What is a subscription box business and how do I host and automate it?
A subscription box business ships curated physical products monthly to subscribers — India's subscription box market includes beauty, food, books, wellness, and toys. Annual growth rate: 30%+. Technical stack: WooCommerce with WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin (Rs 12,000/year) — handles recurring billing, dunning (retry failed payments), subscription pausing, and cancellations. Razorpay Subscriptions API enables automatic monthly debit from customer's account or UPI mandate. Key automations: automatic order creation on billing date, failed payment retry sequence (email notifications at 1, 3, 7 days before cancellation), new subscriber welcome email (Mailchimp automation), shipping label generation (Shiprocket API auto-creates shipments on order), and inventory alerts when stock falls below threshold. Subscriber portal: customers manage address, payment method, skip month, or cancel without contacting support. Hosting: Connect Quest VPS 4 GB RAM minimum — subscription billing triggers database writes and emails simultaneously for all subscribers on billing date (load spike). Connect Quest +91 2269711150 for scaling advice.