5 Effective Ecommerce Notifications (Next to Cart Recovery)

We need to talk about an often overlooked marketing channel for ecommerce: notifications.

Most ecommerce businesses already use simple one-off messages to alert customers of one thing or another. They’re a simple way to keep your audience updated and engaged.

But usually store owners don’t even recognize the beauty, simplicity and potential of ecommerce notifications. To give you an idea of what’s possible, we’ll first need to take a look at one of the most commonly used examples: cart recovery notifications.

What is a cart recovery notification and why does it work?

For every $100 your ecommerce business makes, you’re losing out on $400. The reason? Would-be customers abandoning their shopping carts and failing to finish their purchase.

These people aren’t random shoppers stumbling upon your online store. These people have made it all the way down your sales funnel, but didn’t manage to convert at the very last moment.

The best way to reconvert these would-be customers is with cart recovery notifications. Most ecommerce businesses use email, chat, or text messages to remind these customers they’ve got items left in their carts.

The most common and efficient frequency for sending cart recovery emails is:

• After 60 minutes. Just a reminder that the customer didn’t finish their purchase.
• After 24 hours. Another reminder: the customer might have been busy and missed your first email.
• After 72 hours. Last shot at convincing them to buy their cart. Good idea to add a small discount (10%?) at this point.

Cart recovery emails are a very common practice, and sending one in the first hour after cart abandonment can help you recover 20.3% of sales.

Cart recovery notifications on chat apps like WhatsApp do even better, and tend to convert 33% more often when compared to reminders via email.

Most important, here, is the concept itself: sending a timely and relevant alert to your audience and driving them back to your store to boost conversions and sales.

Examples of other effective ecommerce notifications

So what other effective ecommerce notifications are available for your store? What other ways of updating your customers with relevant notifications can we think of?

To help you get started, we listed a few examples of notifications proven to be effective for ecommerce businesses, already. These are stupidly easy to set up, as well. Which one will you try first?

1. Product sale alerts: the FOMO notification

One of your products dropping in price soon? Make sure you keep your audience and past customers up to date with a one-time notification announcing this product going on sale.

Let customers opt in to product sale alerts on WhatsApp

Better yet: make sure you allow your store visitors to sign up for these product sale alerts on individual product pages. This lets you send out notifications with extremely high intent. Your conversion rates will soar.

This alert makes excellent use of fear of missing out, especially if you combine the product sale with scarcity (“only 50 items left”) or other types of urgency (“only today”).

2. Product recommendation: cross- and upselling

You know your ecommerce customers well. At least, you should. If you do, it’ll be easy for you to recommend other products your customers might like, based on previous purchases.

It’s common practice to include ‘add to cart’ recommendations to shopping cart pages. But you can also add product recommendation notifications to the mix. This allows you to cross- and/or upsell products at a later stage.

Your customer bought a new MacBook, but didn’t order that beautiful laptop sleeve yet?

Send them a product recommendation alert a few weeks after and remind them to make another purchase in your store with a highly relevant alert.

3. Coupon codes: exclusive discounts

Everybody loves a discount. As a matter of fact, we’d go as far as to say a notification offering you a discount in the form of a coupon code is NEVER unwanted nor unwarranted.

Make use of this fact, and set up a workflow to send out an alert with a coupon code to loyal customers. Maybe even on a regular basis. And you should consider sending these notifications using a chat app like WhatsApp, too.

Not only will they love you for it, the fact that you’re using WhatsApp means the coupon code won’t end up in any spam folders, or get overlooked.

After all, WhatsApp messages have an open rate averaging around 95% and conversion rates often reach about 25% or higher.

4. Back in stock notifications: reconvert would-be customers

Sometimes, people want to buy one of your products, but you’ve managed to sell out and you’re completely out of stock. This happens. And restocking takes time, in which your potential customers might lose interest or buy the same product elsewhere.

To minimize the damage to your ecommerce business, make sure you set up a system that allows would-be customers to sign up for a back in stock notification.

Let customers opt in to back in stock notifications

This notification should be sent automatically when you restock the product, driving customers back to your store and reconverting them.

Simple, relevant, timely and efficient, this alert should be part of every ecommerce manager’s messaging workflows.

5. New product message: build hype with drops

People like new things, they like being trendsetters and standing out from the crowd. You can use this psychological tendency in your marketing, too. Building anticipation or ‘hype’ around new products you’re releasing can dramatically increase sales.

Letting people sign up for a notification the exact moment this new product launches or ‘drops’ is a great way to guarantee selling out in no time.

Again, try adding a little urgency and scarcity to the mix. This makes the product feel even more exclusive. And exclusivity sells. Big time.

How to get started with WhatsApp notifications for ecommerce today

At ShopPop, we specialize in helping ecommerce businesses sell more online with relevant notifications. If you also want to drive customers back to your store with timely alerts sent through the chat apps your customers love, we’ve got you covered.

These alerts are powered by smart widgets that can exist all over your store, like on product pages, in chat pop-ups, or even post-purchase, on your confirmation page.

Check out our latest unintrusive smart ecommerce widget, the Button to Drawer widget.

On top of that, our tools also let you grow your business using automations for Instagram and Facebook. Imagine automating DM replies to people commenting specific keywords on your Instagram posts. How’s that for massive growth potential?

Need help getting set up on ShopPop? We’re happy to help you out, so don’t hesitate to get in touch through hello@shoppop.com. You can also book a demo or simply click the button below to get started.

Get started with WhatsApp marketing using ShopPop for your Shopify store.

Or why don't you connect with ShopPop directly through Messenger at https://m.me/shoppophq