How to use SMS to reactivate abandoned shopping carts
In fact for one SlickText client, nearly $157,000 was generated over a 30 day period by using SMS messaging to contact the holders of abandoned shopping carts. One retailer completed more than 700 extra sales by messaging shoppers with abandoned carts; that merchant began the 30 day period with 1,365 abandoned carts, giving them a 58% conversion rate.
The key, according to SlickText, is to be simple in wording the call to action and giving the shopper an easy one-click solution to get back to their cart. And, of course, merchants should test the timing to ensure they’re not texting too early, annoying shoppers, or too late, after they’ve forgotten what they wanted in the first place.
More data from SlickText can be accessed here.
Meanwhile, according to July data just out from the National Retail Federation, online and other non-brick-and-mortar retail sales were up about 19% YoY and just over 2% MoM. The online numbers are made more important when looking at total retail, which showed an increase in revenue for the month of less than 1% MoM and just 3% YoY.
“July’s strong results are consistent with a confident consumer,” said NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz. “Households are in good shape with spending and that should continue as long as the labor market remains healthy. But it’s important to remember that today’s data is looking backward at what was happening a month ago. The impact of volatile financial markets and increased trade tensions in recent weeks may put a wind of caution in consumer spending as we move forward in 2019.”
Much of the online increase is likely due to Amazon’s Prime Day and other retailers’ competing ‘special sale’ days in July, but its still important to note that digital commerce continues to outpace in-store sales. Merchants who can recover those abandoned digital carts, giving their customers a simple way to recover and check out those carts, could see a large influx on conversions.
