Setting up SMS
Carriers need to know who is behind every marketing text before they will deliver it. Gro walks you through that registration once per country, then handles the carrier side for you.
What you need
Section titled “What you need”- Company information: legal name, website, address and a business registration number (ABN or ACN in Australia, Companies House number in the UK, EIN in the US).
- A sender: a branded name such as
GROBOX(Australia and the UK), or a phone number (a toll-free number in the US, or a local number). - Documents: what the carrier in that country asks for. PDF, JPG or PNG, up to 15 MB each. The wizard lists accepted examples under each upload.
- United Kingdom: business proof only, such as a Companies House certificate or VAT registration certificate.
- Australia: business proof (ASIC extract or ABN Lookup printout), something tying the sender name to your brand (trademark, website screenshot or domain registration), and photo ID for a director.
- United States: business proof showing your EIN (IRS CP 575 letter, SS-4 or W-9). Director ID is optional.
Registering a country
Section titled “Registering a country”- Go to Settings > SMS and click Set up SMS (or Add country if you already have one).
- Company: fill in your company details. Carriers will not register a sender without the business behind it, so this comes first. It is saved once, reused for every country, and skipped next time.
- Country: pick where your customers are. Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States are supported today.
- Sender: choose how messages appear. A branded sender ID reads as your brand name in the customer’s inbox. A phone number lets customers reply.
- Documents: upload what the carrier asks for. Files are stored privately and only shared with the carrier.
- Submit: check the summary and submit for review.
You can close the tab at any point. Reopening the wizard takes you back to the first step that is not finished.
What happens next
Section titled “What happens next”| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending review | Gro is checking the submission. |
| Submitted to carrier | Gro has registered your sender with the carrier and is waiting on approval. |
| Action required | Something is missing. Open the registration to see what, fix it and resubmit. |
| Active | Approved. Campaigns and flows now deliver to this country. |
| Declined | The carrier would not approve the sender. The reason is shown on the registration. |
Approval usually takes about 3 business days for a US toll-free number and 7 to 10 business days for a branded sender ID. You get an email at every step.
Building before you are approved
Section titled “Building before you are approved”You do not have to wait. SMS campaigns and flow steps can be created and saved at any time; you will see a warning that SMS is not set up yet. Nothing is delivered until the recipient’s country is active. If a campaign is sent before then, it is marked as failed with the reason, and flow steps are skipped and logged.
Once a country is active, only customers in that country receive texts. A customer in a country you have not registered is skipped with a clear reason on the message. See Why a message did not send for every reason.
Who receives texts
Section titled “Who receives texts”A customer only receives marketing SMS when all of these are true:
- They have a phone number on their profile, in international format.
- Their SMS status is Subscribed. Shopify marketing consent syncs both ways.
- Their country has an active sender registration.
- It is inside your safe hours, and not legal quiet hours in their country (see below).
Safe hours
Section titled “Safe hours”Marketing texts only go out during your safe hours (8 am to 8 pm by default, in your account timezone) and outside legal quiet hours in the customer’s country. Texts queued outside those windows wait and send when they open. See Safe hours and quiet hours.
Opt-out
Section titled “Opt-out”Every marketing text carries an opt-out link. Customers can also reply STOP to a phone-number sender. Either way their profile is marked unsubscribed from SMS immediately and the change is pushed to Shopify. Replying START opts them back in.