Customer Story
Hamper Emporium increases repeat purchases by 36% with SMS
Overview
Challenge: As competition increased and customer acquisition costs rose, Hamper Emporium needed a better way to boost repeat purchases and deliver stronger ROI than broader digital advertising channels.
Solution: Sinch Engage helped Hamper Emporium run more targeted SMS campaigns that drove immediate engagement and supported more personalised follow-up based on customer data.
Results: A 36% increase in repeat buys, stronger campaign engagement and more cost-effective returns than high-cost paid search.
“I was amazed at the difference in open rates, engagement, and click-throughs. It’s so instant. The minute after I send an SMS, you can see revenue from our website spike. It’s crazy.“
For Hamper Emporium, SMS became less about sending promotions and more about creating demand at exactly the right moment. When a campaign went out, the team could see the effect almost immediately — not just in clicks, but in revenue.
That speed mattered because the business was operating in a tougher environment than before. Hamper Emporium had grown strongly during the pandemic, when gift baskets became a popular way to celebrate from afar. But as more retailers entered the category, competition increased and customer acquisition costs rose with it. Head of Marketing Nikki Barnett needed a better way to drive repeat purchases and smooth out what she described as a “lumpy” sales cycle.
The company had already tried channels like Google AdWords, but broader digital advertising was not delivering the return it needed. SMS offered something different: a lower-cost, more targeted way to reach customers directly. After starting with Sinch Engage (formerly MessageMedia) in mid-2022, the team began experimenting with more focused campaigns and quickly saw stronger engagement, click-throughs and revenue impact.
A more targeted way to drive repeat purchases
For Hamper Emporium, the appeal of SMS was not just that it was immediate. It was that it could be used with more precision. Instead of relying on expensive keywords and broad awareness campaigns, the team could send targeted messages to specific customer groups and prompt action quickly. According to Nikki, website revenue would spike within minutes of a message going out.
That directness helped the business strengthen repeat purchasing behavior. Over a 12-month period, Hamper Emporium says repeat buys increased by 36%, with SMS playing a major role in that result. Compared with paid search, the economics were also more compelling: Nikki contrasts a 10-cent text message with the much higher per-click cost of competitive AdWords terms like “Christmas Hamper.”
Campaigns that remove friction for shoppers
Some of the strongest results came from campaigns that made decision-making easier for customers. One early-bird special, which added SMS to the mix, grew from 750 registrations the previous year to more than 2,000, alongside 50% revenue growth year over year. Another Father’s Day campaign used customer data to ask recipients a simple question about their dad’s drink of choice, then followed up with a link to a matching gift basket. By narrowing the choice and reducing the mental load on shoppers, the campaign performed especially well.
That is what makes this story work: SMS did not just amplify existing promotions. It helped Hamper Emporium create more relevant, lower-friction buying experiences that were easier for customers to act on.
Lower costs, stronger returns
For Nikki, the value of Sinch Engage is both commercial and practical. SMS gave her a channel that delivered measurable results while reducing reliance on higher-cost acquisition tactics. It also added something new to the marketing toolkit — a fast, direct way to engage repeat buyers and test new campaign ideas with confidence.
