Subscriptions | Melissa Portfolio

XTRAthortful

Launching thortful's first subscription service to help reduce churn and keep customers retained

Timeline October 2024 - August 2025

Project Summary

XTRAthortful is thortful’s first customer subscription service, designed to reward loyalty, increase repeat purchases and reduce customer churn. As the sole Product Designer, I led the project end to end, balancing customer insight with commercial strategy to launch the MVP in just four months.

Impact

Ahead of our two biggest trading moments of the year—Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day—the product team were challenged to identify opportunities to improve the ecommerce funnel and generate incremental revenue through conversion optimisation.

Monthly Subscribers to date

42,477

Monthly Subscribers to date

42,477

Monthly Subscribers to date

42,477

Problem definition

Historically, thortful had relied on promotional offers such as 4 cards for £10 to drive basket value. While successful, these promotions did very little to reward repeat customers throughout the year.

At the same time we were seeing:

8% churn amongst our most valuable customers
Increased competition from retailers offering loyalty schemes and subscriptions
Growing customer sensitivity around price due to the cost of living
A desire to increase customer lifetime value rather than relying purely on acquisition

Customer Problems

Customers want to shop online for convenience, but know they can get cheaper cards elsewhere e.g. supermarket.
Customers are feeling the squeeze of prices rising everywhere (cost of living increases) and are seeking out savings/value where they can
Customers don’t want to spend as much as £3.69 on certain recipients (colleagues/extended family). That price point is reserved for close friends and family only, which limits the number of cards they buy with us each year
Customers want to be rewarded for buying with thortful

Discovery

Every successful loyalty programme begins with understanding what customers actually value.

Rather than assuming an annual subscription was the right answer, I wanted to understand what type of proposition customers would genuinely find worthwhile.

I started by conducting competitor benchmarking across businesses both inside and outside the greetings card industry. Looking beyond direct competitors helped us understand broader customer expectations around subscription services, reward programmes and membership propositions. I reviewed organisations including Moonpig, Bloom & Wild, Papier, Card Factory and other subscription-led brands to understand how they communicated value, encouraged sign-ups and retained members over time.

Alongside this, I conducted quantitative research to understand customer attitudes towards different loyalty models.

Three concepts emerged as the strongest opportunities:

Tiered Rewards
Points-Based Loyalty
Annual Subscription

Once these concepts had been identified, I transitioned into qualitative research to understand the motivations behind customer preferences.

Through moderated interviews, we explored what customers valued most, which benefits felt genuinely worthwhile, what barriers prevented them from subscribing and how different propositions influenced their perception of value.

The combination of quantitative and qualitative research gave us confidence that we weren’t simply validating ideas—we were uncovering the underlying motivations driving customer behaviour.

Defining the opportunity

Once the annual subscription had been selected, the focus shifted from deciding what to build to designing how customers would experience it.

The biggest challenge was ensuring the subscription felt like a natural extension of the shopping experience rather than an interruption.

I mapped the entire customer journey, identifying moments where the value proposition would feel most relevant. Rather than relying on a single subscription landing page, we introduced the proposition across multiple touchpoints, allowing customers to discover it naturally throughout their journey.

This included experiences across:

Dedicated subscription landing pages
Product detail pages
Basket
Checkout
Customer accounts
Subscription management
Renewal journeys

Throughout this phase I worked closely with Engineering, running collaborative workshops to explore technical feasibility before designs were finalised. This iterative approach meant we could quickly validate ideas, refine requirements and move efficiently into delivery.

Working collaboratively from the outset also reduced ambiguity during development, with design and engineering evolving together rather than operating as separate phases.

Early ideation

Tiered rewards

This concept looked at encouraging repeat purchases and build long-term customer loyalty through a progression-based rewards programme. Customers would unlock higher membership tiers based on their engagement and spending, with each tier offering increasingly valuable benefits such as exclusive discounts, free delivery, early access to new card collections, and personalised rewards.

The second concept focused on a points-based loyalty scheme. Customers would earn points for purchases and other activities, which could then be redeemed for discounts, free cards or exclusive rewards. This idea explored whether customers preferred the flexibility of choosing their own rewards and whether a familiar earn-and-redeem model would drive repeat engagement.