There are many good reasons to add SMS to the communication strategy of your eCommerce company. However, getting started in the world of business SMS can be difficult: there are a lot of different SMS gateway providers and even more technical terms to get familiar with. To make it a little easier for you to get started, we’ll talk about the most important questions in this post:
What do you need to pay attention to when choosing an eCommerce SMS provider?
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In order to be clear about which criteria your eCommerce SMS provider must bring to the table, you should ask yourself a few questions in advance. These will help you to choose the right provider in the end.
Before you make a decision, you have to find out how an SMS provider is or can be integrated into your software. Depending on the software, there are different possibilities, which we briefly summarize in this section.
In proprietary software, possibilities to connect to third-party services are often limited. Many eCommerce systems offer marketplaces through which different functions can be added to the system. Of course, you can request a specific service, but initially you are limited to the available options in this case. Inevitably, you choose your eCommerce SMS provider from the options your software gives you.
The advantage to this situation is that third-party services in proprietary software have often been reviewed particularly well before being added to the marketplace.
In open source software, you usually have various options for integrating an eCommerce SMS provider. For some platforms there is also a marketplace available where you can find ready-made plugins.
In some circumstances, SMS gateway providers also offer their own plugins, which you can use to set up the sending of SMS in the software of your choice.
If you want to choose a provider that is neither available on the marketplace nor offers a plugin itself, it may be possible to implement a dispatch via webhooks. Here you must assess whether the available functions are sufficient for your individual use case and possibly add code yourself.
Get an overview of our integrations.
For both types of software, it is possible in some cases to connect the eCommerce system to an SMS gateway via an automation platform.
Common platforms are Zapier, IFTTT or Make, for example.
Here you can usually specify a trigger and a subsequent action.
An example in Zapier: you choose the receipt of an order in Magento as a trigger. You choose sending an SMS via seven as the action. If you have connected both services in Zapier, Zapier will trigger the sending of an SMS via seven when an order is received on your Magento platform. If you have set this flow, it will be executed automatically until you disable it.
This flow is the same in its basic features on popular automation platforms, and in most cases you can set multiple triggers as well as actions. Nonetheless, setting up messages through this alternative way is a bit more complex than in the store systems themselves.
Even though automation platforms are a great way to automate flexible and diverse processes, keep the following points in mind:
Once you know which providers are available to you, you only need to decide on a specific provider. To help you make this decision, here is a brief list of the points you need to pay particular attention to.
Of course, there are differences in the pricing of each eCommerce SMS provider you may come across. The most important thing for you is the transparency of the pricing. Is there a contract period or a minimum purchase? Are packages offered or are messages billed individually? Do unused credits expire?
Of course, you know best which additional financial details are most important to you.
Surely you know how many SMS you currently want to send. However, if your business is doing particularly well, this number can increase significantly in a short amount of time. Crises, on the other hand, can cause you to send fewer SMS than usual in a given period.
So check whether you can easily adjust the number of SMS sent and whether there are any upper limits.
There are many different SMS gateway providers you can use to send eCommerce SMS. A particularly relevant factor in the selection process for many companies is GDPR compliance, especially if they do business in the EU. Many businesses also require an AV contract. Make sure your provider meets all data protection requirements. If you want to think one step further, look for a provider that exceeds your requirements – this will make it easier for you when you expand your target market.
Once you have chosen an eCommerce SMS provider, you can start sending SMS right away… right?
The answer is: Almost. First you need to understand that not every message may be sent to every recipient.
In eCommerce, the distinction between transactional and promotional SMS is especially important. In any case, you need to thoroughly inform yourself about which recipients you are allowed to send which type of message and on which legal basis this is permitted.
As a general rule, if you ask for your customer’s number for a specific purpose, such as two-factor authentication, you may only use the number for that purpose.
Particular caution is required if you are sending to multiple recipient countries, which is very often the case in e-commerce. Different rules may apply here depending on the recipient country.
So, as you can see, there are some aspects to consider when looking for an eCommerce SMS provider. However, the thorough search is worth it. If your provider meets or even exceeds the above mentioned conditions, you can start sending SMS and focus on what is really important: effective and personal communication with your customers.
Do you have any suggestions, additions or questions? Leave a comment or send us a message.
Header picture by svetikd via iStock
