Commerce: questions about renewal

[Gabriel Torres]

I am trying to setup the following scenario.

We have a "VIP package" that users can buy that is a subscription plan that gives them some extra benefits in our community.

As for pricing, I want it to be "x" for the first year, but a discounted amount for the following years.

Questions:

1.

ACP > Commerce > Products > [Edit Product] > Pricing tab > Renewals

Are "Renewals" automatic renewals? I don't want automatic renewals (our users don't like them, they feel cheated).

Or "Renewals" refer to the ability of the system sending an email to the user telling him that his subscription plan is about to expire and he should renew?

If I disable this option, the "Previous Purchase Discounts" value isn't shown at the front-end near the price.

If I disable this option, will the user still receive an email telling him that his subscription plan is about to expire?

2.

Store & Purchase settings tab > Allow users to purchase more than one?

In theory, this option would need to be disabled for subscriptions, as it doesn't make sense a user buying more than one subscription plan.

However, if this option is disabled, the system won't allow a user to buy the subscription plan if this user had bought a subscription plan and it has already expired and he wants to re-purchase the same plan after a while. He gets the following error message: "You are only allowed to purchase one of this product, and you have already done so."

Thank you in advance.

Gabriel.

[Tom S.]

A lot of the troubles you are running into, particularly with part 2 of your post, is because subscriptions is not handled properly by the Commerce app. I have brought this up in the past and have been informed that they plan to work on improving that. You can read it here:

As for automatic renewals, if you don't allow the option for users to save cards or create billing agreements (PayPal), then the invoices won't (can't) auto renew.

However, I don't think there is an option to allow saved cards and have auto renew switched off by default. Note that users can disable automatic renewals manually in the "manage purchase" section.

[Gabriel Torres]

@Tom S. Thanks for confirming that this is a bug or at least something that needs improvement. I will play with auto-renewal to see how it works.

What you wrote in the other topic is essential. Also the possibility of a subscriber buying another subscription anytime he wants and then automatically extending his current subscription. I saw Lindy's response. I hope they implement these changes soon. Cheers and many thanks!