This article answers frequently asked questions about onboarding on the Cratejoy Platform as a seller.
In This Article:
- Setting Up
- How do I extend my 14-day trial?
- How do I source products?
- How much money do I need to invest?
- How am I going to build and buy my products if I start with zero subscribers?
- How do I add or change my store name and URL?
- How do I add or change my custom domain?
- What's the difference between the Cratejoy Marketplace and the Cratejoy Storefront?
- How do I only list on the Cratejoy Marketplace?
- How do I get my Marketplace listing approved?
- How do I price my box?
- How do I set up a shipping schedule?
- How do I add a survey or variants? What’s the difference?
- What apps do I need?
- Does Cratejoy have a referral program?
- How do I create new pages in Designer?
- How do I use your API? Is there any documentation on the API?
- How do I connect my blog to my Cratejoy site?
- I have my own website. How do I connect it to Cratejoy to sell subscription products?
- Launching
- What’s the difference between upgrading my account and launching my store?
- What should my Marketplace Listing look like?
- How do I get featured on the Marketplace?
- First Sale
- My shipping/billing schedule isn’t accurate. How do I change it?
- Does Cratejoy ship my boxes for me?
- How do I ship boxes?
- Does Cratejoy recommend an affiliate program?
Setting Up
How do I extend my 14-day free trial?
Email Cratejoy Support for an extension. We’d be happy to help.
How do I source products?
To source products, we recommend first researching well-reviewed artisans and wholesalers in your niche. Here are some suggested places to source products, and here’s how to negotiate with a vendor to procure products.
How much money do I need to invest?
How much you need to invest varies for each business, as it depends on your expenses and intended profit margins. Running presales can help offset your starting costs.
How am I going to build and buy my products if I start with zero subscribers?
Many sellers build their audience of interested pre-subscribers with a prelaunch. This means you would grow your online presence and promote your business to grow your email list and encourage early preorders. For information on prelaunch, visit here.
How do I add or change my store name and URL?
You can set up the store name and the domain name (URL) of your storefront via the “Settings” menu of your Cratejoy seller portal. Read more in our help doc.
How do I add or change my custom domain?
To customize your storefront URL with a domain name you already own, so your storefront is located at [yourstore].com rather than [yourstore].cratejoy.com, please review this help doc.
What’s the difference between the Cratejoy Marketplace and the Cratejoy Storefront?
What we call the “storefront” is your website hosted by Cratejoy: you can find it at [yourstore].cratejoy.com.
The Cratejoy Marketplace is our customer-facing sales channel, where you have a store listing with all the essential info shoppers need to subscribe. The Cratejoy Marketplace is intended for subscription products only; there is no “Shop” webpage or one-time products available at this time.
You can receive orders on each channel.
How do I only list on the Cratejoy Marketplace?
You can change your plan here to the Marketplace Only plan at any time.
How do I get my Marketplace listing approved?
Before you can submit your Marketplace listing for approval, you must be upgraded, launched, and have a payment processor and product on your account.
When you are ready to submit your Marketplace listing for approval, click the “Submit” button. Our committee will review your listing for any missing information or materials that go against our Marketplace seller policies, then approve or reject your listing with suggested revisions. Read more about what we’re looking for at our help doc.
How do I price my box?
Cratejoy has several calculators and guides to help you price your subscription box. If you decide to update your pricing after you have active subscribers, you can update your box’s pricing on the Subscription Products page for that product.
How do I set up a shipping schedule?
Your shipping schedule and renewal (billing) schedule are linked together in the Cratejoy seller portal. When you renew customer subscriptions will impact when you ship their boxes. We recommend shipping to brand-new subscribers within 7 days of their first order, then shipping to all other subscribers in bulk once a month. Read more about shipping schedules in our Subscription Box Shipping & Renewal Guide.
We support billing schedules that renew monthly, weekly, biweekly (every 2 weeks), bimonthly (every 2 months), quarterly (every 3 months), and ad hoc (on the customer’s monthly order anniversary). Please note that a quarterly schedule is not the same as a seasonal shipping schedule.
Our default shipping schedule is monthly. To set up one of the other shipping schedules, contact Cratejoy Support to add our free Advanced Rebilling app to your account. Read more info in our help doc.
How do I add a survey or variants? What’s the difference?
Variants are interchangeable variations of a product, such as size, color, style, etc. Your subscribers choose from the specific options you set up. Variant selections can be updated by the customer at any time and will reflect on any unshipped shipments for that subscription.
Surveys are a way to gain information from a subscriber without having to know all the options beforehand. Examples include “Do you have any allergies?” or “When's your birthday?” Survey responses cannot be changed after a customer has ordered their subscription.
What apps do I need?
To set up a non-monthly shipping schedule, you will need our Advanced Rebilling app. Read more here.
Does Cratejoy have a referral program?
Cratejoy offers an in-house Referral Program app ($99/mo.) that makes it easy for your customers to refer friends and online followers. The Referral Program app is available for your storefront only. Start by creating a coupon for your referring customers to set up your referral program. Read more in our help doc.
How do I create new pages in Designer?
The Cratejoy Designer allows you to add webpages easily through our drag-and-drop editor. Open the Designer page of your Cratejoy seller portal, choose the design theme you’re working on, and select the “Add a Page” block on the right sidebar menu. Read more in our help doc.
How do I use your API? Is there any documentation on the API?
You can find extensive documentation on our API here.
How do I connect my blog to my Cratejoy site?
Cratejoy supports blogs hosted by Wordpress.com or Tumblr. You can set this up as a subdomain of your storefront’s domain name (URL). Read more in our help doc.
I have my own website. How do I connect it to Cratejoy to sell subscription products?
To integrate your existing website with Cratejoy, read our help doc.
Launching
What’s the difference between upgrading my account and launching my store?
You must upgrade your account in order to launch your store. To upgrade your account, navigate to the Account page of your seller portal and change your current plan from “Free Trial” to one of the following subscription plans.
We currently offer three subscription plans that have varying monthly fees.
The Sell on the Marketplace Only Plan is $24.99/month. This allows you to sell on the Cratejoy Marketplace.
The Essentials plan is $79/month. This all-inclusive plan includes everything you get in our Marketplace Only Plan and also includes a hosted storefront and several designer tools to assist in getting your storefront up and running.
The Advanced plan is $199/month. This plan includes everything you get in our Essentials.
Launching your store means that your storefront and/or listing has gone live, and your store is actively taking orders. Read more about upgrading, then launching, your store in our help doc.
What should my Marketplace Listing look like?
Review our Marketplace listing criteria in our help doc.
How do I get featured on the Marketplace?
The Marketing Team takes several factors into consideration when selecting sellers to feature in content, such as high-quality images on your Marketplace listing, a strong conversion rate and low churn rate, positive customer reviews, and use of all the features Marketplace listings have available. Read more here.
First Sale
My shipping/billing schedule isn’t accurate. How do I change it?
Email Cratejoy Support with the following format, and we can help you.
____ day of the month: final day for new subscribers to sign up.
____ day of the month: Subscribers auto-renew for next month’s box
Does Cratejoy ship my boxes for me?
While our sellers are in charge of curating, packing and shipping each subscription box, we provide the necessary resources to manage and track shipments through the Cratejoy seller portal. Read more in our help docs.
How do I ship boxes?
You can set shipping rates and shipping rules, export your shipment data, and print packing slips through the Cratejoy seller portal. If you use one of our shipping integrations, such as Pirate Ship, your shipment data can export directly to that service. Read more about shipments in our help docs.
Does Cratejoy recommend an affiliate program?
A lot of merchants use Affiliatly. It’s easy to manage your affiliates all in one place. You can either have them use affiliate links or an affiliate coupon code.