We’ve all been there – spending hours trying to figure out how to cancel a subscription that took just seconds to begin.
“What we need to see is businesses treating consumers’ choice with respect and implementing it,” said Chandni Gupta, the think tank’s deputy CEO. “And our research has shown that 90 per cent of consumers would actually be happy to re-engage with a business if the subscription process was easy to leave.”
The cost-of-living crisis has caused households to tighten their belts, including in relation to subscriptions. A survey by ING Australia found a quarter of Australians said they were not across all their scheduled monthly payments and took nine months on average to cancel payments for unused services.
It said subscription best practices included using the same platform to sign up and cancel, offering discounts or reduced rates upfront rather than at cancellation, and not hiding the “cancel” button.