Managing products in RechargeSMS

RechargeSMS is a transactional SMS tool that empowers customers to manage their subscriptions by text message. This includes swapping their subscription products or adding additional one-time items to their upcoming orders. This guide explains how to manage your products in RechargeSMS. 

Before you start

• Due to US laws and legislation, RechargeSMS cannot support stores selling products containing cannabidiol (CBD).

Importing products

Your products must be imported from Shopify into RechargeSMS to be included in any SMS notifications you send.

1. Launch RechargeSMS and select Products from the dashboard. 
2. Select Add Product(s).
3. Choose All Products to import all of your products or Specified Products to choose specific products to import.
4. Select Import.

It may take a few moments for all of your products to import into RechargeSMS depending on the size of your catalog.

Pre-paid products

Pre-paid products have limited functionality with RechargeSMS. Only the following messages can be sent for pre-paid products:

• Shipment tracking
• Order processed
• Upcoming charge reminder
• Add one-time item

RechargeSMS only sends messages for pre-paid charge renewals. Enable the Shipment Tracking message to send a message when a pre-paid order ships.

Renaming products

Optimize the text messages you send by updating the titles of your products to fit our best practice guidelines. Renaming your products in RechargeSMS only affects how the product is titled in SMS messages to your customers. It will not change the title of the product in Shopify or Recharge. 

1. Launch RechargeSMS and select Products from the dashboard. 
2. Click on the Edit icon next to the product title that needs updating. 
3. Enter the new product title in the text box.
4. Press Enter on your keyboard to save your changes.

Product title best practices

• Keep product titles short to fit within the context of SMS messages. For example, replacing written numbers with a figure, like three to 3.
• Product variants may be imported with both product variant title and frequency availability, such as 1 Bottle (2 Month Supply). It is best to use a shorter naming convention that works within SMS.
• Product variants may be imported with the name Default Title. To update, select the product to access the Product Variant data screen and copy the Shopify Product title. Click Edit Product Variant and paste the Shopify Product title.
• CBD and THC must not be present in product titles, otherwise, your store’s toll-free number will be banned due to US laws and legislation.

Syncing products

Products in RechargeSMS are not automatically updated when you update a product in Shopify. From the RechargeSMS Products page, click the three vertical dots menu and select Sync to update the product and reflect any changes made in Shopify. 

Archiving products

From the RechargeSMS Products page, click the three vertical dots menu and select Archive to completely remove a product from RechargeSMS. After archiving a product, customers no longer have the option to interact with this product and you will not be able to include it in any swap groups.

The product can be imported back into RechargeSMS to offer it to customers at a later date.

Ignoring products

You can use choose to ignore products if you have limited product inventory and want to prevent customers from purchasing it via SMS.

Click the Ignore button to temporarily prevent customers from interacting with a specific product through SMS text messages.

Swapping products

Customers can swap to different products through an SMS message. You can enable individual products as swap options or use a swap group to create a group of swappable products.

Swap individual products

You can manually set a product as swappable in your RechargeSMS product settings. This is recommended if you don’t require a swap group or if you would only like to offer a handful of products as swappable.

1. From the RechargeSMS dashboard, select Products. 
2. Click Edit for the product you are enabling swapping for. 
3. Toggle Available for Product Swap.
   • (Optional) Toggle Available for Add One-time item if the product can also be added as a one-time purchase. See Enabling a product as a one-time option for more details. 
4. Click Update to save your changes.

Enabling a product as a one-time option

You can offer products as a one-time option as a way to increase your store’s overall Average Order Value (AOV).

1. From the RechargeSMS dashboard, select Products. 
2. Click Edit for the product you are enabling as a one-time product.  
3. Toggle Available for Add One-time item option to allow customers to purchase the product as a one-time item.
4. Click Update to save your changes.

Swap groups

Swap groups allow you to offer groups of swappable products to your customers. Use the following tips when setting up swap groups:

• Swap groups have a limit of five products. If you try to add more than five products to a swap group, your customers will be redirected to your store's full product catalog. 
• A product can only be in one swap group at a time.

Creating swap groups manually

You can easily create swap groups manually from the Products page. 

1. From the RechargeSMS dashboard, click Products and select Swap Groups from the drop-down menu.
2. Click Add new Swap Group.
3. Enter the title of your swap group in the Name textbox. 
4. Search and select the products you would like to include in the swap group under Select Product Variants. You must add at least two products to a swap group. 
5. Click Save. 

Best Seller swap groups

With Best Seller swap groups, you can leverage your best-selling products as swap options for your customers and increase the chances of customers swapping. 

This feature is currently in Open Beta. Contact the Recharge Support team if you are interested in participating in this Beta. For more information, visit Recharge Beta Program.

How it works

Recharge generates a list of your store's top five best-selling product variants based on your store's Analytics data and groups them together in a Best Seller swap group. This is done on the product variant level, meaning only the best-selling variant is included if the product has multiple variants. When a customer requests to swap via RechargeSMS, they are shown the Best Sellers group.

The contents of the swap group are refreshed daily to ensure the best-selling products are always included. We recommend creating a custom swap group if you are looking for more control over the products included in a group.

Enabling the Best Sellers swap group

After the Recharge support team has enabled the Beta feature for you, you can activate the Best Sellers swap group.

1. From the RechargeSMS dashboard, click Products and select Swap Groups from the drop-down menu.
2. Toggle the Best Sellers swap group to Active to enable the feature. 

The top five best-selling variants are automatically added to the Best Sellers group once it is created. Only subscription products are included in the Best Sellers group. All products are considered Best Sellers if you have five products or fewer in your store.

Click View Products to manage the Best Sellers swap group. You can Ignore a product listed in the Best Sellers group, however, the next best-selling item will be included in the list. You will need to ignore multiple products to display less than five products to your customers.

Quantity groups

Some stores create multiple versions of the same product to offer different product quantities. These items exist as different products in Shopify and are assigned separate SKUs.

You may want to configure a Quantity Group in RechargeSMS to allow customers to change their product quantity. With Quantity Groups, you can group products that are the same but have different SKUs due to the quantities offered. Customers can select the product quantity they wish to switch to and update the SKU on their subscription. This ensures customers are subscribed to the right quantity.

Creating a Quantity Group

1. From the RechargeSMS dashboard, click Products and select Quantity Groups from the drop-down menu.
2. Select the + icon to create a Quantity Group. 
3. Use the search menu to add products to the Quantity Group.
4. Add a Swap Group Name to the group of products you created.
5. Select Save & Exit. 

Once enabled, customers subscribed to a product in the Quantity Group are put in a separate flow. If they request to change the product quantity for one of these items via SMS, customers are prompted to reply with the new quantity. RechargeSMS handles the SKU swap that takes place on the backend. 

Editing or deleting a Quantity Group

1. From the RechargeSMS dashboard, select Products.
2. Select Quantity Groups from the drop-down menu.
   • Use the Edit icon to make changes to an existing Quantity Group.
   • Select the Delete icon to delete an existing Quantity Group.

Bundled subscriptions

If your store uses Recharge's Bundles feature or has a custom-built bundling solution, it is recommended to enable product bundling in RechargeSMS. One example of a custom-built bundling solution is a box subscription where five individual product SKUs are all individual subscriptions, but customers cannot swap the individual products in the box. 

This setting is only recommended for stores offering bundling subscriptions. This setting limits functionality so that SMS messaging does not break bundles. With this setting enabled, customers are limited to viewing subscription information, skipping, delaying, or updating the next charge date. 

1. Click Settings in the RechargeSMS dashboard. 
2. Click Features and select Messaging.
3. Click Batch actions to enable product bundling. 

For more information on Batch actions, see RechargeSMS settings and features.