What is SMS Commerce?

SMS Commerce refers to the use of text messaging (SMS) as a direct sales channel where customers can browse, select, and purchase products entirely within text conversations. Unlike traditional SMS marketing — which uses texts to drive traffic to a website — SMS Commerce completes the transaction inside the message thread.

The term encompasses several purchasing models: text-to-buy (replying to purchase), AI-driven replenishment prompts, cart recovery via text, and post-purchase order bumps. What unites these models is that the sale happens in the SMS conversation, not on a separate website or app.

SMS Commerce is a subset of the broader mobile commerce (m-commerce) and conversational commerce categories. What makes it distinct is the channel: standard text messages that work on every phone, with no app download or internet browsing required.

SMS Commerce operates through a platform that connects a brand's product catalog, payment processing, and ecommerce system (like Shopify) to an SMS messaging infrastructure. When a brand sends a product message, the platform handles the entire transaction flow within the text conversation.

Customers interact by replying to texts. A reply can confirm a purchase, select a product variant, accept a reorder prompt, or complete an abandoned cart recovery. The platform processes payment using stored cards, creates the order, and syncs it to the brand's ecommerce backend.

For brands, SMS Commerce typically runs alongside their existing SMS marketing tools. The commerce platform handles transactional messages (purchases, reorders, cart recovery) on a dedicated number, while the marketing platform continues handling promotional campaigns and flows.

SMS has a 98% open rate and a 3-minute average read time, compared to 15–25% open rates and 6-hour read times for email. But despite this massive attention advantage, most brands only use SMS to send links — converting at roughly 0.12%. SMS Commerce solves this gap by closing the sale where the attention already is.

The shift from "SMS as traffic driver" to "SMS as sales channel" is significant for DTC brands. It means that every text sent can generate direct, attributable revenue rather than just clicks. Brands using SMS Commerce report average conversion rates of 5.5% and $2.01 revenue per text.

SMS Commerce also solves the attribution problem that plagues traditional SMS marketing. When a customer clicks a link in a text and later buys through a website, the attribution can be murky. When they buy by replying to a text, the attribution is unambiguous — that message generated that order.