For the past year, a number of our developers have been working on some major backend work to pave the way for a host of new checkout features that I’m excited to preview for you all today.
Podia’s checkout has powered more than $500 million in sales volume over the past few years, and we’re confident that these new features will help you all earn the next $500 million in sales and much more.
Please read through the previewed features and then send us your feedback here.
We’d like to hear about anything our checkout could do better that’s not listed below, what your favorite new features are that we’re previewing, and anything else checkout-related.
We’re committed to implementing customer feedback in every new feature we release.
In no particular order, as we’ll be releasing new features as they’re ready, check out the preview below. Note that everything below is work-in-progress and the finished releases might look different from what you see below.
New pricing options for ALL products including subscriptions
Community plans were the only product type that supported subscription payments, but that’s changing. You’ll be able to sell any of your products (online courses, digital downloads, etc.) for a single payment, on payment plans, on a recurring subscription, or any combination of those.
Additionally, you’ll be able to include a free trial for any subscription plan you add.
Turn any product into a bundle
You’ll be able to grant access to additional products when a customer signs up for the product.
For example, if I have a course called Figma Design, and a customer signs up, I could include additional products that I have published.
Unlike with a bundle, which is simply a basket of products, the Figma Design online course will stand out as the main thing you’re selling.
NEW product type: Custom
For those of you who want to sell a product type that doesn’t fit neatly into one of our predefined products (e.g download, course, webinar, etc.), you’ll be able to create it as a custom product.
When a customer signs up for a custom product, they’ll see a page that you’ll both be able to add a video to, and completely customize with our text editor (write whatever you want, embed anything, etc.).
We’re excited to see how you use this new product type and we’ll plan to expand what it can do based on your feedback.
NEW product type: Newsletter
We’ve made dozens of improvements to our blogging and email broadcast tools over the past year and we’re thrilled to allow you to create a paid newsletter subscription as a new product type.
Once you’ve set up your newsletter subscription product, you’ll then be able to limit the access to your blog posts when publishing them. Readers who subscribe will have access while those who don’t will get prompted to subscribe to get access to your posts.
Shopping carts
A big part of the checkout backend work our developers are doing right now is to make way for shopping carts. With shopping carts, customers will be able to sign up for multiple products at once.
They’ll be able to browse your entire website, add what they want to their cart, and then checkout when they’re ready.
Repeat purchases
With repeat purchase, you’ll be able to set any product in your store to be able to be purchased again, and again, and again. This is great for coaching products, where customers will be able to repeat purchase the same package from you, for services you sell, or for anything else.
Single-page checkout
Another major reason why we’re currently putting so much time into the development of our checkout is to improve the experience of your customers signing up for your products.
With the changes we’re making, we’ll be streamlining the checkout page to make it much simpler, cleaner, and easier for your customers to sign up for your products.
Lastly: we want YOUR feedback!
Now that you’ve reviewed these checkout features that we plan to release over the next year, we’d like to hear your thoughts.
P.S. What’s your favorite?!
Best,
Spencer