Buy the Blades, We'll Give You the Razor

If you sell a product or service that customers need to replenish, you want them to come to you whenever they need to buy more. There are several ways to do this, including subscription services, where you automatically provide a supply of product on a pre-determined schedule, or recurrent billing where you set up automatic billing via credit card for a service provided on a regular schedule.

Both of these methods make it easy for customers to do business with you. Once they are set up, they remain your customers until they take action to cancel. Keep them happy and they will stay with you a long time.

Another way to tie customers to you is to provide a product at little or no cost, knowing that they will need to buy replacement supplies. If they are happy with your product's quality, they will stay with it. An example of this would be a razor manufacturer who gives away a free razor knowing that customers will have to buy more blades. Although some may buy off-brand replacement blades, many will buy from the company that made the razor because of the perception of better quality.

What can you do to make it easy