Gnarly Nutrition doubled customer LTV with subscriptions
About
Gnarly creates high-quality nutrition products for outdoor athletes. They’re focused on providing proper nutrition for people recovering from intense activities, like trail running or backcountry skiing. Gnarly’s products range from pre-workout supplements to vitamins so every athlete can find the right regimen based on their activities, recovery needs, and dietary requirements.
Gnarly has partnered with the outdoor community to kickstart education, provide resources, and supply products designed to support everyone’s outdoor sport of choice.Gnarly is committed to science-backed nutrition delivered through transparent, natural, and straightforward ingredient standards. As an outdoor-focused brand, they’ve pledged to give back to the community they love by helping increase diversity in outdoor pursuits, strengthen environmental protections, and support sustainability goals.
“The ease with which [customers] can update their subscription via SMS, add or change to their orders, and postpone receiving products they don’t need has drastically reduced our churn.... Customers are empowered to handle their orders as they please.”
Liz Esche
Marketing Director, Gnarly Nutrition
Challenge
Gnarly introduced subscriptions so their long-term customers would always have proper supplementation. On their previous site, everything was custom-built and required constant updates to match evolving capabilities. Their out-of-the-box customer portal was messing with their data—they had to manually review numbers to ensure accuracy. Gnarly wanted to create a simple, intuitive online shopping experience.Additionally, Gnarly saw that some customers were subscribing to take advantage of a discount and quickly canceling. They wanted to develop a way to reward customers and incentivize them to stay subscribed.
Solution
Gnarly migrated to Recharge to create a more streamlined experience, both internally and for their customers. With Recharge’s analytics suite, Gnarly was able to track all their key performance indicators and trust the data to help make crucial business decisions.They also partnered with Chelsea & Rachel Co., a full-service ecommerce agency, to design a seamless shopping experience for customers. Chelsea & Rachel Co. helped Gnarly develop a customer portal so that customers could easily manage their orders—whether skipping, swapping, or adjusting products. This has led to a 77% retention rate in the last six months.Finally, Gnarly rolled out an innovative, progressive pricing model. In their model, customers gradually receive greater discounts—they get 10% off for their first three orders, 15% off for their fourth and fifth orders, and unlock 20% off for their sixth order. Once they’ve placed six orders, they receive 20% off in perpetuity as long as they stay subscribed. With this model, Gnarly incentivizes customers to remain in the program and continue placing orders.
Results
Gnarly’s progressive pricing model works because customers want to keep their discount, and their statistics support it. Over 25% of their subscribers have placed the six orders required to reach the third tier to get 20% off. Additionally, the lifetime value (LTV) of their subscribers is now double the LTV of a non-subscription customer, and the company's customer churn rate has dropped 4%. Clearly, Gnarly sees both immediate and long-term gains from their subscription program.
“Supplements are a convenience—they’re created to make it easier for our customers to stay healthy and recover well. Subscriptions only add to that convenience, and our tiered discounting allows us to reward our biggest fans in a consistent way.”
Liz Esche
Marketing Director, Gnarly Nutrition
