Why email-only sellers need to add WhatsApp

The question isn't whether email is dead. It isn't. The real question is: how many sales is your company letting slip because it insists on talking through a channel customers open less, reply to less, and rely on less when they need to decide fast?

Email informs. WhatsApp converses. Email works well for institutional communication, newsletters, duplicate documents, contracts, invoices, educational content, and relationship automations — it has a clear role in a sales strategy.

The problem starts when a company tries to use email for everything: answering questions, negotiating, recovering carts, sending a special offer, confirming an order, requesting a document, guiding a payment, or following up. In those moments, the customer doesn't want to go dig through an inbox. They want to get it resolved. And, in practice, resolving it often means opening WhatsApp.

What the data shows

Klaviyo's e-commerce benchmarks show that email campaigns average a 1.69% click rate. Automated email flows perform better, at 5.58% clicks and a 13x higher order rate than regular campaigns. In other words: even within email, what converts best isn't a generic blast — it's contextual messaging, sent at the right moment.

Klaviyo's 2025 Benchmark Report adds another important data point: standard email campaigns had an average order rate of 0.08%, while browse abandonment flows reached 0.82%. That's a 10x difference, driven by context and intent.

When the channel shifts to WhatsApp, the platform's own official case studies show even stronger jumps in relationship and re-engagement scenarios. Clarins reported a 90% open rate on a WhatsApp campaign, with 4.5x higher opens and 7x higher conversion than email. Styli, a fashion e-commerce brand, reported 50% higher conversion and 17x higher click rate on WhatsApp compared to email over the same period. MadeiraMadeira, in Brazil, reported a 25% increase in marketing message conversion on WhatsApp using personalized recommendations. And Magalu reported 3x higher conversion in a shopping experience inside WhatsApp compared to its usual app and e-commerce channels.

These numbers don't mean any WhatsApp blast will automatically sell more. But they point to a trend that's hard to ignore: when there's intent, context, and urgency, WhatsApp tends to shorten the path between interest and purchase.

The comparison that matters isn't just open rate

Most people compare email and WhatsApp only by open rate. That's shallow. Open rate shows whether someone saw it, but sales depend on other factors: did the customer understand the offer, could they get their question answered, did they get a fast reply, was someone or something guiding the next step, could they buy with no friction, and was the history logged so things could continue later.

That's where WhatsApp gains an edge. It isn't just a sending channel — it's an environment for conversation, support, and decision-making. Email tends to be asynchronous and distant. On WhatsApp, a company can turn a campaign into a conversation, a question into an order, and an abandoned cart into a recovered sale with context.

Why this matters even more in e-commerce

In e-commerce, a lot of lost sales aren't lost interest — they're lost friction. The customer lands on the site, checks out the product, compares prices, and gets stuck on a question about size, delivery, availability, payment, or exchanges. If they have to wait for an email, the intent cools off. If they get a fast reply on WhatsApp customer service, the purchase can keep moving.

This is even stronger for stores selling products that require guidance: fashion, cosmetics, supplements, home decor, auto parts, technical materials, stationery, furniture, personalized items, and products with variations in size, color, compatibility, or application. In these cases, WhatsApp doesn't replace the website — it fills in where the customer needs confidence to move forward.

The mistake is switching channels without organizing the operation

Adopting WhatsApp isn't just about adding a button to the website or sending campaigns to a list. Without process, WhatsApp turns into chaos too: lost conversations, overloaded reps, customers left without a reply, campaigns with no measurement, and history scattered everywhere — the same risk that already reinforces why selling on WhatsApp became commercial infrastructure, not an informal channel.

For the channel to actually sell, the company needs to structure contact source, funnel stage, conversation ownership, customer history, tags and segmentation, behavior-based automation, opt-in campaigns, e-commerce integration, and metrics on clicks, replies, orders and revenue. The gain doesn't come from the app on its own — it comes from the commercial operation built on top of it, with AI acting on real customer context, not just replying faster.

Email's role going forward

The best path isn't dropping email. It's no longer expecting it to carry the whole load. Email can keep handling formal communications, longer-form content, confirmations, and low-urgency relationship touches. WhatsApp should step in wherever there's intent, a question, urgency, re-engagement, cart recovery, and assisted selling.

A mature operation uses both channels with different roles: email to inform, educate, and record; WhatsApp to converse, guide, and convert.

The next step

If your company already uses email to talk to customers, the next step is to map out which messages should become conversations instead. Start with four areas: abandoned carts, inactive customers, pre-purchase questions, and quote or proposal follow-ups. These are the points where speed, context, and personalization tend to change the outcome.

Merge helps connect WhatsApp, CRM, automation, campaigns, AI and metrics into a clearer sales operation — so your company doesn't depend only on emails sent, but can turn conversations into measurable sales.

Editorial note ⌄

The figures in this article come from public Klaviyo benchmarks, official case studies published by WhatsApp Business, and Opinion Box's 2025 WhatsApp in Brazil survey. These are self-reported figures from the companies cited and may vary by segment, customer base, offer, and execution — but they point to a consistent trend.