Use text messaging to recover abandoned shopping carts and drive revenue
Text messaging could solve the abandoned cart dilemma for online retailers
We're all guilty of it. We browse stores online, add things to our cart, and then, for whatever reason, leave the site without completing the purchase. Maybe we plan on coming back later, but we’ll more than likely forget if we're not reminded.
Shopping cart abandonment has become a major pain point for online retailers. According to Statista, over 70% of shoppers on e-commerce websites abandon their cart before purchasing. It's reported that e-commerce stores lose $18 billion in sales revenue each year as a result of cart abandonment.
There's a number of reasons why shoppers drop off, but what this all boils down to is lost revenue that impacts your bottom line. However, there’s a new strategy even more effective than email marketing that ecomm operators can use to recoup lost sales, and it's a form of communication all of us are familiar with: text messaging.
Abandoned cart reminders
After welcome series messages, we’ve found that abandoned cart reminders are the highest converting type of triggered text message (upwards of 34% conversion rates).
According to Listrak, cart reminder emails sent 3 hours after a shopper abandons their cart average a 40% open rate and a 20% click-through rate. On the flip side, we've found SMS cart reminders average 90%+ open rates and 20-30% click-through rates. Considering over 90% of all text messages are opened within 3 minutes, text messaging offers a significant advantage over email when it comes to visibility and timeliness.
One example of a brand that is doing this exceptionally well is Orient Watch USA, a high-end watch retailer. The timepiece company uses DojoMojo’s SMS platform to send personalized marketing messages to their mobile subscribers and win back shoppers who abandon their carts. Their team successfully recouped over $10k in 2 months with trigger cart recovery messages.
Sam Bolland, Marketing Manager for Orient Watch USA, said: “The reality is, SMS is outperforming email. We've found that when someone subscribes to SMS, they're 10-15% more likely to interact with our brand again. There are many other SMS marketing vendors out there, but few who are true partners. We really appreciate how DojoMojo works in tandem with us to build and execute not only our SMS efforts but make it work with our marketing strategy as a whole.”
Not convinced? Our data team found that retargeting shoppers through text messaging can reduce cart abandonment by 25%, and increase online sales by over 30%.
Start recouping lost e-commerce sales
Truth is, you’re leaving money on the table if you're not using SMS to recover abandoned carts.
The good news? It’s easy to get started.
Invite shoppers to complete their purchase 30-60 minutes after they’ve left something in their online cart. In the message, you can complement their great taste, offer something special like a discount code or free shipping, or create a sense of urgency by encouraging them to shop before the product sells out. Personalize your reminder with the name and image of the product to remind them of what they’ve left behind. Complete the message with a link back to their cart so they can finish checking out.
