Overview

• This guides outlines how to setup a dynamically priced build-a-box; to set up a static priced box use this guide: Classic Build-a-box Setup Guide

• Dynamic boxes allows you to create bundles with customizable size and discounts on your storefront so that subscribers can make a selection of eligible products to add to their box as a subscription

• Volume discounts can be applied to a box to incentive buying more products with additional discounts

• Easily choose which products are eligible, discounts for buying more, and options for fixed quantity boxes (eg. 3 or 6 unit sizes) or quantity ranges (eg. minimum of 3 units and maximum of 6 units)

• With a sectioned box, you can combine or stack dynamic boxes to set size limits on specific products (more below)

Important considerations

• Dynamic and sectioned boxes will use Functions; Functions are not compatible with scripts
• If your store is still using scripts, this must be configured by your developers
  • We highly recommend upgrading to Shopify Functions since scripts will be deprecated soon (2024)
• There are 3 options for the box builder page
  1. Use the default template with customizable colors
  2. Edit the default template with more complex styling (requires a developer)
  3. Create a custom box builder page (requires a developer)
• Skio does not support the customization of your box builder page; if you need a developer, let us know and we can recommend one! 

Creating a custom box builder page

Your developers can build an entirely custom box builder page and leverage Skio's box API. Skio will not handle the customizations, but we do have great agency partners we can recommend. Here's the developer documentation: Dynamic build a box dev docs. 

What is a dynamic box?

Dynamic boxes allow your subscribers to customize a subscription box made up products you define as eligible and the total price will adjust based on the price of the individual products in the box. Unlike Skio's Classic Boxes, dynamic boxes are best used to combine products with different prices into a single box to increase average order value while also helping to protect your product margins.

With dynamic boxes, subscription products are virtually bundled together in Skio's backend so that inventory is easy to manage for each product and Skio can use your current product catalog without making any edits. Instead of having a "parent" or "child" products, dynamic boxes group normal subscription products together without disrupting your current fulfillment flow in any way.

An added benefit of our box logic is that additional "non-box eligible" products and one-time add-ons can be added to the box subscription throughout the subscriber's post-purchase journey. So if you want your box subscribers to try out a new limited edition product, it can easily be added to the subscription without needing to be added to the box itself. Here's a visual to better understand how this appears in Shopify and in the customer portal:

 

How to create a dynamic box

Step 1: Creating a dynamic box in Skio

When the build-a-box feature is enabled, a page titled "Build-a-box" will populate in your sidebar within the Skio app. Within this page, there are three sections: Static box, Dynamic box, and Sectioned box. Learn more about Fixed Pricing Boxes here: Fixed Pricing Boxes.

All currently available dynamic pricing boxes will populate in the Dynamic Pricing Boxes section of the page. To create a new box, select "Dynamic box" in the top right corner of the page:

 

Dynamic box options

Dynamic box configurations

Enable child product grouping: By default, Skio displays each product individually on the box builder page (each variant is its own block) and does not group products together; selecting this option allows you to group products together within a box and offer a variant selector (great for stores with a lot of variants!)

Choose one time upsell items: Selecting 1-time upsells will create a 2nd page in the box builder process on your storefront to offer 1-time add-ons; this is a great way to increase AOV!

Header: Select a custom header for the box builder page 

Subheader: Choose a subheader for the box builder page

Customer portal title: Select the name of the product for the customer portal

Display by variant: By default, Skio displays each variant invididually; selecting this option will combine variants and display a dropdown selector for variants on the box builder page and in the customer portal

Child quantity editable: Enabling this setting allows the subscriber to manually enter a number (rather than using the "+" and "-" selectors); this is a good option for boxes with larger quantities (eg. 20+ products)

Hide discount progress bar: Enabling this setting will hide the volume discount progress bar

Ignore one time: By default, dynamic boxes are available as both a one-time purchase and for subscription; enabling this setting will remove the one-time checkout option and force a subscription

Hide learn more: By default, Skio will pull in the product description so subscribers can learn more about what they're choosing; enabling this setting will remove the "learn more" button on the box builder page

Hide child item price (customer portal): Enabling this setting will hide the child price in the customer portal; most merchant will keep this disabled

Here's an example of the box builder page:

 

How to create a box with min/max product requirements

A min/max box allows you to set a range so a subscriber can choose select between the minimum and maximum amount of products for their box. For example, you may want to set a minimum of 2 products to increase AOV and set a maximum amount of products in the box to simplify fulfillment (great for heavy products or smaller shipping boxes).

1. Name your box

2. Choose volume discount type (percentage/fixed)

3. Choose volume discount thresholds

4. Choose minimum and maximum amount of products in the box

5. Select the products that can be added to the box

6. Click save!

Example:

Creating a Specific Size Box

A specific size box allows you to enforce a set amount of products for the box without the range. For example, you may want to only offer the box in 3,5, and 7 sizes. Subscribers can select their size on the box builder page. In the customer portal, a subscriber can always upgrade or downgrade to the other box sizes.

1. Name your box

2. Choose volume discount type (percentage/fixed)

3. Choose volume discount thresholds

4. The different box sizes will be created based on the volume discount thresholds

   Note: If you want multiple size boxes but keep the same discount just use the same discounts for those discount thresholds in step 3

5. Select the products that can be added to the box

6. Click save!

Example:

Step 2: Create the box selling plan

After creating the box in the Build-a-box page in Skio, the next step is to setup the newly created dynamic box product as a subscription product in Skio.

Follow these 3 quick steps:

1. On the Selling plans page, click "Create dynamic box subscribe and save"

2. Setup the selling plans with the shipping intervals you want to offer and add the dynamic boxes

 

3. After clicking save, go back into the selling plan and click "Sync child selling plans"

Once the selling plans have been created, it's important to click "Sync Child Selling Plans" as the final step. All eligible products available in the dynamic box must have selling plans on the same frequency and discount as box itself. Syncing child selling plans will create the necessary selling plans for the eligible products if there isn't a selling plan already created.

 

If your store is still on our old selling plan structure, follow these steps:

1. In the Products page, click "Add product" and select your new box

 

2. Create the selling plans for this box and click save!

3. Sync Child Selling Plans!

 

Step 3: Setting Up the Box in Shopify (optional)

This isn't required and will only affect the backend display of the product for your internal employees. It's good practice to organize products and keep them updated, but again this will not impact customers in any way so it's an optional step.

Once the selling plans have all been configured for the dynamic box, the final step is to configure the product in your Shopify storefront so a subscriber can use the box builder page to create new boxes! Products can be configured in 2 easy steps:

• Choose the product image, description, and add any product details like tags or setup categories

  • Note: Since the box is not an actual product in the subscription itself, the price, variant, SKU, quantity, and weight can all be left to the default options since Skio will reference these values for the individual products that make up the box

• Turn the product status from "Draft" to "Active" once your ready for this to be available on your storefront

The next section will provide instructions on how to create a new dynamic box on your website. We recommend using this process to test out the experience before making the box available to new subscribers.

How to create a Sectioned box

Creating a sectioned box is incredible easy. First, create the dynamic boxes you want to use for the sectioned box. For example, to create a make-up sectioned box, I first need to create the Lipstick, Eyeshadow, and Eyeliner dynamic boxes. Here's an example of what this will look like on the Build-a-box page:

After the dynamic boxes are created, choose "Sectioned box" at the top of the page. There are 3 simple steps to setup a sectioned box. Before making a sectioned box, remember that the configurations for each dynamic box in the sectioned box will be used so make sure to setup the dynamic box correctly. In some cases, you may want to create a duplicate dynamic box if the main box and sectioned boxes have different product restrictions.

For example, the Lipstick box has a range of 1-3 items with a volume discount of $2 off. The eyeshadow box has a range of 2-6 items with a $2, $4, and $6 volume discount. The eyeliner box has a range of 1-6 items with a $5 and $10 volume discounts. These ranges and volume discounts will be used in the sectioned box along with the custom headers and customizations (eg. variant grouping).

Here's what the sectioned box builder page will look after adding in the Lipstick, Eyeshadow, and Eyeliner dynamic boxes:

Creating a sectioned box:

1. Name your sectioned box
2. Choose the dynamic boxes 
3. Select one time upsells

User Journey for Dynamic Boxes

Box Builder (Storefront)

The main component of a dynamic build-a-box is the storefront box builder page. This page will be created by Skio and will have it's own unique URL in the format of yourstore.myshopify.com/a/account/custom-tools/dynamic-box?product=BOXPRODUCTID. The box builder page is built into the build-a-box page. After creating a box, we will create a "preview" button that opens up your box builder page. You can use this url to direct customers to the box builder page in your storefront.

Without including this url in your theme, the box will not display automatically on your storefront.

Box Customizer (Customer Portal)

Customizing the box in the customer portal is incredibly easy. If a box is in a subscription, an "edit box products" button will populate in their customer portal. Clicking this button allows for quick edits including adding and removing products as well as upgrading or downgrading specific option size boxes.

Here's a preview of editing a box in the customer portal:

FAQs

Can I edit the box builder page?

Yes! By default, Skio will pull in your Shopify theme's colors and fonts. If you'd like to add a custom header or footer, a developer can inject code on the page. Devs can add any content above or below any of our proxy content by adding it below the in the theme since that’s where app proxies are injected. Here's an example of that code:

{% if request.path contains '/a/account/bab' %} FAQ CONTENT {% endif %}

How do I edit a box after creating one?

Boxes can be edited after creation to add and remove eligible "child" products for the box. If a product is removed, this will not remove the product for current subscribers - it will only impact new customers. Adding a product to a box will make it eligible for new and current subscribers (in the customer portal).

Note: The size of the box and volume discounts are not editable after creating a box.

How do I make edits to the box builder page to match my store's brand?

Skio's Launch engineers will help style your page so that it matches your store's brand and colors. If you need additional customizations, please reach out to our Support Team via help@skio.com. In the future, we plan to offer editing capabilities for your dev team so this can be a self-serve option.

Can a subscriber add a box from the customer portal?

This is a feature we plan to introduce shortly, but currently a dynamic box can only be created by going through the checkout process.

Are there any features not currently compatible with dynamic box subscriptions?

Currently dynamic build-a-box does not work for prepaid subscriptions as well as some quick actions such as swaps.

How do I delete a dynamic or sectioned box?

Simply delete the product in Shopify. Make sure you work with Skio to identify customers who are currently subscribed to the box to prevent any issues.