Offer subscription management on Shopify with KO Media
Centralize the group’s platforms to manage subscriptions in one place
KO Média and KO Éditions have been offering a wide selection of magazines and books since 2015. The company’s flagship publications include VÉRO, ELLE Québec, ELLE Canada, DiStasio, and K pour Katrine, as well as biographies and cookbooks. Its innovative and relevant content explores various themes, such as lifestyle, gastronomy, trends, societal issues, and children’s literature.
After completing a technological alignment project with Inno-Centre, the marketing and distribution team tasked Axial with the redesign project. This project involved migrating KO Éditions (on WooCommerce), Véro Magazine (also on WooCommerce), and ELLE (database in Excel format) to Shopify. The goal was to migrate the products (both physical and digital), existing business rules (shipping, subscriptions, renewals, automated marketing via Simplify, billing, etc.) to a Shopify online store for each of these brands.

Challenges and objectives
01
Improve the overall customer experience.
02
Reduce dependency on an external, outdated subscription management platform.
03
Increase cross-selling opportunities between different publishing products.
04
Optimize automated marketing flows via Simplify.
05
Reduce call and email volume to customer service.
06
Minimize manual intervention related to customer data management.
OUR SOLUTIONS
The goal was to set up a modern transactional site on a technology platform recognized for best practices in usability, security, and ease of management. This site, under KO Média’s management, with customer data and orders handled by internal teams, would ensure autonomy from external companies.
This transactional site would become the central point for all subscriptions, books, and other publishing products from KO Média, consolidated within a single portal. This approach would allow for cross-promotions between products, increasing the average transaction value while strengthening the visibility of the brand and its related categories.
The site also had to offer customers self-service account management features, enabling them to perform tasks such as changing addresses, modifying payment methods, renewing or canceling subscriptions, accessing order history, and more. By providing these self-service tools, users would minimize calls and interactions with KO Média’s customer service.
This future system needed to automate the transfer of customer data between the new transactional portal and external subscription management platforms to streamline operations and improve efficiency.

“A project of this magnitude requires nearly daily involvement from all stakeholders. The development team, strategy team, clients, and our Simplify partner rose to the challenges by being open, available, and proactive.”
Richard Desharnais, Programmer Analyst
Extent of work
Business and digital strategy
- Business strategy
- UX/UI design
- Workshops and training
Development
- Technology analysis and selection
- E-commerce website development
- Systems integration
Project management
- Project planning and management
- Stakeholder management
- Agile coaching and change management
