Since writing my book, I have noticed an emerging category, that I am calling The Physical Membership Economy.
Most of the current members of the ME Lab (that's all of you who are reading this post) have a virtual offering–digital content and services, maybe with a live event component.
The physical membership economy is when people's membership includes physical product. For the most part, there are flavors: subscription boxes (Birchbox, Stitchfix) or replenishment models (Amazon's Subscribe-and-Save, Dollar Shave Club).
Tech companies that support the physical membership economy are emerging as well. At one end of the spectrum, there's CrateJoy, focused on subscription boxes, making the process simple enough that anyone could start a subscription box business. At the other end is OceanX, a highly sophisticated company with a tagline of "Powering the Physical Membership Economy". The OceanX team comes out of direct-to-consumer behemoth Guthy Renker.
There are three benefits to the physical membership economy, from the member perspective:
1. Convenience
2. Cost Savings
3. Discovery
Possibilities are limitless.
If you're thinking about incorporating the physical membership economy into your model, please comment here!
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