Goodbye, Cart Abandonment! How Ocha & Co. Got 2,789% ROI with WinBack

Jairene Cruz-Eusebio on Jul 26, 2021 3:08:00 PM

One of the greatest challenges that online businesses of all types face is that of cart abandonment. Research by the Baymard Institute indicates that, as of December 2020, nearly 70% of all carts were abandoned.

Given this figure, getting your store’s cart abandonment percentage down can help boost sales significantly. Numerous strategies can help with this challenge, one of which is reaching out to customers through SMS reminders.

The proof of how helpful cart recovery text messages can be is illustrated through the success of Ocha & Co.

Who is Ocha & Co.?

Ocha & Co. is an American business specializing in traditional Japanese teas of the black, green, and matcha varieties. Their products are organically grown on Japan’s highest tea plantations in the Southern range of the Japanese Alps.

Once grown, they are vacuum-sealed to preserve freshness, which also differentiates them from competitors. The products are then shipped to the USA, where they are delivered to consumers.

The Challenge

Like many other online stores, the team at Ocha & Co. found that one of the biggest business challenges was their cart abandonment rate. Owner Gary Lawson initially tried to use the Klaviyo email marketing plug-in to solve this issue.

Klaviyo allows users to create and send email marketing messages to their customers, including cart retrieval reminders. However, where Gary struggled was the email creation process.

Klaviyo requires users to design their emails and write out the content. There are no eye-catching templates specifically for cart recovery that they can use. While the app does have some templates, they are only generic email designs and are not task-specific.

Since Gary does not employ a marketing team, the job of creating the emails fell on him. As someone without a marketing background, he found that his emails were ineffective and did little to solve his cart abandonment problem.

Though he had never tried it before, he was tangentially aware of SMS marketing. It was then that he was approached by a representative from Winback to try this marketing tactic. Since he’ll be using the app on a trial basis, there is nothing for him to lose and everything to gain.

How SMS Marketing Can Help

There are numerous reasons why customers choose to abandon their carts. Some reasons, such as concerns about additional costs such as shipping rates and taxes, may require a change to the price structure of the products to address the problem.

However, these are not the only reasons that customers provide for cart abandonment. Most issues have little to do with the product itself and more to do with the purchasing process. This makes the customer perfect for retargeting – after all, they still need the product, and there is a chance they may have just rethought their decision not to buy.

Traditionally, these customers are targeted using cart recovery emails, like Gary was doing. However, using email marketing for cart recovery poses several challenges. These include:

• A dismal clickthrough rate – cart recovery emails only have a CTR of 3.2%
• Longer wait times – on average, it takes people 90 minutes to open an email after it has reached their inboxes. Depending on the time of day during which an email is sent, this period can be significantly longer (for example, if you send an email at night or during the workday).

These two factors combine to mean that customers often miss cart recovery emails. When they do notice them, they may have already fulfilled their needs through a competitor.

This challenge is exacerbated by Gmail’s Promotions Tab feature, which makes it easy for customers to ignore your email. While it is possible to tailor your emails to ensure that they are delivered to the Primary tab instead, the many requirements you need to follow to ensure this only makes effective email marketing more challenging.

However, SMS marketing can help. When positioned side-by-side against email marketing, text messages shine.

• SMS far outpaces emails when it comes to clickthrough rates – it has a CTR of 36%
• Messages are opened almost instantaneously, with messages opened, on average, within 90 seconds of landing in a text message inbox. This is credited to the fact that most people today carry their phones everywhere – even the bathroom! – while computers are far less portable. Additionally, mobile phone users can receive messages regardless of Internet connectivity, which is required to check their email on their mobiles.

• High open rate. CTR and speed of opening don’t matter if the available rate is tiny. However, SMS offers a sky-high 98% open rate, with a 90% open rate in 3 minutes.

Aside from being extremely effective, SMS marketing is also very budget-friendly. Business owners need to pay a minuscule amount per message sent. These factors not only make SMS marketing effective, they also result in it offering great ROI value. To understand more about this marketing, read our Complete Guide to SMS Marketing.

Given the many benefits of SMS marketing, it’s easy to see how it can help boost cart recovery rates. Customers open reminders as soon as they are sent, so there is a slim chance they would buy from a competitor. This is further facilitated by the ease of access – text messages can include a cart recovery link, so the customer can easily use it to return to their cart and complete their purchase.

Joining Hands with WinBack

Winback is a Shopify app dedicated to reducing cart abandonment. The app is not only easy to use, but it can also be automated to run in the background, supporting your business needs without requiring much time and effort commitment from you.

Once you configure the app to your desired specification, it continues to complete its tasks unless the settings are changed. Additionally, it automatically syncs your contacts and removes invalid and non-mobile numbers in real-time, which means you don’t need to perform time-consuming checks of your customer lists every couple of months.

Aside from being convenient, Winback also offers real success. Gary notes that thanks to Winback’s efforts, he has seen a 150% increase in his sales over the course of a year.

And this increase is profitable – while Winback does require a financial investment, with the most basic packages starting at $59, Gary knows that the app is well worth the price.

In fact, Ocha & Co. has gained a massive 2,789% ROI since the company first started using the app!

Conclusion

When it comes to problems with cart abandonment, email marketing is relatively ineffective. SMS marketing, on the other hand, can save you time and money while also offering a better ROI.

Additionally, it is possible to find apps such as WinBack tailored to address the challenges of cart abandonment. Since these apps are specialized, they offer numerous task-specific features and allow you to automate the messaging process. This will enable you to focus on the rest of your business while also benefitting from the additional conversions provided by cart recovery texts.

Interested to get as many of your customers back as Ocha & Co. did? Sign up for a plan today and get a 14-day free trial yourself!

Topics: SMS Marketing, Case Study