Conversational SMS Marketing could prove to be the perfect solution to crack the cart recovery code this year and recover lost sales efficiently— and effortlessly.

Abandoned shopping carts are one of the issues that eCommerce stores have struggled with. Well not anymore. We'll show you the steps to recapture up to 5x more profits by integrating a conversational SMS marketing platform to your marketing stack.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, CNBC has reported that online shoppers have found a novel past time of filling, then abandoning their shopping carts online to replace real-life window shopping.

Email marketing has been the go-to marketing channel to reduce lost shopping carts and customer churn by winning back lapsed customers and automated cart recovery emails, but does this still hold its fort in 2021?

Here's how you can further tip the odds in your favor.

Why is Shopping Cart Abandonment a Problem For Retailers?

Shopping Cart abandonment is when a shopper adds an item to their shopping cart but leaves without completing their purchase.

According to a study by Baymard Institute, the cart abandonment rate stands at an astonishing 69.57%. That alone has cost the eCommerce industry about $4.6 million in lost sales every year.

So if you have 10 customers who have added your store's products to their shopping cart, it's likely that only 3 of them would complete their purchase. Already, we understand the instantaneous advantages of text messaging that make it the perfect complementary channel to email marketing.

But take a look at some statistics below for SMS marketing:

1. 98% open rates
2. 19% click-through rates
3. 55% response rates
4. 31% conversion rates

Conversational text messaging further adds the human touch to recover abandoned shopping carts differently while enhancing the shopping experiences of your customers.

Here's why conversational SMS brings you a competitive advantage:

1. Combine sales and support in one communication and save hours and costs in customer support. Read how LEVO did it in just one month and drove 28x in ROI.
2. Build better relationships with your customers and increased customer retention
3. 90 seconds in average response time from customers, with a 55% reply rate
4. Near perfect engagement score that drives action during crucial micro-moments with customers
5. 25x average ROI

It's no wonder 25 eCommerce experts have predicted conversational SMS to be the next big thing this 2021. It's all about moving beyond stilted automated responses.

Between the time a shopper abandons their cart and a sale is considered lost, stores have a crucial 30-minute window to persuade a first-time browser into becoming a first-time buyer. And a first-time buyer into a returning customer.

The Blueprint of an Optimized Cart Recovery SMS

The real estate of a text message is only 160-characters. Compared to email, it makes for a short and effective message when you want to reach your customers instantly.

Keep it short and sweet— and most importantly, effective.

Here an example below of how Bionic Gym initiated a real-time conversation after their shoppers abandoned their carts. Or read the case study of how they hit $13k in two days.

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How to Setup a Conversational Cart Recovery SMS in 4 Easy Steps

It takes about 60 seconds to activate your conversational SMS cart recovery for your store and immediately start recovering those abandoned shopping carts.

Step 1: 1-Click Installation

First, search for Cartloop on the Shopify App Store and add it to your store.

By clicking on "Install App" you're then free to create your account in this order of steps:

Step 2: Setting Up your Discount

During your 60-second onboarding, you'll be asked to set a discount that you'd want to offer people who have abandoned their carts.

To improve conversions on your store, Shopify came up with a nifty guide that covers cart abandonment and more.

Cartloop also enables you to reach out to your abandoned shoppers without having to offer a discount. It's totally up to you.

Step 3: Prime Your Checkout for SMS Marketing

We're almost there! This is the most crucial step so we can start recovering those abandoned carts for you.

In order for Cartloop to send recovery texts to your abandoned shoppers, they have to accept marketing at checkout and provide a phone number.

But first, you'll need to optimize your Shopify checkout. We'll show you how you can do it with these 6-easy configuration steps:

1. Go to Shopify Settings > Checkout
2. In Customer contact section select 'Customers can only check out using email'

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3. Scroll down to Form options>Shipping address phone number > Select 'Optional'

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4. Scroll down to Checkout language > Manage checkout language

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5. Search (CTRL+F) for 'Phone label' and 'Optional phone label'

At this step, you can replace both with the following text: Phone for support, offers, and updates from the team

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6. Search for 'Checkout Marketing' and 'Accept marketing checkbox label'

At this step, we suggest you to add the following recommended text: Sign up for order updates and exclusive offers via text messages & email

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You're all set! Your checkout is now ready to collect phone numbers. Configuring a fully compliant checkout isn't so difficult with Cartloop.

Your Optimized Checkout page should look like this:

Get the full guide on how to optimize your checkout here.

Step 4: Start Recovering Your Abandoned Carts

You're ready to start recovering your abandoned carts! You can easily check how much revenue Cartloop has generated for your store from your main dashboard.

Cartloop's pricing plans are performance-based. What this means for you is that it'll be based of how much revenue Cartloop generates for your store.

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Step 5: Dive Deeper Into Customer Insights From Abandoned Shopping Carts

One of the reasons why a conversational approach is the key for businesses this year to better meet the mercurial demands of their customers this years. Why is shopping cart abandonment a problem for retailers? Because it affects a brand's sustainability due to inefficient marketing costs, high customer churn and low ROI on their existing marketing channels.

But how do you solve it? The biggest mistake you'll make this year is not using your abandoned shopping carts to talk to your customers. Safe to say, we found the top 6 reasons why shoppers abandon their carts. And naturally, after analyzing over 514, 719 text conversations we can share with you the ways on how you can finally tackle the problem of online shopping cart abandonment.

It's that easy. Check out this step-by-step guide on how easy it is to set up your store's account with Cartloop and enable your conversational cart recovery feature.

How Cartloop Helps Recover Abandoned Shopping Carts

Cartloop humanizes your entire customer lifecycle with a conversational text marketing platform that specializes in recovering "annoying" abandoned carts.

This helps Shopify brands like yourself recover 31% more abandoned carts with 24/7 live experts who are texting customers in real-time. We combine sales and support, building tailored customer experiences loved by both shoppers and brands.

Jazzcupo recently converted 20% more abandoned carts using a conversational SMS approach. Read about their 14x ROI success story here.

After installation, Cartloop's Live Experts immediately take over and start recovering abandoned carts by texting your customers in real-time. There's a reason why Cartloop is known as a fully-managed SMS service.

Let's see how an event triggers the automated cart abandonment SMS flow and how Cartloop's Live Experts take over below.

Cart Abandonment SMS Flow

Let's walk through how the cart abandonment flow for conversational SMS cart recovery happens below:

1. Shopper abandons his cart, reaches checkout, accepts marketing and provides their phone numbers. This is an essential step done by the shopper in order for you to be compliant, as SMS marketing is a permission-based channel.

2. After 30 minutes, the shopper will receive a friendly and personal text. Up until this point, the first cart recovery text will be the first and last automated event-triggered SMS.

3. When the shopper replies, our Live Experts will take over the interaction, provide instant support and assistance throughout various use cases.

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Who are Cartloop's Live Experts

The Live Experts are a team of real people dedicated to picking up the conversation during these crucial micro-moments between a browse and a sale. This can save your team a lot of hours spent on customer support and answering support tickets.

In all, there are 6 major areas where conversational SMS cart recovery can combine sales and support for your store:

1. Assistance with failed transactions
2. Personalized product recommendations
3. Product-related information
4. Shipping and delivery information
5. Up-sells / cross-sells
6. Technical assistance

When done right, conversational cart recovery goes beyond a sales push by being less intrusive and effectively cultivates a relationship between you and your customers.

If you want to see how conversational text messaging builds unique customer shopping experiences for your customer, here are 5 conversational SMS marketing examples that did it right.

SMS Marketing Compliance

To effectively leverage SMS marketing, you'll need to work towards building a compliant SMS list from the very start. This makes sure you adhere to a set of legal guidelines and rules to protect your customer's data and privacy.

For SMS marketing, there are two major compliance rules and regulations you'll need to be aware of:

1. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European data protection and privacy regulation that was put in effect on May 25, 2018.
2. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) regulates telemarketing calls, auto-dialed calls, prerecorded calls and text messages in the United States and Canada.

Both GDPR- and TCPA- compliance requires a legal collection method of your customers' phone numbers by gaining explicit written consent.

Not sure whether your chosen SMS marketing app is both GDPR and TCPA compliant? You can cross check if you're meeting all the TCPA and CTIA compliance requirements in this 10-step checklist.

Key Takeaways

Having 1:1 conversations in real-time helps build better relationships with your customers and saves your team hours in customer support.

From product questions, shipping concerns to reasons to why they abandoned their carts in the first place— crucial concerns easily handled under one communication.

Solve cart abandonment this 2021 by following these steps to get started with conversational SMS:

• Optimize your cart recovery SMS using our blueprint
• Install Cartloop for your Shopify Store
• Setup your cart abandonment flow in 4-easy step
• Start recovering abandoned carts immediately

You're now ready to solve your customer's issues and recover those lost profits by building stronger relationships between your customers and your brand.

Want to recover up to 5x more abandoned carts with conversational SMS? Don't hesitate to start a 1:1 conversation in real-time with your customers today with Cartloop. Schedule your demo with us or try it free for 14-days!