November 10th, 2023, Lesley Simeon
Very few businesses today haven’t hopped on to the subscription services bandwagon. But what’s on consumers’ checklist when they purchase subscription services?
A recent YouGov survey asked consumers across 17 international markets about the top five factors they consider before signing up for a subscription service. More than three fourths of all consumers across markets cite price (77%). Reliability follows at a distant second (55%) and convenience of accessing service/buying product and customer reviews tie (40%) with equal proportions of consumers citing these factors.
Moving on to YouGov’s demographic data, while price is the most cited consideration, consumers from different age groups attach varying levels of importance to different factors when signing up for subscription services.
For instance, brand reputation is an important consideration for younger consumers like 18-to-24-year-olds (39%) and 25-to-34-year-olds (36%) - not so much for 55+ year olds (27%). Younger consumers are also more likely than older ones to factor in recommendations from family/friends and environmental sustainability.
Endorsements by public figures don’t seem to hold sway among older demographics - consumers between 18 and 24 years of age and those between 25 and 34 years of age (11%) are most likely to say this factor is important to them.
Nearly half of all 18-to-24-year-olds (48%) say customer reviews are important - the most likely across all age groups to say so. Consumers between 25 and 34 years of age are most likely (39%) to factor in the free trial option. More than two in five (42%) consumers in this group (as well as 45-to-54-year-olds) say the convenience of accessing service/buying product is important.
For 35-to-44-year-olds, price (77%), reliability (56%) and convenience of accessing a service/buying product (41%) are the top three factors they consider when forking out on subscription services. As for 45-to-54-year-olds, this group is most likely to consider the price of the subscription service (81%), as well as the refund/contract termination policies of the service (36%).
Finally, apart from price (77%), consumers aged 55 years and above are all about reliability (60%) and customer service/after-sales support (47%).
By country, factors that consumers look into the most when signing up for subscription services
A majority of Britons (81%) consider the price of the subscription service before signing up, followed by reliability (57%) and customers reviews (44%).
Consumers in Hong Kong are the most likely across all our markets to cite a number of factors when buying subscription services. These include reliability (70%), brand reputation (52%), refund/contract termination policies (48%), the variety of service/product feature available (41%) and endorsements by public figures (15%).
Consumers in Hong Kong (26%) and the US (27%) are least likely to cite the free trial option as an important consideration. Conversely, Denmark (39%), UAE (38%) and urban India (36%) are the top three markets that are most likely to consider the free trial feature.
Consumers in urban India lead when it comes to favoring customer reviews (52%), whereas Brits (39%) account for the largest share of consumers citing recommendation from friends/family as an important factor, followed by those in Denmark (35%) and India (35%).
Nearly half (49%) of all Germans say convenience of accessing service/buying products is important, followed by Denmark (39%). Brand reputation is a matter of consideration, more so for consumers in the East than the West - Britons are the least likely (13%) to pay heed to brand reputation when signing up for subscription services.
More than a quarter of all consumers across markets seem to value the free trial option (Denmark leads here at 39%) while environmental sustainability is of more importance to consumers in our Asian markets.
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Methodology: YouGov Surveys: Serviced provide quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18+ years in 17 markets with sample sizes varying between 512 and 2000 for each market. All surveys were conducted online in August 2023. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced.
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