Case study · Beef tallow skincare
Fat Cow Skincare
A loved product with a subscription programme that had room to do far more. Six months after we started on it, the subscriber base was growing again.
- Klaviyo · Loop · Shopify
- UK
01 · Where they started
A loved product, a subscription with room to grow
Fat Cow Skincare makes skincare from grass-fed beef tallow: face creams, whipped body cream, balms and soaps, built on a very short ingredient list. Founder Ryan Porter had grown a loyal customer base, and many of them bought on a subscribe and save plan.
The subscription had room to do much more. Delivery timing did not match how long a jar actually lasts, so stock could build up at home, and the first few orders were where most subscribers decided whether to stay. Little in the journey yet explained what a subscriber was getting.
New subscribers were arriving. The work was keeping them past the first few deliveries.
02 · What we found
The problem was the plan, not the price
We started with a subscription diagnostic: every cancellation reason, every save, every plan, and how long each product actually lasts in use.
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Deliveries arrived before people needed them
One fixed cadence covered every jar size. Small jars ran out before the next delivery and large jars piled up, so "too much stock" sat near the top of the cancel reasons. People who cancel because of a full cupboard want control over timing, not a bigger discount.
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The exit was doing more work than the entrance
Most saves came from a single benefits page in the cancel flow. Earlier in the journey there was little telling subscribers what they were getting, and no reward to carry them past the early orders.
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The product page set the wrong expectations
The subscribe option could make the plan, the saving and the cadence much clearer. A clear choice up front means fewer surprises at the first charge.
03 · What we built
Fix the exit, then the plans, then the front door
We ran the subscription programme in Loop day to day and built in the order the cancellations pointed to.
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Quick wins and a plain-text note from the founder. Segments rebuilt, Klaviyo checked end to end, and a plain-text re-engagement email in Ryan's voice to the existing file.
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The cancel flow rebuilt around real reasons. New cancellation reasons, a benefits page that shows what a subscriber gives up, and matched offers for each reason, tested against each other. Payment recovery was retuned with a backup payment method, and a billing reminder flow went out before each charge so nobody was surprised.
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The first 30 days. A new onboarding flow for new customers, a new popup that captured more about each customer, instant winback offers inside the subscriber portal, and a streaks programme that rewards subscribers for staying past the early orders.
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New plans and a new product page. Delivery frequencies were rebuilt by jar size, so a delivery arrives when the last jar runs out. We planned and built the new subscription selling plans in Loop. Fat Cow's developer built the product-page subscription widget, which we wireframed and planned the content for. The portal was rebuilt alongside: on-brand, with skip, slow-down and pause paths and a founder video on the benefits page. A rebuilt replenishment flow and an evergreen winback flow followed.
04 · The numbers
What it added up to
- +32% active subscribers in six months, after a decline in the six months before
- +33% monthly recurring revenue, after a decline in the six months before
- +35% subscription revenue, six months vs the six months before
- +15% repeat revenue, one quarter vs the same quarter a year earlier
"Quite a few times in the past 12 months I've considered giving equity away in the business just to raise money. But now I feel like I don't need to do that. Which is probably the biggest thing."