Recharge also disables the quantity input.

To select a plan:

1. In the Order frequency dropdown, select Choose a plan.
2. Select a plan from the dropdown.

Optional - Add additional actions to the canvas

Review the list of additional nodes under Canvas actions to see how you can further customize the experience.

Step 6 - Set your products to active in Shopify

Update your products in Shopify so that customers can purchase the starter product, and receive the quarterly subscription products on future orders:

1. Set the product status to Active.
2. Set the product to available on your online store.

Step 7 - Save and test the automated experience

Click Save in the top-right corner to save your flow.

You can test the automated flow before activating it to ensure it works as intended. See How to test Automate flows for detailed instructions.

Step 8 - Activate the experience

Select Activate in the top right corner to enable the experience.

Once you activate the experience, Recharge will review all orders and apply the automated experience to eligible orders.

Select Activate in the top right corner to enable the flow.

Once you activate the flow, Recharge evaluates eligible charges against the flow’s trigger conditions and applies the flow when conditions are met.

Considerations

Consider the following when using Automate:

Resources

Getting started

• Getting started with Automate

Additional template set-up instructions

• How to set up a Welcome offer automated experience
• How to set up a Kit unpacking automated experience
• How to set up a Starter pack to refill swap automated experience
• How to set up an Ongoing sequence automated experience
• How to set up a Fixed sequence automated experience
• How to set up a Trial to subscription automated experience