Retailers are moving toward WhatsApp and other rich messaging channels to support shopping, service, and customer loyalty. But as brands gain more ways to reach customers, the real challenge is making every message feel timely, useful, and worth opening.
The customer inbox is very rarely a quiet place.
Retailers use a range of channels to bombard their customers, whether it’s email promotional offers, SMS delivery updates, or app notifications. And a lot of the time, they convey a level of urgency akin to a medical emergency.
Naturally, given its prominent position as one of the most widely used messaging platforms in the Western world, more and more retailers are adding WhatsApp to their arsenal of customer service engagement tools.
That makes a lot of sense on paper. The app is already on customers’ phones, and supports text, images, video, product cards, and two-way conversation.
Yet it also creates an obvious risk: turning one of the most personal channels a customer uses into another place to ignore brands.
As Kim Johal, Retail Specialist at Infobip, put it:
“We’ve all received those messages; it just becomes a bombardment of spam.”
That is the challenge facing conversational commerce. WhatsApp may offer retailers a more direct route to customers, but a direct route is not the same as permission to interrupt them.
For years, digital retail has been built around a fairly rigid model. A customer visits a website, searches for a product, fills a cart, perhaps abandons it, then receives a generic message encouraging them to come back.
WhatsApp and other rich messaging channels could make that journey more conversational.
Johal believes the shift is being driven partly by changing customer behavior. While some people will always pick up the phone, more customers now expect to interact with brands through text, images, and real-time updates.
“People are looking to engage with brands through conversation,” Johal said.
For service teams, that can mean answering a delivery question or helping a customer find a store. For retail and marketing teams, it could mean checking stock availability, sharing relevant product options, sending a waitlist invitation, or helping somebody complete a purchase.
Given how ubiquitous WhatsApp is, it means retailers do not need to persuade customers to download another branded app or learn a new service channel. They are already there.
But this is where many brands could get the strategy wrong.
The temptation will be to treat WhatsApp as a more engaging version of SMS.
That would be a mistake.
Johal argued that generic outreach is already losing its impact. A “Hi, first name, we’ve got an offer on” message may technically be personalized, but it does not show that a brand understands what the customer wants at that moment.
Instead, he described a more useful type of interaction: a customer browsing a particular brand or product category could receive an update when relevant stock arrives, with an option to join a waitlist:
“It’s transforming the overall approach to how brands are now communicating with their customers. Rather than doing a one-to-many approach, it’s a one-to-one approach.”
Useful personalization is based on the customer’s immediate task, preferences, and timing. It is not simply another reason to send a campaign.
Of course, there is a line.
A customer may welcome a stock notification they asked for. They may be less enthusiastic about a retailer using browsing behavior to push an unexpected offer into a private messaging app.
Johal said consent has to sit at the center of that decision. “If a consumer consents to basically having that personalization,” the message is more likely to feel expected. Without that expectation, proactive messaging can create friction and prompt customers to opt out.
Retailers should ask themselves, ‘Would this message make the customer’s next step easier? Or is it just helping the business chase another conversion?’
If the answer is the latter, they aren’t fully utilizing the potential of WhatsApp as a customer service and engagement channel.
The richer format of messaging channels could also help retailers tackle a much bigger issue than marketing engagement: returns.
Johal described returns as a $25 billion problem for the retail sector. Many customers buy multiple sizes, colors, or versions of a product because they are not confident enough to choose before making a purchase.
That uncertainty is expensive for retailers and frustrating for shoppers.
Rich messaging, backed by better customer and product data, can help customers ask practical questions before they buy:
Does the item fit true to size?
Is it in stock nearby?
How does it compare with another option
Can they try it before committing to payment?
These are not glamorous use cases. Yet they may be more valuable than another product recommendation.
The goal should be to help customers make a confident decision, not steer them toward the fastest possible checkout.
A shopper who buys the right product first time is more likely to return than one who feels pushed into a purchase they later regret.
WhatsApp may be leading the conversation, but Johal does not believe retailers should build a WhatsApp-only future.
Apple Business Messenger, RCS, email, SMS, and live chat all have a role to play. The important question is not which channel a retailer prefers to use; it is which channel the customer prefers for a particular interaction.
“If you want to have interaction, generate conversion, and build customer satisfaction, you’ve got to be where the customer is,” Johal said.
That requires a more connected approach than most channel strategies offer today.
A customer should not have to start again because they move from a WhatsApp conversation to a phone call, or because a complex query requires a human advisor. Nor should a retailer force every customer into an automated messaging flow simply because it is cheaper than live support.
Johal pointed to luxury retail as an example. In-store, a knowledgeable assistant can answer detailed questions, understand a customer’s preferences, and offer a more tailored experience. Digital channels can support that kind of service, but they cannot entirely replace human judgment.
The retailers that succeed on WhatsApp will not be those that send the most messages; they will be those that earn a place in the conversation.
That means clear consent, relevant timing, useful answers, and an easy route to a person when the automated journey runs out of road.
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