Use the Scheduled Quarterly Shipments Automate experience to offer a true quarterly subscription experience. Automate lets you process and ship orders every three months on the same date for all eligible customers, no matter the 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.

Before you start

• Automate is available to merchants on Recharge Pro or Custom plans. See Pricing for additional plan details, or to talk to a member of the Recharge sales team.

How it works

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

This template uses the Conditional node to create multiple branches that target customers based on their charge date and order content. Customers enter the relevant branch based on the contents of their 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 to the next item in the quarterly subscription, and set the charge date for the quarterly subscription to ensure all orders are shipped 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 each quarter. 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

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

Create the starter product used at the 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 Recharge recommends keeping the checkout product unpublished in Shopify until you’ve activated the automated experience to prevent customer confusion.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 from the list of products, and add a subscription plan.
   • Note: Create a product subscription if you do not use Product Subscription Plans, or convert and start using Product Subscription Plans immediately.
4. Add subscription plans to all quarterly products available as part of 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. From the merchant portal, click Products and 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 Trigger and Smart loop nodes. See Flow nodes for more information on each node.

Step 3 - Configure the Conditional Branch node

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: 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: Charge
  • Attribute: 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.

Step 4 - Set the branch action

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

Step 1 - Change the action node on Branch 1 and Branch 2

Update the action for the first two branches to update the products on upcoming orders:

1. Drag the Subscription node from the Canvas actions list and apply it to each branch.
2. Click on the three vertical dot menu on the Update Subscription node for each branch and select Delete.

Step 2 - Update the Subscription node for each branch

Edit the Subscription update nodes to change the product and charge date for upcoming orders:

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 - Add additional actions to the canvas

Review the list of additional nodes under Canvas actions to see how you can further customize the experience. For example, use the A/B test node to test different quarterly products to see which products helps prevent customer churn.

Step 5 - 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 6 - Save and test the automated experience

You can test the automated experience before activating it to ensure it works as intended:

1. Click Save in the top-right corner.
2. Click the three vertical dot menu and select Test flow.
3. Select your test customer from the Target customer menu. This customer must already be subscribed to the initial kit.
4. Click Run flow and confirm that the flow performs as expected.

Step 7 - 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.

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