How YOCTO Turned Gratsi’s Post-Purchase Emails Into a $400K-a-Year Subscription Engine

Gratsi’s customers were buying once and drifting away. We replaced a generic post-purchase flow with two tailored journeys: one that turns Sampler buyers into box subscribers, and one that keeps subscribers pouring. Together they now bring in close to $400,000 a year. Here’s how.

Client Insights

Gratsi makes Mediterranean-inspired wine with zero added sugar and minimal sulfites. It comes in a 3-liter box, four bottles’ worth, and it stays fresh for 30 days after opening.

The box is the point. Pour one glass with dinner and leave the rest for tomorrow. There’s no pressure to finish a bottle before it turns.

Most new customers start with the Sampler, a set of bottles to try each wine. Subscribers get the box delivered on repeat, at a lower price, with Italian-inspired gifts along the way.

The Challenge

Gratsi didn’t have an acquisition problem. Its problem started after the first order.

The Sampler had become the product most new customers bought first. Great for acquisition, bad for lifetime value, because the Sampler has no subscription option. Buyers landed on a one-time purchase and stayed there.

Subscribers carried a different risk. A box that sits unopened. A next delivery that arrives before the last one’s finished. The same wine every month, with the rest of the range never tried. Each one is a reason to cancel.

One post-purchase flow was trying to serve both groups, and it served neither.

Our Process

The fix wasn’t more emails. It was the right emails for each customer.

We split Gratsi’s post-purchase experience into two journeys, based on what the customer bought and whether they’re on a subscription. Each one has its own goal, its own pace and its own content.

1. Turning Sampler buyers into subscribers

Sampler customers aren’t ready to be sold to. They’ve just spent money on a brand they barely know, and the first thing they want is to enjoy what they bought.

So the journey starts as pure onboarding. The early emails introduce the brand, share recipes and pairings, and help the customer get the most out of the bottles in front of them. There’s no mention of a subscription.

As time passes, the tone shifts. The box is introduced as a better way to drink the same wine: it keeps the wine fresh for weeks, it cuts down on packaging, and it fits the Mediterranean habit of a glass a day instead of a bottle a night. Then the subscription follows, with each benefit spelled out on its own: the lower price, the free gifts with every renewal, the freedom to skip or pause.

By the final emails the flow is selling openly, and it’s timed to do so. We looked at how long Sampler customers typically take before they buy their first box, and placed the most direct emails just ahead of that window. The pitch lands when the bottles are running low and the customer’s already thinking about the next order.

A few things that make this flow work:

• It only targets non-subscribers, so anyone who converts drops out immediately
• It nurtures first and sells later, with the shift timed to real purchase data, not a guess
• It presents every subscription benefit separately and plainly, so nothing needs decoding

2. Keeping subscribers subscribed

For subscribers, the goal is different. They’ve already said yes. Our job is to make sure they keep saying it.

Most cancellations in a subscription like this aren’t about price. They happen when the product isn’t being used. A box sits unopened, the next delivery arrives before the last one’s finished, and the customer cancels to stop the pile-up. Or they drink the same wine every month, never try the rest of the range, and quietly lose interest.

So the subscriber journey is built around usage. It shows new subscribers how to use the product, with simple how-to guides and video. It gives them reasons to reach for it, with recipes, pairings and the brand’s own content hub. And it reminds them why they made a good decision, so the reasons they signed up are still fresh when the next renewal comes around.

Then it expands what they buy. At the point in the subscription where customers are most likely to add something new, we introduce a wine they haven’t tried yet, chosen from what they already order. These emails read like small product pages, with tasting notes, benefits and reviews from customers who made the same move.

In practice, that means:

• Onboarding content that removes any friction in using the product
• Ongoing content that keeps the product in daily use, so subscribers never overstock
• Cross-sell emails timed to the moment of highest intent and matched to the customer’s taste

The Results

The two journeys now bring in close to $400,000 a year, all of it from customers who’d already bought once and would otherwise have received a generic flow.

Sampler buyers now have a path to a subscription instead of a dead end. Subscribers have a reason to open, pour and explore, and a reason to stay.