How does the upsell/upgrade process work?

Using the rentalhive theme

We have 3 listing package tiers with the following prices and listing durations:

  1. free - $0 - 7 days
  2. basic - $50 - 30 days
  3. premium - $100 - 90 days

If the user selects the “free” package, it correctly expires after 7 days and the user receives the “listing expired” email. But that’s all that happens.

How can we encourage the user to upgrade to a paid package?

At the moment, the user can go to their account orders, view this free order, and order again.
We have the checkbox unchecked under Hivepress > Settings > Listings > Allow multiple free packages

The corresponding woocommerce product is setup as a virtual / downloadable product with download limit of 1. It also has inventory set to sell individually as only 1 available per order.

We want to limit this user account from re-ordering this listing as free. Instead, they should have to pay to upgrade to a paid package.

Do we create a separate woocommerce product that we send to the user to purchase? How would that notify the listing to not be expired anymore?

Hi,

Unfortunately, there is currently no such functionality to convert the rest of the previous package.
You can buy another package if the limit of the previous one has expired.

If several packages are purchased, the limit of the package with the largest listings is used first.

Would purchasing another package require re-inputting all the listing details? (basically starting over from the beginning)

Or is there a way to purchase a package to extend the time limit of the existing listing? It’s essentially like you’re “renewing” the listing, just for a paid cost to extend the time limit.

Users will have to re-select and purchase a package if they add a new listing (in this case the form is empty since it’s a new one) or renew an existing one (then they don’t have to re-enter all the details), the checkout form should also be pre-filled if they placed any orders previously.

Is there an automated way to inform the user that their listing is almost expiring? I know there’s an email informing them that the listing expired, but what if a user wants to extend their listing before it expires?

Unfortunately there’s no pre-expiration email notification yet, but we plan to add it.

Ok. I can probably use an ESP with marketing automation to time sending out an email.

But where do I send users to “renew” a paid listing?

How do I “upsell” to a paid package?

And how do I not allow users to select the free package again for the same listing?

Would it be better to sell listings as memberships instead of listing packages?

Unless this is changed in settings, free packages can’t be re-selected once their limit is exceeded. Please try to renew a listing, there should be the same Select Package page like with adding new listings, but it appears only if the current package limit is exceeded.

Yes, we plan to switch to the membership monetization model instead, by releasing a new extension for this.

So until there’s a new extension released, would this be the best approach…

We currently sell 3 package options up front after adding a new listing:

  1. Free - duration 7 days
  2. Basic - duration 30 days
  3. Premium - duration 90 days

We do not allow Free packages to be extended or re-listed.

We could create WooCommerce products that offer listing expiration extensions (for example… 30 days, 60 days, 90 days) that the user can purchase.

After the user purchases a listing expiration extension, the site admin could manually extend the expiration date in the wordpress admin by editing the listing and choosing a future date.

Is there a better approach? Is there an automated way to manage these expiration dates?

I know the user can view their orders and click “Order Again”, but that’s not intuitive for the user that they are extending time. And it’s possible the user might want to “upgrade” to a longer time duration than what they previously purchased.

By default, the expiration date is set when the listing is submitted, based on the package used (so if it’s a 7-day package the listing would expire 7 days after the publication, even if it’s published later than the package is purchased). User get notifications about the expiration, if they want to renew the listing to keep it visible they can click Renew and they’d have to choose the package again (if the limit is exceeded). Editing the expiration date manually is not required unless there’s another custom logic, e.g. if it’s a subscription product then yet, you’d have to manage listings manually but in this case you can just leave the expiration period empty and unpublish listings when you get a notification that the subscription is canceled.

Thanks for that explanation @ihor

I didn’t realize the “Renew Listing” link was at the bottom of the listing edit page after the listing expires. That’s not very intuitive to the user…

  1. View their listings in their Account page
  2. Find then click the “Hidden” listing
  3. Scroll to the bottom of the listing page (our listing edit pages are very long with 27 attributes and descriptions for each attribute along with social media links)
  4. Click “Renew listing”
  5. then order a package again.

After I tested this with an account, I found that I could re-order a free package.

Is there a way to limit Free packages from being re-ordered? We have the checkbox unchecked in the WP dashboard, but the user is able to select a free package again after the last one expired.

Finally, is there a way to only start the expiration date after the listing is published? This penalizes moderated listings because the user might submit the listing before a holiday weekend then realize on the following Tuesday that their listing only has 3-4 days left of 7 days (unless the admin manually adjusts the expiration date on each listing after they are approved)

It might help to add context that the Free package has a listing limit set to 1 in the WP admin. But users are still able to select that package after their first package expired.

  1. Please don’t link free packages with WooCommerce products, then the extension detects them as Free and forbids re-selecting them after the limit is exceeded.

  2. Yes, we plan to fix this, currently the expiration countdown starts on the listing submission, not approval.

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