As the eCommerce landscape becomes more saturated and competitive, retailers need to implement strategies that will maintain engagement in the long term. Further, they must continually enhance the customer’s experience, generate conversions and actionable data.

Brands and retailers want loyalty, word of mouth and advocacy, and a brand that makes the customer feel it is the right choice. To achieve these outcomes, there are numbers that companies pay attention to, including churn, acquisition, retention, and conversions. To show their significance Fred Reichhelds’ research indicates that a 5% increase in retention can increase profits by 25% or more (Bain & Company).

To address this, there are multiple platforms and AI products that offer visibility into the users’ actions on the retailers’ website, integrate data, dashboards, and other features, including automation.

Automation has become a default for retailers seeking to improve productivity and growth. One valuable task to automate is notifications, or in other words, triggers.

There are several heuristics and UX/UI design principles –like triggers– that retailers are leveraging to improve navigation, increase sales, revenue, upselling, cross-selling, and more.

Triggers can be internal or external, social media apps have mastered forming mental cues in which the answer to frustration or boredom is usually the app. Once there, through many other heuristics and attention-seeking tactics, they can keep a user in the app for hours ongoing. On the other hand, external triggers rely more on how companies or retailers regain lost attention.

For instance, notifications like reminders of the items a customer left in the cart, seasonal promotions, or exclusive credits that will soon expire. These “limited time only” or “will expire soon” messages generate a sense of urgency, of having something and the possibility of losing it. So, if reminded enough times, customers may use these promotions only to avoid loss.

Regarding cart reminders, according to Statista, the online shopping cart abandonment rate worldwide was 69.82% as of 2021. For its part, Klaviyos’ numbers show that abandoned cart emails have an open rate of 41.18%. Triggers can be a very effective way to drive sales and encourage customers to complete purchases. Nevertheless, with triggers, there are other factors to consider, like relevance and timing.

Another example is product recommendation emails or back-in-stock notifications. These automated triggers optimize marketing efforts and can increase sales and revenue.

Triggers drive profits. Through them, businesses can improve customer relationships and streamline their digital strategy. They can also gain more insight into their customers, map different user journeys, personas, and actions that lead to conversions.