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Good communication with your customers is necessary if you are running an online business. Quick responses to customer queries and, above all, personalized responses get you customer loyalty. This will benefit sales and help generate good revenue. Now the question arises of the channel through which a brand can communicate with customers, e.g., via:
SMS was once considered the best way of communication, specifically for brand promotions and marketing purposes. As the technology evolved, communication is made more easy and cheaper, which people adopted immediately. This causes SMS to quickly become outdated. SMS has failed to keep up due to rising message costs, limited functionality, and lower engagement rates. As faster ways of communication have been found, the majority of brands are using SMS messaging less as a channel to connect with their customers. Moreover, mobile users with easy access to the internet shift to platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram, and Messenger for day-to-day conversations. Therefore, brands must adapt their communication strategies accordingly.
Here are the main reasons why SMS is becoming outdated, explained in simple language:
E-commerce brands need to send messages in bulk, sometimes, for which communicating via SMS is expensive. Many telecom providers charge per message, and sometimes, long messages are split into multiple parts, increasing the cost even more. For businesses that want an economical way of communication that stays within their budget, SMS is not a good option.
People don’t respond to SMS the way they used to. With so many messages coming from unknown numbers, users often ignore or delete them without reading.
SMS is plain and boring. You can’t add buttons, images, videos, or product links easily. It doesn’t support interactive conversations, making it hard for brands to create an engaging customer experience.
Sending SMS internationally is tricky. Each country has its own telecom regulations, delivery issues, and costs. This creates headaches for global brands trying to reach a wide audience.
SMS messages are not encrypted, which means they’re less secure. This puts customer data like order info or delivery details at risk, especially compared to encrypted platforms like WhatsApp.
Customers today prefer platforms they use daily, like WhatsApp, Instagram, or Messenger. SMS doesn’t feel personal, and customers can’t easily reply or have conversations.
Brands are using WhatsApp for customer communication. With over 2 billion monthly active users globally and rapid adoption across regions like South Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, it has evolved into a powerful channel for business communication.
For e-commerce brands, WhatsApp offers a modern, interactive, and scalable way to engage with customers. It allows:
People already use WhatsApp every day to talk to friends and family. Therefore, when a brand uses WhatsApp for customer communication, it feels more natural and trustworthy.
Unlike SMS, which often feels one-sided, WhatsApp allows real-time chats. Customers can:
The most interesting thing about WhatsApp is that brands can send:
This makes conversations more helpful and interactive.
Whether your customer is in Pakistan or from another country, WhatsApp works in the same way. There are no charges for sending WhatsApp messages to international clients, and no delays are made as may happen via SMS. The message is sent instantly through WhatsApp.
Brands can see when a message is delivered to customers and read by them. Double ick shows the message is delivered, and a blue tick shows it is read by the customer. This improves follow-ups and ensures the customer is kept informed.
Platforms like Ginkgo Retail provide WhatsApp integration for e-commerce, and also help to automate WhatsApp for:
WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption, making it more secure than SMS. It’s a safer way to send sensitive updates like payment confirmations or delivery info.
Ginkgo Retail, a leading provider of end-to-end retail solutions, by understanding the need and benefits of WhatsApp integration for e-commerce brands, built a WhatsApp Business API integration that transforms how brands communicate. The key features and use cases of this powerful tool are:
No more missed updates because as soon as a customer places an order, Ginkgo’s system sends:
Right after checkout, the customer gets a message confirming their order with all the important details (order number, items, price, and payment status).
As soon as the order is packed and shipped, they receive another message with tracking information.
When the package is out for delivery or delivered, they get a final update, so they know exactly when to expect it or that it’s already arrived.
All this happens through WhatsApp, in real-time. Customers stay informed, and brands reduce the volume of support queries. This feature is beneficial because:
Address verification before parcel dispatch is very important because if the address is wrong, it leads to delivery failure, due to which the parcel is returned, and brands must spend extra money on parcel returns.
With Ginkgo Retail, brands can send a WhatsApp message asking customers to confirm or update their address before dispatch. For example, the message is sent “Hi! Is this your correct address for order #5678? Reply YES to confirm or NO to update”. This feature alone can reduce return rates by up to 30%, saving both time and logistics costs.
WhatsApp integration for e-commerce brands is also used as a powerful tool for giving customers gentle reminders and getting quick responses. Ginkgo Retail’s smart, logic-based message flows can set up automatic messages for different situations, such as:
If a customer adds items to their cart but doesn’t check out, they get a friendly WhatsApp message reminding them to complete their purchase. You can even add a discount code or free shipping offer to encourage them.
If a product is sold out and later comes back in stock, customers who showed interest get an instant notification. This helps you grab sales before customers lose interest.
After a customer receives their order, you can automatically ask them for feedback or a quick product review. This helps you collect testimonials and improve service by analyzing reviews. The most important thing is that customers can reply to these messages immediately. If they have a question about a product, delivery, or payment, they can just type it in, and your team can answer in real-time. With this feature in place, you can recover revenue that might have been lost. Moreover, brands using WhatsApp reminders have reported up to 25% more sales from abandoned carts.
Instead of answering lots of phone calls one by one and emails from customers that are sometimes hard to answer because of time constraints, your support team can manage hundreds of chats on WhatsApp. With Ginkgo Retail’s platform:
It doesn’t matter if your customer is in Karachi, Dubai, or London, WhatsApp works the same everywhere. That means you can use a single platform to reach all your customers around the world.
With Ginkgo Retail’s WhatsApp integration, you don’t have to:
Everything runs from one dashboard; you can send updates, reminders, or promotions to any customer, anywhere, with just a few clicks.
It helps to:
WhatsApp integration for e-commerce brands is essential for:
WhatsApp messages are seen, opened, and replied to more often than SMS or email. According to recent reports:
When communication feels smooth, helpful, and human, customers notice. Customers are happier and more satisfied, which reduces the chances of order returns. WhatsApp messages are:
Unlike SMS, which charges per message (sometimes even per segment), WhatsApp allows session-based messaging that can cover multiple interactions in a 24-hour window. All without worrying about message length or per-SMS costs.
Brands can send:
From the moment the customer first sees the product to repeat purchase, WhatsApp integration for e-commerce by Ginkgo Retail helps brands give customers quick answers, timely updates, and personal attention, all in one channel.
SMS is fading fast because it lacks the speed, flexibility, and personalization that brands need to stay competitive and survive. Ginkgo Retail’s WhatsApp integration for e-commerce offers brands the perfect tool to make this shift easy and effective. Brands that switched from SMS to WhatsApp for customer communication using Ginkgo Retail’s integration have seen:
A veteran of the e-commerce industry having a diverse experience of 10+ years in the versatile domain of e-commerce. His eminent role in ecommerce management empowered him to benefit the industry with his knowledge, vision and experience.
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