Game-Changing WhatsApp eCommerce Strategies: WhatsApp Business Automations You Need (2024)

Everyone’s talking about sending WhatsApp broadcasts to effectively promote your deals and discounts. But when every brand is doing the same, how do you ensure your WhatsApp eCommerce strategies don’t get written-off by your target audience? 

By going one step further in leveraging all the features and capabilities that the WhatsApp Business API has to offer with QuickReply.ai. 

After helping leading brands set up their WhatsApp eCommerce strategies that address the entire customer lifecycle, we have identified a few workflows and WhatsApp automations that hold the potential to drive in more sales and revenue. 

And no, nobody else is talking about this set of WhatsApp Business automations. 

WhatsApp eCommerce strategies: Unlock more revenue with these WhatsApp Business Automations 

While there is no one way of using the WhatsApp Business API with QuickReply.ai, the following are some of the automations that have helped our customers get more sales from the messaging platform and personalize customer experiences: 

1. Welcome offer 

While everyone is focusing on getting more WhatsApp opt-ins, be the one that focuses on what happens right after. Once you have a WhatsApp opt-in, we recommend setting up the following: 

• Confirm opt-in: Send a welcome message that sets the tone of your relationship. Let subscribers know what they can expect to hear from your brand and how frequently, and confirm their opt-in. 
• First-purchase discounts: If you have gotten an opt-in before a purchase was made, send out a first purchase discount to welcome the subscriber after confirmation. This will encourage them to browse through your site again and make a purchase. 
• Exclusive discounts with validity: Send out exclusive offers to those who have opted in to your WhatsApp list, but remember to set a validity period to it to encourage an instant action. 
• FOMO reminders: Ensure your exclusive discounts and offers get noticed by following up with recipients. With QuickReply.ai, you can set up 3 automated nudges over a week - after 5 minutes of sending the discount, 4 days left, and the last day to claim the discount. 

2. Abandoned cart recovery 

eCommerce businesses experience an average abandoned cart rate of 69% across all industries. With QuickReply.ai, you can use WhatsApp for abandoned cart recovery for effectively using the following: 

• Multi-step reminders: Don’t send one-off abandoned cart reminders; ensure you follow-up with the consumer using social proof around the product, time-sensitive discounts, FOMO and other strategies. Having a multi-step abandoned cart reminder can help recover almost 100% of your sales!
  Our auto-flow is designed to help you send 4 nudges over a period of 7 days; after 20 minutes (simple reminder), after 24 hours (social proof, videos, images), after 4 days (discount), after 7 days (bigger and last discount). 
• Offer personalization: Don’t just send another ‘you have items left in the cart’ message to online shoppers. Personalize your WhatsApp abandoned cart recovery messages with personalized fields such as customer name, product name, cart value and other parameters.  
• Custom discounts: Stop using the same discount code or offer to entice shoppers into completing the purchase. Make the journey more tailored by experimenting with different offers at each stage of the follow-up. 

3. COD to prepaid conversion 

Cash on delivery orders see the highest number of cancellations, NDRs and returns. This rapidly eats into your eCommerce business revenue. Here’s what you can do with QuickReply.ai to turn COD orders into an opportunity to enhance customer experience and secure sales: 

• Offer personalization: Once a COD order has been placed, set up an automation to confirm the same on WhatsApp. This allows you to also confirm other details of the customer including their name, contact number and delivery address. 
• Reminders: Set up an automated WhatsApp reminder for cash on delivery orders to ensure the buyer ‘remembers’ having made the purchase from your store. Our auto-flow enables you to send 2 nudges before the order is out for delivery; after 20 minutes and after 24 hours. 
• Convert COD to prepaid: Encourage COD customers to prepay for their orders with the help of custom discounts and deals, and making the payment process simpler with features like UPI support on QuickReply.ai. 

4. Order cancellation win back 

According to surveys, 36.34% of online orders are canceled by customers and the reasons may vary from individual to individual. To be able to tackle this problem proactively, you can use WhatsApp automations designed by QuickReply.ai eCommerce experts: 

• Follow up on cancellation request: Once a request has been received, reach out to the consumer on WhatsApp to seek more details. This could include asking for the reason for cancellation or how you can help them better. 
• Personalized offers: Based on the response of consumers on cancellation, we recommend preventing the same by offering a custom discount or deal on the order instead. Remember that this offer should be relevant to the reason given for cancellation.

5. Order shipping alerts 

Harvard Business Review has found that online shoppers often experience post-purchase anxiety which leads them to doubting their purchase decision and order cancellations. With QuickReply.ai, you can set up a WhatsApp automation for your shipping alerts at all the key stages: 

• Order ready to be shipped: When the order is packed and ready for the shipping partner to pick up. 
• In-transit: When the order is picked up by the shipping partner and is on their way to the delivery address. 
• Out for delivery: When the order has reached the delivery address area and is out for delivery by the shipping partner. 
• Delivery: When the order is successfully delivered by the shipping partner.  

6. Order NDR recovery 

Non-delivery of orders is another common aspect for eCommerce businesses. It typically refers to the inability of the logistics company to deliver the order to the customer and it can happen due to various reasons such as the customer being away at the time of delivery, inability to establish contact and so on. 

This results in eCommerce businesses paying heavily for reverse logistics. But with QuickReply.ai, you can set up an order NDR recovery workflow that ensures timely delivery and also a great customer experience: 

• Notify non-delivery: The very first thing you need to send the customer is how you were not able to deliver the order, along with a confirmation on whether the logistics provider contacted them or not. Set up quick replies to make this interaction faster! 
• Offer a re-attempt: Based on their response, offer the customer an easy way to request a re-attempt for order delivery. Set up quick replies to let the customer choose the next best day and time for delivery. 
• Send an incentive for re-attempt: If a few re-attempts have been made but the order is still not delivered, it can lead to cancellations. To tackle that, offer an apology-incentive to get another chance to re-attempt the delivery. Set up quick replies to tackle cancellation requests proactively at this point! 

7. Collect data from other channel sales 

If you have an offline store or are selling via popular online marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra and others, we recommend collecting contacts from customers from those channels too. Now QuickReply.ai can help you with this using the following strategy: 

• Collect contacts with QR codes: Include QR codes in your product packaging or notes sent to customers to scan and contact you on WhatsApp for more deals and discounts. Follow up with a welcome message that leads them to your online store to discover more products. 
• Retarget and reduce CAC: Use their on-site activity to understand the products and deals they’re interested in and set up retargeting campaigns to encourage more purchases - you can run them on WhatsApp itself or on social media and search engines. This can help reduce your CAC by almost 25% on average. 

8. Run click-to-WhatsApp ads 

Click-to-WhatsApp ads make for an interactive ad campaign type for eCommerce businesses. They have proven to deliver a much higher customer engagement and conversion rate as compared to other call to actions used on social media campaigns. With QuickReply.ai, you can increase the conversions on your CTWA ads with the following:

• Initiate the conversation with a welcome message and get an opt-in: When someone clicks through your ad campaign, set up an automated welcome message that is targeted at getting an opt-in from them. 
• Understand their needs: Once an opt-in is received, offer to continue the shopping on WhatsApp itself and set up an automated workflow that promotes the current catalog, deals and discounts available, and is targeted at understanding what the buyer is looking for. 
• Send product recommendations: Based on the CTWA ad campaign you’re running and the follow-up conversation you have, remember to send the buyer personalized product recommendations. 
• Address queries and concerns: Use the QuickReply.ai WhatsApp chatbots to address common queries and concerns around products, purchase policies, etc to keep the customer engaged. 

9. Collect feedback, product reviews and testimonials 

About 92% of online shoppers trust product reviews, testimonials and UGC shared by customers like them before engaging with a brand. At QuickReply.ai, we think requesting a review should be a conversational interaction. Here’s how we do it with our WhatsApp automations: 

• Request customer feedback: Before asking a customer to leave a product review, look into how they feel about buying from your brand by asking for feedback on the overall experience. 
• Segment customers based on feedback: Identify positive and negative experiences, and segment your buyers into separate WhatsApp lists before triggering the product review request on QuickReply.ai. 
• Request product reviews: Reach out to customers who feel positively about your brand and request for product reviews. Make the submission easy by sending them direct links to Google Reviews, Facebook Reviews or other platforms. You can even simplify submission of reviews on your website by taking them on WhatsApp and then a request to publish them on the site. 
• Offer review incentives: Don’t wait on customers to drop reviews at a time that is convenient to them. Follow-up on your request and offer an incentive to nudge them towards giving you a review. 
• Follow-up with negative feedback: Set up a separate workflow to follow-up with customers who’ve had a negative experience with your brand. Use QuickReply.ai WhatsApp chatbot workflows to understand their reasons and offer them a solution. 

10. Repeat purchases 

Your existing customers are twice as likely to make another purchase than new customers; so ensure your WhatsApp commerce strategy makes the most out of this customer behavior. With QuickReply.ai, here’s how you can drive repeat purchases on WhatsApp: 

• Send product recommendations: Based on previous interactions and purchases, upsell and cross-sell products from other collections that the buyer may be interested in. ensure personalization of messages to get more conversions from this campaign. 
• Send subscription or membership reminders: If you have a subscription or membership model set up, use WhatsApp to send reminders about the next order, renewal or discounts that are available to these customers. 

11. Customer engagement 

Remember, the more engaged your WhatsApp list is, the higher are your chances of driving more sales from the channel. This is where experimenting with your type of WhatsApp broadcasts comes in and QuickReply.ai can help you automate them: 

• Run contests: Strategize a WhatsApp-only contest where customers stand a chance to win exclusive discounts, offers or freebies from your store. 
• Run surveys: Understand what your customers expect from your brand by running automated two-way surveys with WhatsApp chatbots. 
• Share newsletters: Create a summary of everything that’s new on your store, blog or social media and push out a weekly newsletter on WhatsApp. 
• Celebrate wins: Use WhatsApp broadcasts to celebrate wins with customers; be it an Instagram Reel that reached 1M views, a celebrity spotted in your products or a media mention, highlight it to your buyers and thank them for their support. 

Ready to get more sales with WhatsApp commerce?

WhatsApp has quickly become a go-to channel for businesses to run their marketing, sales and support campaigns on. This is leading to the same challenges experienced on other platforms - increase in competition, low engagement rate, low conversions and an overly low ROI from campaigns. 

This is why we built QuickReply.ai keeping in mind the business goals and objectives of an eCommerce business exclusively. 

We have leveraged AI, chatbots and marketing automation to set up 20+ workflows using the WhatsApp Business API. From running welcome campaigns to broadcasts, cart recovery, winback and more, we have created WhatsApp automation workflows that can be set up within 5 days! 

What’s more? 

• In all the WhatsApp automation flows mentions above, you can add as many steps you want with our easy-to-use builder
• QuickReply.ai also comes with keyword detection replies using AI-powered engines to help with personalization of messages 
• Ability to identify and send messages on active days and times to get maximum response on WhatsApp 
• Real-time WhatsApp analytics to help you make data-driven business, marketing and sales decisions 

Brands are already seeing a 60% increase in sales from our WhatsApp automations and we want you to be one of them! 

To know more about all the WhatsApp automation workflows we have for eCommerce brands, book a demo with us today.