What is SMS Replenishment Marketing?

SMS Replenishment Marketing is a text-based retention strategy where brands send reorder prompts to customers when they're predicted to be running low on a consumable product. Instead of relying on customers to remember to reorder — or forcing them into a subscription — the brand proactively reaches out at the right moment via text.

The strategy applies to any product with a natural consumption cycle: coffee, supplements, skincare, pet food, snacks, cleaning supplies, wine, and more. The common thread is that customers use up the product and need to buy again — the question is when.

SMS Replenishment Marketing sits between one-time purchases (where you hope customers come back) and subscriptions (where you ship on a fixed schedule). It provides the convenience of automated prompts with the flexibility of on-demand purchasing.

The basic approach uses purchase data to estimate when a customer will need more of a product. Simple implementations use fixed intervals based on average product lifespan (e.g., send a reorder text 25 days after a 30-day supply purchase). Advanced implementations — like AI-timed replenishment — track each customer's actual purchase cadence per product and personalize timing accordingly.

The reorder message references the specific product the customer previously purchased and invites them to repurchase. In a text-to-buy implementation, the customer replies to complete the purchase. In a link-based implementation, the text includes a link to a pre-filled cart.

Timing is critical. Too early and the customer ignores the message (they still have product). Too late and they've already purchased elsewhere or found a competitor. The best replenishment programs learn and adapt timing based on actual customer behavior.

For DTC brands selling consumables, the gap between purchases is where customers are lost. A customer loves your coffee but runs out, gets busy, and orders from a competitor. A supplement buyer finishes a bottle and forgets to reorder. These aren't lost customers — they're customers nobody reminded.

SMS is the ideal channel for replenishment because of its immediacy. A reorder email might sit in an inbox for hours. A reorder text is seen within 3 minutes. And when the customer can reorder by replying to that text, the friction between "I need more" and "I ordered more" is almost zero.

Brands using SMS replenishment marketing see customers who buy through text spend 3x more than average customers, with repeat purchase rates that increase as the AI learns each customer's consumption pattern.