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Fairown Drives Brands to Embrace Circular Subscriptions

Updated: Nov 21, 2022

  • Fairown designs and launches subscription-based models to empower brands of every size to take climate action while growing profitably.

  • Learn how Fairown’s holistic solution is leading the world to environmentally conscious consumption without the complexity, risks, and costs of traditional models.


The World Is Experiencing a Shift from a Linear to a Circular Economy.


Buy, use, throw. Repeat.


This linear cycle of consumption has been around for as long as we can remember and it’s about to change. In fact, it already has.


A Harvard Business Review survey reported that 65% want to buy from purposeful brands that advocate sustainability. Even the advertising landscape confirms it. We’re now in an era of green consumption.


Spotify did it for CDs. When streaming became mainstream in 2016, the US industry’s 61,000 tonnes of plastic production dropped by as much as 86%. Ikea proclaimed its ambitious goal to be fully circular by 2030.


Fashion has joined the circle with handbag subscriptions. Style ambassadors can now rent and switch handbags. It’s smart, pro-planet, and even more fashion-forward (new bag post in your Instagram every week? Yes!).


A circular economy can be done, but it’s hard to pull off.


Fairown noticed a financial model behind circular economies that make them roll smoothly. We believe that through this model, any brand can enter the green circle, too.

But financing is not the only mountain that should be climbed.


The Cost of Going Green


Many people still believe that sustainable living is a choice only available to the privileged few. Of course, you can’t have a solar-powered home like your neighbor Harry if you can’t afford the solar panels, right?


The same assumption holds true for businesses. While the circular movement by global brands is felt, the gap lies in the local brands. Going green has a cost ($45 trillion to be exact) and it’s not just financial:

  • green energy sources are priced at a premium;

  • the switch pushes companies to raise prices;

  • paperless is synonymous with data risk, employee resistance, and a whole lot of business process changes.

When you want to go green, the challenges come from all directions — financials, logistics, processes, people, operations, support, and even customer adoption.

The solution is massive and massively expensive, but there’s another way.


As environmentalists who have been working in fintech for 18+ years, Fairown’s co-founders Hendrik Roosna and Taivo Türnpu have come up with a holistic and repeatable solution.


Roosna shared how it started, "When I saw the Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg striking for climate change and trying to protect the future, it made me realise we can leverage our technology to help profit-oriented brands and retailers to earn their profits in a way that is also environmentally friendly," said Roosna.


And it turned out, bluecorps desperately needed such a solution.


Fairown's founders: Hendrik Roosna and Taivo Türnpu.


Fairown’s sustainably designed subscription models have enabled environmentally-conscious brands to enter and thrive in a circular economy.

With tech and a signature process, Fairown has bootstrapped to €1.2 million in revenue, just two years after launching. We recently raised €4.2 million and have expanded operations to eight countries, too.


Fairown: the Easiest Path to Subscriptions


Subscriptions is a win-win for brands and consumers:

  1. customers get what they want for a much lesser price;

  2. businesses generate recurring revenue through repeat purchases.

Fairown built on this principle. Our end-to-end subscriptions allowed companies to adopt a circular model in as fast as 5 weeks.

That enables Fairown to do what an in-house team can execute in 1-1.5 years.

The process is proven. The tech is solid. The commitment to customers is gold.


With Fairown, companies don’t face the transformation alone. We work closely with clients to accomplish the following.


  1. Choose products that would best suit a subscription offer and Fairown’s platform will deliver these choices to the customer.

  2. Develop a white label eCommerce page where customers can easily sign up for a subscription plan online or in-store.

  3. Have customers qualified by a local bank or financial service provider.

  4. Merchant delivers the product and gets payment from Fairown.

  5. Customers pay according to the subscription plan they sign up for.

  6. Provide a centralised platform where you can monitor your shipments, subscriptions, and renewal cycle.

  7. Upon renewal, customers will receive a new product from the merchant and the delivery will come with a box with instructions to ship the used product to Fairown.


This process is repeatable, welcomed by consumers, and applicable to any industry.


Making Economies Circular, One Company at a Time


Although you can’t “upload” a 60-inch TV to the Cloud, Fairown can help you become circular even when you’re selling physical products.


Brands in Scandinavia like Apple, STIHL, and Komplett are already using Fairown’s model and have experienced success from their hardware subscription offerings.


In a Forbes article featuring the team, our CEO Hendrik said, "While I have been co-leading the creation of subscription-based Apple products in Nordics in the past, until today approximately one-third of its customers choose to pay a monthly fee during the check-out process for their product, instead of buying it.


We decided to create a spin-off of this success story and apply similar logic to other products that individuals can use for a limited time and do not significantly deteriorate in value.


Furthermore, the solution provides a unique insight into who the users are and how they use different products. Outdoor-power tools are just the beginning for our Nordic journey and sky is the limit."


When STIHL launched subscription plans for their iMOW line of robotic garden mowers, their customers bought iMOW models at affordable monthly rates. Whenever a customer needs to return it for renewal or maintenance, a pick-up service attends to them and they’ll have a new model installed after.


Will You Be the Next One?


Zion Market Research projects that the subscription market will reach $10.5 billion by 2025.

The subscription model is key in customer retention, higher lifetime value, and sustainable expansion of sales channels.

Fairown wields tech with the belief that providing a system for a scalable subscription model is not only a means for profit... it’s the surefire — and the fastest — way to achieve the greater goal of a sustainable future.


We set out to create opportunities so everyone, especially the local businesses who are more in touch with the community, can do their part to save the planet before we all run out of time.

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