How to Reduce Cart Abandonment with SMS Reminders

Leverage SMS for cart abandonment to boost your online sales.

SMS is one of the most effective communication tools for both individuals and businesses. You can send various types of transactional and promotional messages using SMS to generate leads and increase your revenue.

An important application of SMS is reminders that help businesses remind their customers of essential dates, events, or deals.

In this blog post, we’ll explain how you can reduce cart abandonments using SMS automation. You will also learn about the capabilities of WP SMS for sending personalized abandoned cart messages at scale.

What’s Cart Abandonment?

As it comes from the name, cart abandonment is when a potential customer leaves an online shop while he/she has added items to their shopping cart.

This is a common issue faced by e-commerce businesses. The average cart abandonment rate is between 60% to 80% in various industries.

Take a look at the following table to see cart abandonment stats in more detail:

To prevent such a problem, you need to get familiar with the main reasons. Here are some common reasons why people abandon shopping carts:

1. Costs: Sometimes people choose a product based on the cost. However, when they add it to the cart and see the final cost with shipping fees and taxes, they abandon the cart.

2. Complicated Checkout Process: You need to pay attention to lengthy or confusing checkout procedures that can frustrate buyers.

3. No Guest Profile: Sometimes people don’t have the time to create an account. So if you force them to create an account, they might decide to cancel the purchase.

4. Comparison Shopping: many shoppers just want to compare the price of products with other online stores.

5. Security & Technical Issues: If your website has any technical or security issues, you might face a high rate of abandoned carts.

Benefits of SMS for Cart Abandonment?

Now, let’s see why you need to use SMS for cart abandonment. Let’s take a look at the differences between SMS and other communication channels like emails and social media:

As you see, SMS is a direct, personal, and immediate communication tool that brings a high engagement rate. So it’s great for abandoned cart reminders because it requires immediate action and personalization.

SMS Cart Abandonment Recovery Strategies & Tips

You might assume that sending a reminder is simple. However, it’s important to know that many businesses can’t retain customers despite investing significant time and money.

Without a strong strategy, you can’t reach success in your abandoned cart SMS campaign.

So take a look at the following cart abandonment recovery tips to get the most out of your campaign:

1. Send a Timely Reminder

Timing is crucial for a successful abandoned cart recovery messaging campaign. There is no specific formula to determine the best time for sending an abandoned cart recovery message.

However, there are some points that you need to consider. First, you don’t have to send the text message at untimely hours like late at night or early in the morning.

Second, You shouldn’t wait long after the customer abandons the cart because they might go for another brand or even forget about the product.

The smart approach is to send the first SMS reminder an hour after abandonment. This way, you can re-engage customers while they are still interested. Try to write the message with a friendly tone like the following abandoned cart SMS example:

You can send other messages according to the following table:

Remember that you shouldn’t send all of these messages, as your customer might get annoyed and block your number.

Respect the frequency and send only two cart abandonment reminders, depending on the situation.

2. Offer an Incentive

Your customer must have a reason for abandoning so don’t expect that they complete the purchase without a stronger reason.

So you have to include incentives in your messages to encourage them to buy the product. You can start by describing a great benefit of your product in the first reminder.

If a customer does not respond to the first reminder, You can think of a follow-up message with a discount or free shipping offer.

Of course, you have to choose the offer depending on the importance of the product. If it’s a profitable deal, go for a powerful motivator. Look at the following SMS sample to see how it works:

3. Create a Sense of Urgency

SMS is the best tool for time-sensitive messages and creating a sense of urgency. This is really helpful when it comes to encouraging people to buy something.

In fact, you need to make them believe that they’re going to lose something important. Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) is a successful method if you use it in the right way in your cart abandonment SMS.

Look at the following example of cart abandonment SMS that leverages limited stock availability to encourage immediate action:

Here are some techniques to create a sense of urgency:

• Limited-Time Offers: Set a deadline to create urgency like “🕒 Flash Sale! Ends in 3 hours—don’t miss out!”

• Low Stock Alerts: Alert customers when inventory is running low. For example, “⚠️ Only three left in stock—order now before it’s gone!“

• Countdown Timers: Use a visible timer such as “⏳ Your discount expires in: 00:29:59—act fast!“

• Cart Expiry Warnings: Tell customers that their cart will be deleted soon.
  “🚨 Your cart is about to expire! Complete your purchase before items are released.”

• Exclusive Offers for Fast Action: You can reward customers who buy quickly. For example, “🎁 Checkout within the next 15 minutes and get a free gift!“

• Limited-Quantity Deals: Offer discounts only for a set number of buyers. Look at this offer to see how it works: “First 50 customers get 20% off—act now!“

These are great ways to entice them to act soon. You can also come up with other ideas to reduce abandoned carts.

4. Use Personalization

Another important matter you need to consider is the tone of your message. You should send a cold message because people don’t like sales pitches.

So try to personalize your messages using what you know about the customer. Fortunately, SMS tools like WP SMS allow you to collect customer data and customize each message according to the recipient’s details.

This way, customers respond better to your messages because they feel the SMS is written specifically for them.

Look at the following example SMS for a personalized cart abandonment reminder:

Here are some factors for personalization that you can use in your SMS templates for cart recovery:

• Name inclusion
• Specific product details
• Images of abandoned items
• Personalized discount offers
• Product recommendations
• Cart summary
• Location-based offers

5. Provide Customer Support

Many times customers abandon their cart due to concerns or questions. This is an important situation where you have to offer direct assistance via SMS.

Using a simple cart abandonment reminder you can both increase your sales and also gain the trust of customers. When they see you’re committed to answering their concerns, they become interested in your brand.

Here is an example of such messages:

6. Run A/B Test

A/B testing different messages, tones, timing, and incentives can help you find the best version for your cart abandonment SMS templates. 

Here is an example of an A/B test for testing the best version of urgency:

Version A (10%)

Version B (15%)

Then, you have to send these two versions to two segments of your audience with abandoned carts to see which one works better.

7. Track the Performance of Cart Abandonment SMS Campaign

Last but not least, you need to track the results of your abandonment text messages. Try to monitor key performance metrics such as click-through rates and conversion rates. Then, you can optimize your SMS recovery strategy and reach better results in future campaigns. 

The Best SMS Platform for Abandoned Cart Reminders?

Now, it’s time to choose a powerful SMS platform to automate your abandoned cart reminders. 

You need to choose a platform that offers advanced features, a user-friendly interface, and affordable pricing packages.

WP SMS is the best SMS platform for WooCommerce businesses. It’s perfectly compatible with WooCommerce and WordPress and allows you to run promotional and transactional campaigns directly from your WordPress dashboard.

You can easily install this plugin on your dashboard and configure one 300+ SMS gateways it offers.

WP SMS lets you segment your website’s users and send automated text message reminders based on triggers you define.

The dynamic content feature of WP SMS allows you to customize each SMS according to the personal details of your recipient. This will result in a higher engagement rate and long-lasting customer relationships.

Working with WP SMS and sending abandoned cart SMS is straightforward. Here is a summary of how to do that:

• Install Plugins: Install and activate WP SMS WooCommerce Pro.

• Configure Settings: Set cart abandonment time, create discount coupons, and customize SMS reminders.

• Automate SMS Reminders: Enable automated messages with customer details and urgency.

• Track Performance: Use the built-in report to monitor abandoned cart SMS reminders.

So try the WP SMS demo to familiarize yourself with its capabilities. You can also contact us if you have any questions about SMS marketing.

Conclusion

Cart abandonment has become a great concern of online stores, especially small and medium-sized businesses. 

Among all methods and channels for encouraging customers to complete the purchase, SMS has shown a great performance. 

It’s the most direct, personal, and immediate channel for communication. 

With a bit of creativity and using an effective SMS tool, you can reduce the abandoned cart rates. 

WP SMS is here to help you run successful transactional and promotional SMS campaigns to engage with your customers and boost your sales. So why wait? Get started with your SMS journey right now!

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