Shopify has officially launched Shopify Inbox, a free, new platform product that unifies the company’s existing chat tools, as Shopify looks to help merchants centralize and simplify customer conversations.
Shopify Inbox consolidates Ping and Shopify Chat. The company’s new centralized product puts messages from online store chat, email, and social media in one place, allowing merchants to see and respond to them through Shopify Inbox. The product currently allows customers to connect with merchants using integrations with Facebook Messenger and Apple Business Chat.
Shopify’s head of product for retail and apps referred to Shopify Inbox as “the biggest update to Shopify’s conversational commerce products in over a year.”
The new chat product also gives merchants access to new data-driven insights that aim to help sellers better understand their business and close more sales.
Shopify’s head of product for retail and apps, Arpan Podduturi, referred to Shopify Inbox as “the biggest update to Shopify’s conversational commerce products in over a year.”
“This is a quickly evolving space,” Podduturi said. “Inbox is going to help a lot of entrepreneurs discover new ways to connect with buyers and innovate on commerce.”
According to Shopify, customers who engage in chat conversations with Shopify merchants are 70 percent more likely to convert into buyers. Shopify Inbox allows merchants to create automated messages, including away messages and order updates and away messages via chat, and use saved response shortcuts.
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The new product also allows Shopify merchants to chat with customers using SMS or email, and share custom discount codes to increase their sales. Shopify Inbox also gives merchants insight into the contents of customer carts and chat performance.
A Shopify spokesperson told BetaKit, given the shift in commerce to an online-first model during COVID-19, merchants have begun using chat “as a primary driver of sales.”
In the near future, Shopify plans to roll out a Shopify Inbox integration with Instagram and a new Shopify Inbox feature that will allow merchants to automatically classify chats based on topic and identify those that are likely to lead to a sale.
Feature image courtesy of Shopify
