Push notifications for ecommerce are short messages your store sends to customers’ phones through your mobile app. They land on the lock screen, even when the app is closed, and bring people back to shop with one tap.
Online stores use them for new arrivals, restocks, sales, abandoned carts and order updates. Because they cost nothing per message and reach your most engaged customers directly, push is one of the highest-ROI marketing channels you have.
To send them, you need two things: a mobile app for your store, and a push notification platform to handle delivery (as well as things like scheduling and automation).
This guide covers everything you need to know about push notifications for ecommerce: how push notifications work, how to set them up, and best practices such as how often you should send them, and what to send.
We also included real examples we collected from successful brands using push, to show you what’s really working for brands on the most under-utilized channel in ecommerce.
What Are Ecommerce Push Notifications?
An ecommerce push notification is a clickable message that an online store sends to a customer’s phone through its mobile app.
It appears on the lock screen and in the Notification Center even when the app is closed. Tapping it opens the app on the page the message is about: a product, a collection, the cart or an order.
Each notification has a title, a line or two of text and your app’s icon. It can also have an image and buttons.
There are three general types of push notification ecommerce brands send:
- Promotional campaigns go to a large group at once: new arrivals, sales, launches and seasonal campaigns.
- Automated (triggered) messages go to one shopper when they do something, or stop doing something: abandoned carts, back-in-stock alerts, price drops and win-backs.
- Transactional updates tell a customer about their order: confirmation, shipping and delivery.
Push notifications don’t always have to be selling something. Sometimes the most effective notifications are simply building a stronger relationship, to pay off some time in the future.
Read more: The Three Types of Push Notifications
Why Push Notifications Work So Well for Online Stores
Push notifications reach your best customers, in the most visible place on their phone, at no cost per message.
The people who install a store’s app are usually its most loyal customers, and they’re more willing to spend money than any other group of customers.
Push is how you reach that group whenever you have something worth saying.
- They’re almost guaranteed to be seen. A push lands on the lock screen, which people look at dozens of times a day. It doesn’t compete with a full inbox or depend on a social media algorithm.
- They cost nothing per message. SMS charges for every text, and email gets more expensive as your list grows. With push, sending one more message costs nothing.
- They’re fast to act on. One tap takes a shopper from the notification to the product, already signed in, with their cart and saved details in place.
- They’re quick to make. A push is a title and a sentence, so you can react to a restock or a trend the same day.
- You own the channel. There’s no ad spend and no platform deciding who sees your message.
Push works best alongside email and SMS, not instead of them. Each channel has a job:
| App push | SMS | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Where it lands | Lock screen and Notification Center | Inbox, often a promotions tab | Text messages |
| Cost per message | None | Low, rising with list size | About a cent per text in the US, and several cents per picture message |
| Who you reach | Customers with your app who allow notifications | Anyone who subscribes | Anyone who gives you their number and opts in |
| Length | A short title and one or two lines | As long as you like | About 160 characters |
| Best for | Frequent, timely messages to your most engaged customers | Newsletters, stories and detail | Urgent messages to everyone, including people without your app |
Mobile App Push Notifications vs Web Push (What’s the Difference?)
Mobile app push notifications come from your store’s iOS and Android app. Web push notifications come from your website, through the browser, so they don’t need an app.
They look alike on an Android phone, but they work very differently, especially on iPhone:
| Mobile app push | Web push | |
|---|---|---|
| What sends it | Your iOS and Android app | Your website, through the browser |
| iPhone | Works for anyone who installs your app and allows notifications | Only after the shopper adds your site to their Home Screen (iOS 16.4 or later) |
| Android and desktop | Android phones and tablets | Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari on desktop, and Android browsers |
| Typical opt-in rate | About half of app users | Around 6% of website visitors |
| Images and buttons | Yes, on iOS and Android | Depends on the browser |
| After the tap | Opens your app, signed in, with the cart and saved details | Opens your website in the browser |
| Who you reach | Customers who chose to install your app | Website visitors who allow notifications |
Which is more effective for ecommerce?
Mobile app push is more effective for most online stores, for four reasons.
- It reaches iPhone users. In the US, iPhones account for about 60% of mobile web traffic. Web push only reaches the few who have added your site to their Home Screen.
- More people say yes to it. About half of a retail app’s users allow notifications, against around 6% of the visitors a website asks.
- It goes to your best customers. The people who install your app are already your most engaged shoppers.
- More taps turn into orders. A tap opens your app with the shopper signed in, and their cart, wish list and payment details ready.
Web push is not useless. It can reach desktop and Android visitors who will never download an app, and costs very little to set up and run.
But don’t expect a lot of revenue from web push. It’s no substitute for an app when you want a direct line to your best customers.
Learn more: Web Push vs Native App Push Notifications: The Differences You Need to Know About
How to Send Push Notifications From Your Ecommerce Store
Sending push notifications from an online store takes a mobile app, a push platform, and a plan for what to send. Here’s how to set it up, step by step.
1. Get a mobile app for your store
Mobile push notifications are sent through an app, so this is the first step to access the channel. There are three ways to get there:
- Build a custom native app. An agency or in-house team builds iOS and Android apps from scratch. It gives you full control, but usually costs well over $100,000, takes many months, and needs a team to maintain it.
- Use a DIY app builder. Dozens of tools on the Shopify App Store let you build an app from templates and blocks. It can be quicker, but somewhat limiting, and gives you two separate storefronts to maintain in parallel.
- Turn your website into an app with MobiLoud. MobiLoud builds native iOS and Android apps on your existing store, giving you a more flexible path to a mobile app, that’s easier to maintain.
2. Connect a push notification platform
A push platform does for push what an email service provider does for email: it holds your list of subscribers and lets you segment them, write and schedule campaigns, set up automated flows, and see your results from each message. Here are a few popular push notification services:
| Platform | Best for |
|---|---|
| OneSignal | Brands that want a dedicated push tool. It’s one of the most widely used push platforms, with segmentation, automation and A/B testing, and a free plan for up to 1,000 monthly active app users. |
| Klaviyo | Brands that already run email and SMS in Klaviyo. Klaviyo push sits in the same flows, campaigns and segments, using the same customer and order data. |
| Braze, Airship, MoEngage, CleverTap | Large retailers with dedicated CRM teams that need cross-channel journeys and advanced testing. |
You can also build and run push yourself with Firebase Cloud Messaging, Google’s free service for sending notifications to iOS and Android apps, if you have developers to set it up.
Some DIY app builders also have push built in, so you send through their platform.
On Shopify? Learn more: How to Send Push Notifications from a Shopify Store
3. Ask for permission
Your users need to give permission for you to reach them with push notifications. On iPhone, and on Android 13 and later, users have permission off by default, until they agree to turn it on.
That means your push opt-in rate is everything. The more of your app users allow push, the more effective the channel is.
Work on getting this part right. Ask at the right time, and communicate the benefits properly to maximize the share of users who get your push notifications.
4. Set up your automated flows
Automated flows run in the background and send the right message when a shopper does something. They’re the most profitable pushes you’ll send, because each one is relevant to the person who gets it.
Start with the ones that earn the most: welcome, abandoned cart, back in stock and order updates.
5. Plan a weekly calendar of campaigns
Campaigns are the messages you send to many people at once: new arrivals, edits, sales and events. Plan three to six a week, and mix product-led notifications (“Check out our new collection”) with offers (“25% off your favorite threads”) to keep your margins strong, and avoid training customers to wait for discounts.
6. Measure what each push earns
Track the click-through rate, orders and revenue from each push, and watch how many people turn notifications off. That tells you what to send more of.
How Often Should Ecommerce Brands Send Push Notifications?
Most ecommerce brands should send three to six push notifications a week, plus their automated messages (abandoned carts, order notifications, etc). That’s what we found when we turned notifications on in 43 shopping apps and recorded what each app sent.
- 4.5 pushes a week from the typical (median) app
- 11 of 43 apps sent about one a day, or more
- 21 of 43 apps sent five or more a week
- 24 pushes a week from the busiest app
| Name | Apps |
|---|---|
| 1 to 2 a week | |
| 2.5 to 4 a week | |
| 4.5 to 6.5 a week | |
| 7 to 10 a week | |
| More than 10 |
The typical app sent 4.5 push notifications a week. About a quarter sent one a day or more, and almost half sent five or more.
At the extremes, two of the brands we studied sent around three a day, while some sent only one or two a week.
What you send matters as much as how often. Three messages a day that are relevant and interesting can be welcome, while three a week that only say “buy now” get tiresome.
If you’re starting out, begin at three a week, then find your own best frequency by adding more while you watch your opt-out rate and revenue per send.
What Do Ecommerce Brands Send in Their Push Notifications?
More than half of what leading ecommerce brands send is about their products, not their prices. In our research, new arrivals and drops were the most common kind, followed by product picks and sales.
| Name | Share |
|---|---|
| New in & drops | |
| Picks & trends | |
| Sales & offers | |
| Welcome | |
| Restocks & low stock | |
| Brand & content | |
| Events & giveaways | |
| Cart & win-back |
Sales and offers made up only about one in five. Many of the most active brands, like Cider and Mr Porter, kept customers opening the app by showing them something new, rather than another discount.
Cart reminders look rare here because they’re automated: a brand only sends one when you abandon a cart. They’re among the most valuable pushes a store can send, which is why they’re in the next section.
Which Push Notifications Should You Set Up First?
Start with the automated journeys that follow a customer from install to repeat purchase. Set them up once and they work every day, without anyone on your team pressing send.
| Journey | Goal | When to send |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome | Turn a new app user into a first order | Straight after install, and again 24 hours later if they haven’t bought |
| Abandoned cart | Recover orders that almost happened | About an hour after they leave with something in the cart, then a reminder or two |
| Back in stock and price drop | Sell the products people already want | When something they viewed or saved restocks or gets cheaper |
| Order updates | Reassure customers and cut support requests | At confirmation, shipping and delivery |
| New in and drops | Build the habit of opening your app | When a category someone follows gets new stock, or for a store-wide launch |
| Win-back | Bring back lapsed customers | After 14–30 days without an open |
Abandoned cart push notifications are the quickest and easiest win. They take little work to set up, and we’ve seen brands driving over $300,000 in new revenue per month from abandoned cart notifications alone.
14 Push Notification Examples for Ecommerce Brands
Want some inspiration to get started? We’ve gone one step further. Below you’ll find 14 different types of push notification that ecommerce brands send, together with real examples from real brands, and plug-and-play templates you can take away and start sending yourself.
1. Welcome offers
A welcome push thanks someone for downloading your app and gives them a reason to place their first order there, usually a discount code or free shipping. Send it within minutes of install, while the shopper is still interested.
2. New arrivals and drops
New-arrival pushes give app users the first look at what’s just landed. They’re the most common push leading brands send, and they build the habit of opening your app to see what’s new.
Name the category or brand, and keep the copy short.
3. Launch countdowns and early access
For a limited drop or a big sale, a short series of pushes builds anticipation and rewards app users with first access. LSKD counts down 48 hours, 24 hours, “it’s live” and “last chance”, while Naked Nutrition gave app users Black Friday prices before anyone else.
4. Back-in-stock and low-stock alerts
Restock alerts go to people who already wanted something, so they’re some of the most clicked pushes a store can send. Low-stock alerts use real scarcity to prompt a decision.
5. Price drops
A price-drop push tells a shopper that something they looked at, or saved, now costs less. Name the product and the new price, as JD Sports does, and add a picture if you can.
6. Sales and promotions
Sale announcements drive the biggest spikes in traffic and orders. Lead with the offer, keep one clear call to action, and consider a gift with purchase instead of a straight discount to protect your margins.
7. Last-chance reminders
A final reminder a few hours before an offer ends often brings in as many orders as the launch. Say exactly when it ends, and only send it when the deadline is real.
8. Abandoned cart recovery
About 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned, and on mobile it’s closer to 80%.
Cart reminders bring shoppers back to complete the order they started, and they’re often a store’s single most profitable automated push. The first reminder should arrive within about an hour, and link straight back to the cart.
On Cyber Monday 2025, we left items in our carts in 18 shopping apps. Six of them sent exactly the same words: “You left something behind. Complete your checkout when you’re ready.”
The reminders that stood out named what was in the cart, gave the message some personality, or added an offer.
9. Browse reminders and personal picks
Not every shopper goes as far as adding a product to their cart. Browse reminders and personal picks use what someone looked at to show them more of what they like, as Bo+Tee did with a Black Friday reminder of the styles we’d browsed.
10. Loyalty and rewards
Loyalty pushes tell members about points, perks and early access. They make your best customers feel looked after, and give them one more reason to shop with you.
11. Order and delivery updates
Order confirmations and shipping updates are the pushes customers want most, and they cut the number of “where’s my order?” emails your team answers. Nu Harvest even turned the format into a joke for Black Friday.
12. Black Friday and holiday campaigns
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the biggest shopping days of the year, and the busiest for push.
Leading brands plan their push like a campaign: a reminder the day before, a push when the sale goes live, and several more over the weekend, often with an image, and often with a deal only for app users.
13. Brand stories and content
Not every push needs to sell. Guides, stories and simple thank-yous keep your brand in customers’ lives between purchases, as long as they’re genuinely useful or warm.
14. Win-back messages
Win-back pushes go to customers who haven’t opened your app in a while. Remind them what’s new, and add an offer if you need one.
You’ll find a swipe file of 200+ notifications, sorted by the type of message, plus 39 ready-to-use templates in our free Ecommerce Push Notification Report.
Push Notification Best Practices for Ecommerce
Good push notifications are short, relevant and timely, and they respect the customer’s attention. These are the practices the best ecommerce brands follow.
How long should a push notification be?
Keep the title to about 25 characters and the body to about 80.
There’s no fixed limit: iOS and Android cut text off at different points, depending on the phone and the reader’s text size. But a message that short will usually show in full on the lock screen, which is all most people read before deciding whether to tap.
Lead with the value, make one point, and end with what to do: “Shop now”, “Tap to claim” or “View your order”.
| Element | What works best |
|---|---|
| Title | A clear offer (“Extra 20% off”), curiosity (“Guess what just landed?”) or capitals for urgency |
| Body | One sentence with one benefit. Name the product, category or designer |
| Emojis | None to two, chosen to back up the message (⏳ for a deadline, 👉 for a call to action), if they suit your brand |
| Incentives | One welcome code used consistently, and a gift with purchase instead of a blanket discount where you can |
Segment by what people browse and buy
The same message doesn’t suit everyone.
Even basic segmentation, such as sending a notification for a new women’s swimwear line only to people who browse women’s swimwear, makes your notifications more relevant and lowers your opt-out rate.
In Pushwoosh’s analysis of 500,000 ecommerce pushes, campaigns targeted by browsing behavior and interests got 10 times the average click-through rate.
| Level | Data you need | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | Gender, region, language | A swimwear push only to people browsing women’s swimwear |
| Intermediate | Categories viewed, past orders, spend | A new-season shoe edit only to shoe browsers |
| Advanced | Predicted lifetime value, response to discounts | A gift with purchase for big spenders, and a percentage off for code lovers |
Personalization can be as simple as using the shopper’s first name or naming the product they viewed.
Match the message to where the customer is
A first-time app user, someone comparing products, someone with a full cart and a loyal repeat customer all need something different from you. Map your pushes to each stage:
- New users: welcome them, show them around the app and learn what they like.
- Browsers: show new arrivals, best sellers, reviews and picks in the categories they view.
- Ready to buy: remind them about their cart, and tell them when a saved product drops in price or runs low.
- Recent customers: send order updates, then ask for a review and suggest what goes with what they bought.
- Lapsed customers: remind them what’s new, with an offer if needed.
Automate the triggers, schedule the broadcasts
Most strong push programs combine automated messages with a few scheduled campaigns each week. The right balance depends on your catalog:
| Approach | When it fits | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Editorial broadcasts | A large range that changes daily | Mr Porter sends three or four category edits, spaced about three hours apart |
| Launch sprints | Limited drops and sample sales | LSKD: 48 hours out, 24 hours out, “it’s live”, then “last chance” |
| Mostly triggers | A smaller range with healthy margins | Browse, cart and order triggers, with very few broadcasts |
Use images, emojis and buttons with a purpose
Rich push notifications can show a picture with the text on both iOS and Android, and Airship found that rich media lifts direct opens by 22%. A product photo makes a push about a product far more tempting, as the Black Friday examples above show.
Notifications can also carry buttons: up to three on Android, and up to four on iPhone when someone presses and holds the notification.
Use images that are clear at a small size, and emojis that add meaning rather than decoration. Buttons work best for quick choices, like “Shop now” and “Remind me later”.
Make urgency real
Deadlines and scarcity work: “Ends tonight”, “Back in stock” and “Only 3 left” all prompt a quicker decision.
But only use them when they’re true. Customers notice when the “last chance” sale comes back the next week, and they stop believing your pushes.
Send at the right time, in the shopper’s time zone
Send when your customers have a moment to browse, and in their own time zone. Pushwoosh’s ecommerce data shows the highest open rates on Mondays and at weekends, and the lowest midweek, but the right time depends on who your customers are, so test it.
Test one thing at a time
A/B test your pushes by changing one thing at a time, such as the title, the offer, the image or the send time, so you know what made the difference.
Send both versions at the same time to the same kind of audience, and wait for enough results before deciding. OneSignal, Klaviyo and the other major platforms have A/B testing built in.
Get consent, and let people choose
Only send marketing pushes to people who have agreed to receive them. Apple’s App Store rules say promotional push notifications need the customer’s explicit opt-in and a way to opt out inside the app, and data protection laws such as GDPR and CCPA set rules for the data you use to target them.
The simplest way to stay on the right side of both is to be clear about what people will get when you ask.
Then offer notification preferences in your app, such as sales, new arrivals and order updates, so customers can turn off one kind of message without losing all of them.
How to Get More Shoppers to Opt In to Push Notifications
You can only send push notifications to customers who allow them, so your opt-in rate caps the reach of every message.
Since Android 13 made every app ask for permission, as iPhones always have, the two platforms have moved close together. Airship’s 2026 benchmarks put the typical retail app at about 50% on Android and 43.5% on iPhone.
That means half your app users or more may never see a push unless you work on it.
- Ask at the right moment. Many apps show the system prompt the moment the app opens, before the shopper knows what they’d be agreeing to. Ask once they’ve seen the value, for example after their first browse or order.
- Explain first with a “soft ask”. Show your own screen before the system prompt, saying what they’ll get: early access, restock alerts and order updates. If they’re not ready, you can ask again later, because iOS only lets you show the real prompt once.
- Make it about them. “Turn on notifications for early access to our Black Friday sale” works better than “We’d like to send you notifications”.
- Make it part of onboarding. A welcome screen that introduces the app and asks for permission feels like part of the experience, not an interruption.
- Make it easy to turn back on. Remind customers what they’re missing, and link to their phone’s settings from your app, as Shein and Temu do.
How to Measure Push Notification Performance
Measure push notifications by the revenue they bring in, not only by clicks. These are the numbers to watch:
| Metric | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Opt-in rate | How many of your app users you can reach at all |
| Click-through rate | How compelling each message is |
| Conversion rate | How many clicks turn into orders |
| Revenue per push | What each message earns, and which kinds to send more of |
| Opt-out rate | Whether you’re sending too much, or the wrong things |
| Retention | Whether people who get your pushes keep coming back |
For reference, Airship’s 2026 benchmarks put the typical retail app’s direct open rate at 2.7% on Android and 1.7% on iPhone, while Pushwoosh measured average ecommerce click-through rates of 3.8% on Android and 3.1% on iPhone.
Your push platform reports opens and clicks. To see orders and revenue, connect it to your analytics or ecommerce platform, or use a platform like Klaviyo that already has your order data.
What Results Do Ecommerce Brands Get From Push Notifications?
Push notifications bring in revenue every day, a lot of which comes from automated messages that need no work once they’re set up. Here’s what brands with MobiLoud apps have seen:
- $10K–$200K a month from abandoned cart push alone, across MobiLoud brands
- $360K recovered in one month by a cannabis retailer’s abandoned cart pushes, from our benchmark report
- 22% abandoned cart conversion rate in Pharmazone’s app
- 3x higher click-through rate from push than from email at AWG Mode
Sending Native Push Notifications with MobiLoud
MobiLoud helps you build custom iOS and Android apps from your website, so you can send push notifications without rebuilding your store. Your products, pages, apps and checkout all carry over to the app, and both channels stay in sync automatically.
You get more than just push notifications by launching an app; but the ROI from unlocking push as a channel will likely cover the cost of building your app, on its own.
- Push is built in. Your app comes with OneSignal or Klaviyo set up and connected, so you can segment, schedule and automate from the tool you choose, with no limit on how many notifications you send.
- Abandoned cart recovery is ready to switch on. A three-step cart sequence links straight back to the customer’s cart.
- Welcome screens ask for permission at the right moment. Your app introduces itself and asks for notifications when it makes sense, which helps your opt-in rate.
- We can run your push for you. With our done-for-you service, our team plans and sends your push campaigns.
- We handle the app. We build, publish and maintain your app, including App Store and Google Play submission and every update.
MobiLoud is a fit for established ecommerce brands on Shopify, Shopify Plus, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud and custom platforms. You can go live in around 6–8 weeks, with minimal lift from your team.
There’s no second codebase to maintain, no separate platform to keep in sync. You get all the benefits of a branded native app (such as native push notifications), without the usual downside and risk.
Where to Start With Ecommerce Push Notifications
Push notifications give you a direct line to your best customers, on the screen they check most, at no cost per message. Here’s how to start:
- Launch your app, if you don’t have one yet. See how MobiLoud works.
- Turn on your welcome and abandoned cart flows first. They pay off fastest.
- Add back-in-stock alerts, price drops and order updates as your app grows.
- Plan three to six campaigns a week, mixing new arrivals and picks with your sales.
- Track revenue per push and your opt-out rate, and send more of what works.
