Cart abandonment gets all the attention in ecommerce. Every business tracks it, runs retargeting ads, and tries to win those shoppers back.
But there’s a bigger leak you’re probably not measuring - the one inside your WhatsApp and Instagram inbox.
When a shopper takes the time to DM you, they’re not just browsing. They’re asking delivery options, checking if a product is in stock, or clarifying payment options. That’s buying intent. And when those messages go unanswered or get buried in peak hours, it’s the same as a full basket left behind at checkout — only this time, it never shows up on your dashboard.
This is inbox abandonment. For Saudi SMBs, it may be costing more than abandoned carts.
The Hidden Abandonment Problem
Traditional cart abandonment is easy to track. MyAlice dashboard shows you the percentage, and you probably run retargeting ads to win some of those customers back.
Inbox abandonment is different. It’s invisible.
A message comes in during peak hours and gets buried.
A support agent sees it late, by which time the customer has moved on.
The team answers but doesn’t follow up, so the conversation fizzles out.
Each one is a lost basket. The only difference is that it never showed up in your dashboard, which is why most businesses don’t even realize how much it’s costing them.
Why DMs Matter More Than Carts
Inbox abandonment is even costlier than cart abandonment because customers who DM you are already halfway to purchase. They’re not just browsing; they’re signaling intent. A shopper who asks if you deliver to their city, another checking if a product is in stock, or someone clarifying payment options isn’t window shopping, they’re pausing at the cashier, waiting for a nod to proceed. In most cases, answering these small but critical questions is all that’s needed to unlock the sale. When those messages go unanswered, what you lose isn’t a curious visitor but a ready buyer.
How AI Recovers Abandoned DMs
An AI assistant doesn’t just reply; it keeps the conversation moving. Here’s how it works inside WhatsApp and Instagram:
Instant Answers: A customer asks, “Do you ship to Jeddah?” → AI replies immediately with delivery details, instead of leaving them waiting.
Stock & Payment Checks: Someone wants to know if their size is available or if COD is accepted → AI responds on the spot.
Order Updates: A customer asks, “Where’s my order?” → AI pulls live status and replies instantly.
Smart Follow-ups: If a shopper drops off mid-conversation, AI nudges them back just like abandoned cart emails do for ecommerce.
The difference? This time you’re recovering real buyers already inside your inbox.
A New Metric for Growth
Businesses in Saudi Arabia closely monitor cart abandonment and conversion rates but often ignore inbox abandonment. That hidden leakage can cost more than the cart.
Consider this: Statistics show that WhatsApp messages in the region boast a 98% open rate and a 45% response rate, dwarfing email’s 20% open rate. Yet, if a shopper’s DM goes unanswered, you miss the sale entirely and you may never even know it happened.
Imagine the impact: 20 WhatsApp inquiries per day, 5 slipping through without follow-up, and an average order value of 200 SAR. That’s a potential 30,000 SAR lost every month. Sales that never made it to your dashboard because your inbox didn’t have a recovery plan in place.
That’s why treating your inbox as a measurable sales channel and not a support afterthought is the real unlock. With AI, you can track, respond, and recover real buying intent before it vanishes.
Wrapping It Up
If abandoned carts are a visible leak in your sales funnel, abandoned DMs are the hidden one. Both cost you money, but only one is usually measured. An AI assistant gives you the abandoned-cart safety net for your inbox. It keeps conversations alive, answers instantly, and follows up so intent doesn’t quietly disappear.
Your carts aren’t the only thing customers abandon. Check your inbox and you’ll find just as many sales waiting to be recovered.
Do you find yourself chasing down new customers because current customers aren't sticking around, and you need to keep your eCommerce business afloat? Is it a sustainable strategy to run your eCommerce business?
We hear you saying no because it actually isn't. It's time you need to focus on Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).
In this competitive narrative, you can't really go far by keeping on investing in getting NEW customers rather than keeping your OLD customers. What you really need to concentrate on is maximizing your revenue from your present customers. And this is where customer lifetime value comes into play.
According to Tim Cameron Kitchen- CEO of Exposure Ninja, "In order to increase your customer lifetime value, you need to pull two levers. One, increase the number of purchases. And two, increase the purchase value of each customer. And of course, a good business will have a combination of both of these levers."
We want your business to have high customer LTV. So we noted down a series of pointers that you could follow to increase your customer lifetime value and higher profits. Before we dive into the strategies, let's start with the basics.
What is Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)?
According to Omniconvert, "customer lifetime value (CLV) shows how much revenue a business can expect from one customer compared to how long the company predicts that customer will stay."
Customer lifetime value is an important metric for eCommerce brands to measure the average accumulating total of their purchase for some time.
Lifetime value helps you determine if your business will scale the ROI from marketing. It also helps you evaluate the retention strategy depending on how low or high your LTV is.
How To Increase Customer Lifetime Value
You can increase your customer lifetime value by either increasing your Average Order Value or Average Purchase Frequency. An increase in either of these metrics will rise Customer Lifetime Value. Apart from that, let's take a look at the other ways to increase CLV.
— Improve Your Customer Support
Treating your customer right is the core to increasing customer lifetime value. According to Tim Han, an international speaker and author from success insider - "treating your customers like family is the key to recurring customers."
Now we're not telling you to turn a blind eye to their red flags and keep on supporting them. But we definitely recommend you to go a bit above to give them special treatments. In fact, according to research from PWC, 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience. So enhancing your customer support is an absolute must.
A solid customer support strategy includes attention to the customer pre, mid and post-sale. Your customer support should cater to your customer at every stage of their buying journey. A great way to make sure your customer's queries are always answered in no time is by using an AI-powered chatbot. Having a live chat available can turn a customer question into a sale or complaint into a resolution. We recommend you check out MyAlice as their chatbot can actually automate your entire selling process from start to finish. And the best part is, MyAlice is completely free to sign up!
You need to make sure your customers are returning again and again for the delightful experience you provide.
— Send out occasional gifts
Who doesn't like free stuff? Especially when it comes as a surprise from a place you shopped from. We find ourselves leaning towards shops that offer great discounts or free goodies in most cases. And that's because this is a psychological trick that all of us fall for.
Lippincott's creative consultancy provided a scientific and psychological-based study called the "Happiness Halo" - proving exactly that. In the "Happiness Halo," the author stresses, "Appeal to customers' reason and they're yours for a day. Appeal to customer's emotions, and they're yours for a lifetime."
And nothing is more solid than sending gifts to appeal to your customer's emotions. It shows them that you care about them more than just a means of getting some sales.
We're not telling you to send out gifts 365 days a year to every customer for every purchase. But rather, identify your loyal set of customers and potentially loyal customers, and then send out occasional gifts to show them you care.
— Nudge Your Customers into Subscriptions
One of the most popular ways (that works) of increasing the number of purchases of your customers is by bumping them into subscriptions. They're one of the new trends of e-commerce. And they can be lucrative enough that we even see big names like GoPro getting into the subscription realm they previously didn't opt for.
You can nudge them into a subscription by displaying a subscription-biased pricing option of your product.
This basically means you will show the pricing option of a one-time purchase on one side. And on another, the pricing option is based on subscription. However, you need to show your customers how the subscription pricing will be more effective and profitable.
This will incentivize them to opt for the subscription rather than going for a one-time purchase.
Another way of getting your customers into subscriptions is by showing the subscription as the default purchase method. And if customers want to go for a one-time purchase, they need to click on that purchase method.
You can do to level up the subscription game by giving them an option to allow your customers to customize the time frame and the amount of product for the subscription. This way, they will not have too much stock of the product based on their lifestyle. And they are less likely to cancel the subscription altogether.
— Integrate Add-ons and Upsells
Another great way to increase the average order value of your customers is by adding add-ons and upsells. Big names like GoDaddy GoPro have been using this pricing strategy for years now, which has helped them generate more sales.
Everything that you throw at your customers before and after purchasing the products is for one thing - increasing the order value.
And therefore, there's an increase in customer LTV. Some of your add-ons and upsells features may seem annoying to your customers. But it's a genius idea for your business.
Since you are competing in a very competitive and price-sensitive space, If you want to maximize your customer acquisition, you need to maximize the value of every customer you get through the door.
By doing so, you can save the money that you would have otherwise spent on getting new customers. So you can now invest it in other business activities. Like - marketing. Which will help you build market share without increasing the price of their core product.
— Introduce Premium Versions
Introducing a line of premium versions of the same product can incentivize your customers to opt for better options. But, you need to make sure you can present it in a manner that demonstrates why the premium versions are better than the regular ones.
That way, customers who always want the best of everything are more likely to opt for the premium purchase. The pricing of the premium product will also be higher than the regular, which may be a problem for some of your customers. In such a case, you can introduce split pay for that.
Now split pay is absolutely everywhere and another massive trend of e-commerce over the last few years. One of the biggest players in the split pay market -Klarna, claims to increase the average order value by up to 58%.
Split pay will help you get more sales for your premium products and end up increasing the average order value for your customers.
Drawing Conclusion: Loyalty Brings Revenue
The right customer lifetime value model can boost your company's growth and progress in many ways. It puts more money in your business's wallet by lowering customer acquisition costs and saving money on marketing and sales activities.
Delivering a great deal of value, understanding the customers being in their shoes, prioritizing customer service are what they need to come back to you again and again.
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