Implementing Push Notifications for eCommerce in 2023

While social media and email marketing continue to be the go-to marketing channels, push notifications are slowly emerging as a strong contender to feature on the list. And eCommerce websites are not the ones to miss out on this opportunity.

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According to a survey, eCommerce businesses occupy nearly 22.03% of push notification usage share, making it the leading industrial sector to send push notifications. If you are still on the fence as to whether you should use push notifications for eCommerce or simply don’t know where to start, then this post is perfect for you! Here’s everything you need to know about implementing push notifications in the eCommerce industry.

Why Should You Consider Push Notifications for eCommerce?

Naturally, the first thing question that you may have while getting familiar with the idea of push notifications for eCommerce would be, “What’s in it for me?”

Here are a few solid reasons why eCommerce websites should consider employing push notifications:

• Push notifications campaigns allow you to personalize messages and appeal to a targeted audience, which offers a host of benefits ranging from higher click-through rates (CTR) and conversions. Such advantages will enhance the profitability of your eCommerce business.
• You do not necessarily have to build a web or mobile app to send push notifications. You can send it directly through websites, which makes it affordable yet effective.
• Push notifications can alert desktop and mobile users alike. Therefore, it increases your reach regardless of the platform.
• It functions as a real-time messaging channel and you can send on-brand messages with a single click.
• Since opting in for push notifications requires a single click on the “allow” button, they enjoy a high subscription rate.
• You can use push notifications to reach new customers, retarget inactive customers, remind customers about your eCommerce business, and retain customers.
• The KPIs that you gather against push notifications can be used to track user behavior and to collect feedback on the success of such campaigns.

As you can see from above, app or website push notifications come with a host of benefits. Thus, you must give serious consideration to including it in your sales and marketing strategies.

Achieving Results Through Push Notifications: Use Cases and Examples

Since we talked about adding push notifications to your sales and marketing arsenal, you may wonder as to how can you achieve it? Well, here are some brilliant push notification ideas that you can have for your eCommerce business:

1. Cart Abandonment Messages

A prospective buyer may abandon items in the cart for various reasons. It could be due to high shipping and delivery rates, hidden costs, or simply because your checkout process is not straightforward. In such cases, it would be best to remind them of the product by sending push notifications. For a hard sale, you can even address the issue that may be getting in the way of the sale. Say, offer free delivery or lure them in with a flash sale to regain their interest.

2. Cross-Selling and Upselling

Cross-selling and upselling products are two of the easiest ways to positively impact your bottom line. Don’t believe us? Take Amazon, for example – the eCommerce giant was one of the firsts to increase revenue by 35% using their “frequently bought together” or “customers who bought this item also bought” option. And push notifications for eCommerce expand on these upselling and cross-selling opportunities. You can easily use them to recommend related products that they can buy to enhance the usability of the item that they have purchased. Alternatively, you can propose high-value items for sale in place of the product of their interest.

3. Catalog Expansion

Believe it or not, your customers are eager to hear from you. So when you are adding products to your catalog or expanding your offerings, it would be best to notify your loyal customers. The idea that they are getting access to something exclusive also drives up the CTR and conversion rate.

You can even send push notifications to issue stock alerts. Customers can opt-in for stock-related push notifications when your products are temporarily out of stock. You can even raise alerts when the item is quickly going out of stock to create a sense of urgency, especially when the product has been lying in the shopper’s cart for long.

4. Order and Delivery Status

We have all seen memes about how buyers desperately wait for the delivery of their purchases. How about using push notifications for eCommerce to scratch this itch? You can send push notifications to update the buyer regularly on the real-time order status. Messages like the item have been packed, dispatched, or is out for delivery are something that shoppers would look forward to without any complaints.

5. Personalized Offers

Push notification campaigns are one of the highly targeted marketing channels that allow you immense scope for personalization. You can personalize the push notification messages as well as curate a string of flash sales, promotional deals, discount offers to reflect and complement their purchase patterns. Another excellent technique would be to issue price drop alerts or limited-time offers on items that they have recently checked out or are present in their wishlist. Such offers will make them special and nurture customer loyalty.

6. Collecting Review or Feedback

91% of buyers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. As such, you must collect reviews, customer ratings, and feedback to add credibility to your eCommerce website and tip the purchase decision in your favor. If you face issues while gathering such customer inputs, you can include app and website push notifications to your review campaign. It is worth mentioning here that you can trigger these messages after the lapse of a certain period, which effectively introduces automation in this crucial task!

Push Notifications for eCommerce: Best Practices in 2023

Here are a few tips on how to harness the many advantages of push notifications for eCommerce in 2023:

• Pay attention to all the five core elements of push notifications, namely, push title, content copy, URL, call to action (CTA) button.
• Send crisp, unambiguous messages that resonate with your brand voice.
• Include social proof to increase the click rate.
• Promote a sense of urgency through scarcity to improve conversion rates.
• Carry out customer segmentation to run targeted marketing campaigns.
• Optimize the mobile app and web push notification timings for maximum engagement. While doing so, also factor in the receiver’s time zone.
• Conduct A/B testing before sending the push notifications.
• Analyze the push notification campaign performance by monitoring the relevant KPIs.
• Use emojis and rich media to entice the receiver. The former can elevate your open rate by 4.51% while a notification image can boost CTR by a staggering 62%!
• Optimize your push notifications for eCommerce to display correctly on multiple devices and browsers.
• Introduce automation through event-triggered push notifications.

Final Thoughts

Push notifications can be an excellent addition to your eCommerce marketing strategy as it delivers an opt-in rate of 67.5%, along with a reaction rate of 7.8%. At MoEngage, we not only believe in the power of push notifications but also offer assistance to achieve the desired results. In this spirit, we offer a wealth of marketing campaigns and push notification templates for eCommerce mobile apps and websites. Check out our offerings or contact an expert to know more now!