Estimated read time: 11 minutes, 51 seconds

Get the latest from FastSpring’s Support leaders about preparing for Cyber Weekend, refund policies, strategies to decrease customer churn, and more. 

Need FastSpring support? Visit our Support page.

FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, and digital products businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

Preparing for Cyber Weekend: A Marathon, Not a Sprint

Gearing up for Cyber Weekend in the world of ecommerce is like preparing for a marathon. FastSpring is ready, and we want to ensure your success by providing key steps you can take to ensure a smooth and successful peak sales season.

  • Optimize website performance: FastSpring is ready, are you?  Conduct a thorough performance check on your website to ensure that it can handle increased traffic without slowing down or crashing. 
  • Enhance the user experience: Make it easy for customers to find products, navigate through the website, and complete the checkout process.
  • Optimize your store and products for conversions: Conversions don’t just happen, you need to optimize for best results.  
  • Fulfillment planning: Analyze past Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales data to predict which products will be popular. Ensure that you have sufficient licenses uploaded to meet the increased demand. Read about FastSpring Fulfillment here.
  • Cyber Weekend deals: There is a lot of competition out there. Create compelling and exclusive deals to attract customers. Consider bundling products, offering discounts, or providing limited-time promotions to entice shoppers. Read more about Product Discounts, Coupons and Multi-Discount Coupons, and remember that FastSpring has a “Combine Discounts” setting for coupons.
  • TEST!: Test your products, test your fulfillment, test your coupons. Not sure how?  Read about it here.
  • Promotions: Start your marketing campaigns well in advance. Utilize social media, email marketing, and other channels to create awareness about your deals.
  • Security measures: With increased online activity comes an elevated risk of cyber threats. Ensure that your website has robust security measures in place to protect customer data. Once a customer enters the checkout, FastSpring employs risk management to help safeguard you from fraud.
  • Customer Support readiness: Anticipate a surge in customer inquiries and prepare your support team. Need some help with purchasing issues?  Reach out to FastSpring Support!

Preparation is the key to providing your customers a positive experience during this peak sales season. Remember that this visit on Cyber Weekend will begin the impression that customers have of you and your brand throughout their customer journey.

Luanne Albright
Manager, Customer Support

Ensuring Smooth Transactions: A Refresher on Our Refund Policies

As the holiday season approaches and we gear up for the much-anticipated holiday shopping frenzy, we understand that ensuring a seamless shopping experience is of utmost importance. That’s why we want to take a moment to refresh your knowledge on our refund policies and limitations.

Refund policy: When a refund request is received, we guide the customer to your support contact email, allowing your team to manage direct customer interactions and process refunds from the App. Our refund policy is available here. 

Refund limitations: It’s important to note that there are some restrictions on refunds, depending on factors such as the payment method used or the time since the order was placed.

Partial refunds: Partial refunds are not supported for orders paid through specific payment methods, including Alipay, Sofort, Giropay, iDeal, Check, and Wire Transfer. Attempting to initiate partial refunds in the platform with these payment methods will result in an error. If you prefer a full order refund with these payment methods, a manual process is required. In these instances, you can contact our support team for assistance in processing these refunds. This policy also extends to any tax refund requests involving the mentioned payment methods.

Tax refunds: FastSpring can refund tax on orders for both US and VAT countries within 90 days of the purchase. For other countries that charge tax on their orders, tax can be refunded within 30 days of the purchase. You can contact us on the buyer’s behalf to request these tax refunds, or they can directly reach out to us through our consumer support site to create a case. If an order falls outside the 30 or 90-day timeframe, we won’t be able to refund the tax, and the customer should contact the relevant tax authority in their country for a tax refund. 

In case you choose to contact us on a customer’s behalf, we’ll need the customer’s tax exemption form for U.S. customers or their tax ID for customers in other countries to process the tax refunds and/or apply tax exemption to subscriptions.

Contact Support: To comply with liability, FastSpring Support must issue refunds on your behalf for the following circumstances:

  • Real-time payment methods: AliPay, GiroPay, Sofort. and iDeal.
  • Transactions from more than 6 months ago.
  • Wire Transfers and US checks.
  • Transactions with an open dispute case.
  • Tax refunds.

Please note for orders placed more than 6 months ago or paid via check, we require the customer’s PayPal email address for manual refunds. Wire transfer refunds require the customer’s bank details and come with a $30 USD fee, which can be deducted from the refund or charged to your account. PayPal is also an option for manual wire transfer refunds at no extra cost.

If your customers request a refund with any of the above conditions, please contact our support team for assistance.

TJ Pohlman
Platform Support Specialist

Still on FastSpring Classic? Elevate Your Business With FastSpring Contextual

At FastSpring, your success is our mission. Transitioning to our Contextual Platform isn’t just a move — it’s a strategic leap towards unmatched growth and revenue.

Contextual Platform: Benefits

  • Enhanced efficiency: Optimize performance, reduce costs, and empower your team for peak productivity.
  • Improved customer experience: Elevate customer satisfaction, build loyalty, and boost repeat business with advanced features.
  • Data-driven insights: Leverage cutting-edge analytics for informed decisions, discovering growth avenues, and optimizing your offerings.
  • Scalability: Seamlessly expand your business. Our platform grows with you, ensuring you never miss a beat, even during high-demand periods.
  • Competitive edge: Stay ahead in your industry. Embrace the latest technology, attracting and retaining clients effortlessly.

Contextual Platform: Features

  • Storefront variety: Ditch single checkouts. Contextual offers web, popup, and embedded storefronts. Popup stores increase conversions by 30%, simplifying the purchase process.
  • Event notifications: Experience reliable, detailed event notifications through Webhooks. Payloads are KV pairs and contain extensive data on the event. You can choose what events you want to subscribe to!
  • Robust API: Say goodbye to limitations. Our powerful API enables seamless integrations with third-party systems, including marketing analytics tools, CRMs, DRMs, BI tools, and more. We host Postman examples here.
  • Account management portal: Provide consumers with secure access to order history, fulfillments, and subscriptions. Customized by you, hosted by FastSpring.
  • Subscription features: Unleash the potential with paid and free trials, subscription pausing, and seamless product renewals, ensuring dynamic subscription management.

Witness Success: Learn from Walls.io’s Journey!

Explore the Walls.io case study. Witness their triumphant shift from Classic to Contextual, reaping the benefits firsthand.

Review additional case studies from sellers who achieved success using various features of the contextual platform.

What are you waiting for?

Seize the power of FastSpring’s Contextual Platform. Open a ticket with our support team now! To learn more about migrating from Classic to Contextual, check out our documentation. 

Patty Novrocki
Customer Support Knowledge Manager

Customer Churn: Turning the Tide With Proven Retention Strategies

In the fast-paced world of sales, cancellations are an inevitable reality. While some situations might seem beyond your control, more often than not, there are proactive measures you can take to mitigate customer churn. Buyers churn out of transactions for a myriad of reasons, ranging from misconceptions to unaddressed concerns. The key lies in understanding these reasons and employing effective strategies to retain them.

By moving the needle just a little, you can see huge payouts by the end of the year. 

Reducing your monthly churn by 1% can result in a 9% annual churn rate decrease. That means if your ARR comes in at $100,000, you’re getting an extra $9,000 in revenue by the end of the year!

Here are a few hot tips from FastSpring to help you reduce your churn rates and keep your buyers around for longer!

1. Onboarding Journey: Get the most out of your onboarding journey. 

Buyers wanted your product for various reasons, whether it be its quality, features, your company’s reputation, or its price, but there was a specific motivation behind their choice.

In the world of SaaS businesses, customers aim to get the most out of your product, but what that means can vary depending on the customer. 

Making sure that your buyers get the level of the product that balances both the most value and the most efficient price point for them is critical. Encourage them to hit usage-based goals and key journey points along their onboarding. If they don’t see the value, they’ll be at risk of leaving. 

With our Product Offers API, you can ensure that your buyers are seeing the product and package that will bring them the most value. You can choose which offers to deliver, whether it’s an upgrade, cross-sell, up-sell, down-sell. Give them the most flexibility and best value for their money. 

2. Contract Terms: Offer longer contract terms, and reward buyers for choosing them.

Monthly subscriptions are flexible but come with risk securities for you as a seller. Annual Subscriptions provide a longer-term commitment for you and result in a significant reduction in monthly churn rates. 

Offering a reward for choosing to commit to a longer-term will drive more traffic toward this option. 

3. Dunning Management: Use Dunning Management to improve your odds at collecting.

If your buyers do fall delinquent, FastSpring is here to help. We offer a dunning management program to help you maximize the number of buyers you are able to return to good standing. The good news, you don’t need to do anything extra. FastSpring   provides Dunning Management enabled out of the box! Read more about our Dunning program here. 

4. Pause/Resume: Allow your buyers to pause and resume their subscriptions.

Sometimes, a buyer may not need your subscription temporarily for a multitude of reasons. Allowing your buyer to pause the subscription instead of canceling it will give a much greater chance that they return at the end of the pause period, and your buyer will be happy about the flexibility. You can customize how long they can pause, and your buyers can resume at any time. 

5. Packages Variation: Allow upgrades and downgrades mid-term. 

We all strive to select the appropriate package for our needs, yet occasionally, we overlook the best choice.Perhaps your buyer has chosen the exclusive upper tier, but really, they’re only making use of the basic functionality. While this does mean more money for you in the short term, if they’re more likely to churn, it is worth getting the package that is right for them. 

With our proration API you can show your buyers what it would look like to either upgrade or downgrade, and give them the flexibility to make plan changes midterm. More flexibility for your buyers means they’re more likely to stay longer. 

6. Cancellation Survey: Don’t give up on canceled customers; win them back!

Although buyers may cancel for one reason or another, that doesn’t mean they’re gone for good. With our subscription.cancelled webhook, you can reach out to a buyer once they’ve canceled and try to win them back. Maybe you just want to collect some feedback about why they’ve left, or maybe you can offer them a deal to stay. 

Remember that you possess the means to reconnect with lost customers. By integrating that webhook into your email platform, you can engage with these former buyers. Whether you succeed in winning them back or not, their feedback holds tremendous value in shaping strategies to retain future customers.

Danica Larsen
Customer Success Manager 

The Only Thing That’s Constant With Tax Law Is Change

As a FastSpring seller, there’s no need to worry because we stay on top of all worldwide tax changes so you don’t have to. But, if you’d like to stay informed, you can always find detailed information about what’s changing in the tax documentation here. 

Here are some things to be aware of: 

VAT Rate Changes Effective January 1, 2024

CountryCurrent Effective 2024
Estonia20%22%
Singapore8%9%
Switzerland7.7% / 2.5%8.1% / 2.6%

Digital Reporting Requirements (DRR), aka Electronic Invoicing or E-invoicing

  • Separate country requirements are starting to appear everywhere. It varies by country but typically involves processing, transmitting, and receiving transaction data in a specified electronic format. It is NOT a PDF invoice delivered electronically. We are working behind the scenes to ensure compliance with e-invoicing requirements worldwide.
  • It’s important to remember, requirements vary by jurisdiction. Sellers are responsible for any digital reporting requirements on their sales TO FastSpring. FastSpring only handles this type of compliance on sales to the customer or end users. 
  • We currently facilitate DRR standards in the following countries:
    • Japan Qualified Invoice System (QIS)
    • Serbia eFaktura (SEF)
    • Taiwan Electronic Government Uniform Invoice (eGUI)
    • UK Making Tax Digital (MTD)

1099-K: Changes in Reporting Requirements

For 2023, the reduced reporting threshold for Form 1099-K is expected to be $600 (previously $20,000). Although guidance is still unclear and it may change before year-end. Sellers who transact in the US with sales over $600 will receive a 1099-K. Please make sure your mailing address is up to date. If you need to make changes, or If you haven’t already confirmed your tax status, complete the W8/W9 electronic questionnaire here. 

Beth Thorpe
Senior Platform Support Specialist 

FastSpring provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, and digital products businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

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