Discontinuing subscription products

There are times when you may need to discontinue a product from your store. If a product is on subscription, you will need to perform additional steps before deleting the product or hiding the product in Shopify. Otherwise, simply deleting the product from Shopify can cause a variant error.

This guide provides instructions on how to discontinue a subscription product on your storefront and how to remove a product on existing subscriptions.

Discontinue products on your storefront

If you would like to prevent new customers from purchasing a product on subscription, simply remove the product from the ruleset in Recharge.

Remove the subscription rule

1. In your Recharge Admin select Products.
2. Locate the product you want to discontinue and select Actions.
3. Click Remove from Recharge.

Discontinue products for existing subscribers

If you would like to discontinue products that your existing customers have on subscription, there are a few options depending on the desired outcome.

Manually discontinue products for existing subscribers

If you have less than 50 customers, it is recommended you manually remove or swap the product. 

Bulk discontinue products for existing subscribers

Recharge can facilitate a bulk update for you to help discontinue products for existing subscribers if you need to update more than 50 subscriptions at once. You must send in the required CSV file at least 5 business days in advance to ensure the subscription is updated for the customer's next upcoming charge. 

Method 1 - Remove subscriptions

If you are discontinuing a product and would like to remove it from all existing subscriptions:

1. Delete the product from Recharge by selecting Remove from Recharge under Actions in the Product tab.
2. Export your Subscriptions - Active CSV from Settings (wrench icon) > Exports.
3. Isolate the CSV to all subscription products that should be removed from customer accounts. Do not include any subscription products that should remain on subscription.
4. Save a copy of the CSV.
5. Send the CSV to Recharge support. Once received, Recharge support will remove the subscription products in bulk.

Method 2 - Swap products

If you are discontinuing a product but would like to replace the product for existing subscriptions:

1. Delete the product from Recharge by selecting Remove from Recharge under Actions in the Product tab. 
2. Export your Subscriptions - Active CSV from Settings (wrench icon) > Exports.
3. Within the CSV, add three additional columns to the end of the CSV and use the following column titles:
   NEW Product Title
   NEW Variant Title
   NEW Variant ID
4. Isolate the list of subscriptions to only include products that will be swapped. Fill in the columns with the new product title, new variant title, and new variant ID. 
5. Send the CSV to Recharge support. Once received, Recharge support will perform the bulk product swap.