Unexpected closure (All Customers)
We are closed today, [date]. [Reason], and we cannot open safely. Anything on hold is behind the counter and safe. We open again [when] at normal hours.
Free guide
The Retail Rollout Guide
A practical guide to bringing your customers onto Blasts and reaching them on the days the store changes. It covers where the invitation goes, how to structure your audiences, who sends what, the messages worth having ready, and a 30-day plan for the first month.
Written for the owner, store manager or marketing lead who will run RetailBlasts at the store, and for the managers, buyers and counter staff who will send from it.
Start with the store, not the sale
The messages a store most needs to land have a deadline: the power is out and you are not opening, the holiday hours changed, the size six people asked about is back on the wall, there are twelve of these and no more, the workshop is Thursday and two seats are left. Email handles those worst, a sign on the door only reaches the people who already drove over, and social shows them to whoever it likes.
RetailBlasts is a direct channel to customers who connected with you on purpose. Each customer installs the free Blasts app once and connects to your store; from then on your note lands on their screen with your name and photo on it, and the email leg carries the same note to customers who chose email. The test for every send is the one a good shopkeeper uses: would the customer be glad this reached them? Closures, hours, arrivals, limited runs, classes and the order that is ready all pass. A weekly coupon does not. A genuine end-of-season sale is one honest message among many, and it goes only to the customers who opted into sales.
Where the invitation goes
Put the invitation at the moments you already own, with the same code everywhere. Open Connections in your Hub and click Sync connections once to publish your enrollment code; the QR code and the printable enrollment kit come from the same screen.
The counter and the receipt
Print the code or the QR on the receipt and stand the kit as a card at the register. A public code on a receipt works the way Blasts describes it: the customer requests the connection and your store approves, or auto-accept in Settings connects them on the spot. Give whoever is on the register one sentence to say.
The bag, the shelf and the fitting room
A slip in the bag reaches the customer at home. A shelf talker on the department people keep asking about reaches the ones who care most about arrivals. A small card in the fitting room reaches the customer who is about to ask you whether you have another size.
The confirmations you already send
Add the enrollment code, or the standing enrollment link where it is enabled for your Hub, to the order, shipping, pickup and loyalty emails your online store already sends. There is no Shopify, WooCommerce, Square or loyalty connector: you paste the line into your own template yourself, once.
The signup form
If your loyalty or newsletter form can post to a URL, point it at the inbound webhook on Integrations, or use the Zapier app on request, so each new customer is invited the day they join.
Every door leads to the same consent-based connection. A customer can narrow their audiences, mute you or disconnect silently at any time.
Bring in the customers you already have
Most stores start with a list: the loyalty members, the opted-in customers your online store lets you export, the special-order book in a spreadsheet. Export it as a CSV and use Add many at once on Connections. The file needs an email column; the Hub also recognizes name, phone, birthday and a tags column, and previews everything first.
- Files are limited to 5,000 rows and 2 MB. Invitations are spread out at up to 200 a day, so they never read as cold mail.
- A customer already on Blasts gets a request in the app; anyone else gets your invitation email with the code. Only import customers who opted in: everyone is invited, never added.
- The Reach funnel on Connections shows where every customer stands and how they arrived: code, import, webhook, request or Zapier.
Structure your audiences
Onboarding seeds a starter pack you can rename, archive or replace. All Customers reaches everyone connected; sending to it asks for a step-up confirmation. Open audiences appear as choices on each customer's preferences page. Closed ones are yours to assign and are never shown to customers.
- Regulars: the open list a customer joins. Most of what you send goes here.
- VIP: the closed list you curate with Bulk assign. First look at a limited run, first access to the sale. A list you choose, not a spend rule: the Hub does not read your till.
- New Arrivals & Restocks: the customers who want to know the moment something lands or comes back. Add child audiences per department if that is how people shop with you.
- Events & Classes: launch nights, trunk shows, workshops, the holiday open house.
- Sales & Clearance: the people who genuinely want the sale. Keeping it separate is what protects everything else you send.
- Staff: closed, store assigns. A stock note or a closure the team hears before the customers do.
- A small chain adds one audience per store. A customer can be in several audiences at once.
There is deliberately no pickups audience. A hold or a ready order is one person, and that note belongs in their conversation thread.
Who sends what
Roles keep the All Customers sends and the billing with the owner while the people on the floor reach their own customers.
- The owner holds the store-controlled Blasts account (a mailbox on your own domain, not a manager's personal address), the passkey and the credit purchases.
- The head of retail or general manager is an Admin. Store managers are Leaders granted their own store's audiences, so one store can post its own closure without messaging the whole customer list.
- The buyer or events lead is a Leader granted New Arrivals & Restocks and Events & Classes, for sending and for reading replies, so a question about a class reaches them and not the stockroom.
- Counter staff can be granted reply access without send access, so they can answer a hold request without being able to send to an audience.
- Sending to All Customers and changing roles ask for a fresh step-up confirmation. If a manager's Blasts should be checked first, turn on approval in Settings. The audit trail on Home records who sent, approved or changed what.
Holds, orders and pickups: what the Hub does not know
This is the part worth being clear about, because it is where a retail tool usually overpromises. The Hub holds no order data at all. It does not know what anyone bought, what is on hold behind the counter, what shipped, or what is sitting in the stockroom with a name on it. There is no integration that tells it, because no point-of-sale, online-store or loyalty connector exists.
What works, and works well, is simpler. Your own system tells your team the order is in. Your team opens that customer's thread in the Hub and sends one line: it is here, it is under your name, we will hold it until Sunday, reply if you want a different day. The customer replies in the same thread, and the staff notes on their page stay private to your team. It takes about fifteen seconds and it reads like a person, because it is one.
If you want that automated one day, the honest answer today is that you would build it yourself against the inbound webhook and the Zapier app. Nothing in this guide depends on it.
Sending, replies and the email leg
A send from the Hub is a typed or rich note with a photograph of what landed, links and up to three attached files of 5 MB each, such as the class schedule. Pick the audience, ask for a YES or NO reply when you need a count, click Send a test to me, then Send now, Schedule for later, or Repeat weekly. Delivered and read counts come from confirmed actions, not open pixels, so a low read count on a closure is real information rather than a tracking artifact. A read is not a confirmation: when you need one, ask for a YES or NO reply and the Hub counts the answers.
Replies land in Conversations, one inbox for both rails. A regular asking you to hold a size, a question about a class, a customer checking on a special order: assign each thread to the counter or the buyer, and record the hold wherever you record holds today. The Hub is not the stock book.
Each customer chooses Blasts, email or both, and the Hub sends the same note on both legs from your own verified sending address. Email is metered in email credits; every new Hub includes 50.
Content Series, and what Hub Pro adds
A Content Series is a set of different prewritten messages on a schedule: the buyer writes four notes on Sunday, and each Thursday at 10 a.m. the next one goes to Regulars once the delivery is unpacked. A customer who connects in week three gets week three's note, never the backlog. Content Series is included from the start.
Hub Pro adds Journeys (a new-customer welcome timed from the day each person connects) and Event Campaigns (the announcement, the last-spots notice, the day-of details and the thank-you built around one launch night or trunk show). It unlocks at $500 in cumulative credit purchases for any organization. Nothing in the 30-day plan depends on it.
Credits and what it costs
- One Blasts credit per customer a message is delivered to, and one email credit per email. Failed and cancelled sends cost nothing.
- Credits are prepaid, never expire, and there is no subscription. Reaching 3,000 connected customers is 3,000 credits.
- Stores buy at standard BlastCredits pricing. The nonprofit and church verification program does not apply to a retail Hub, and no verification is required for access.
- Home shows your runway at the current pace. Top up before November, when the holiday hours, the order deadlines and the arrivals all send in the same quarter.
Your first 30 days
One month from sign-in to a connected list you can reach today. Adapt the order to your trading week.
Day 1 Sign in and publish your code
Sign in at /hub/signin/ with an email code, a passkey or your Blasts sign-in; a new store sets up its Hub through onboarding, and it activates with the first credit purchase from BlastCredits. Set the store name, website and timezone. Open Connections, click Sync connections, and print the enrollment kit.
Week 1 Place the invitation and bring in your list
Paste the code or the standing link into your order, pickup and loyalty emails. Stand a card at the register, put a slip in the bag, add a shelf talker to the department people ask about most. Export the loyalty list and use Add many at once. Turn on auto-accept. Give whoever is on the register one sentence to say at the counter.
Week 2 Set audiences and send the first real note
Rename or archive the starter audiences to match how people shop with you, and build VIP with Bulk assign. Invite the manager as an Admin and the buyer as a Leader with grants. Send your first Blast to Regulars about something true this week, such as what landed on Tuesday, after Send a test to me. Write the holiday hours now and schedule them.
Week 3 Run an arrival and work the replies
Send a limited run or a restock to New Arrivals & Restocks with a YES or NO reply and watch the count come back before you open. Give the counter a daily habit: open Conversations at the start of the day, answer holds, send the ready-for-pickup notes your own system flagged. Rehearse the message you hope not to send: the unexpected closure.
Week 4 Review and set the cadence
Read the Reach funnel: how many connected, through which door. Look at delivered and read counts and at the hour the Hub says your Blasts are read most. Start a weekly what-is-new Content Series if the delivery arrives on a predictable day. Decide the monthly rhythm (the changes, the arrivals, the events, sales sparingly) and check your credit runway on Home.
What the Hub does, and what it does not
- Sends a typed or rich message with photographs, links and up to three attachments of 5 MB each to the audience you pick.
- Counts YES and NO replies, and puts every reply in one conversation thread you can assign and search.
- Schedules a send, repeats it weekly, and runs a Content Series on a calendar.
- Sends the same message as a Blast and as email, from your own verified sending address, to customers who chose each.
- Reports delivered and read counts from confirmed actions, and tells you why a message did not deliver.
- Brings customers in through the enrollment code, the QR and the printed kit, CSV import, the inbound webhook, signed outbound events and the Zapier app on request.
- See orders, stock, purchases or spend. The Hub holds no retail data: a pickup or hold notice is a message your staff sends once your own system tells them it is in.
- Connect natively to Shopify, WooCommerce, Square, Lightspeed, Clover, Klaviyo or any other point-of-sale, online-store or loyalty platform. Your customer list reaches the Hub as a CSV, through the webhook, or through Zapier.
- Replace your till, your online store, your stock list or your loyalty program. It adds a channel next to them.
- Message strangers or a purchased list. A customer must connect before anything is delivered, and can mute you or disconnect at any time.
- Send campaign badges, countdowns, calendar attachments, voice Blasts, polls, payment links or a self-destruct timer. Those are Blasts-app sender features, not part of the Hub composer.
- Record a confirmation on a customer's behalf. A read is a read; a YES is the customer's own reply, which the Hub counts.
- Build rule-based or dynamic audiences. VIP is a list you curate.
Blasts, the platform underneath, does carry those sender features when a message is sent from the Blasts app rather than from your Hub. This guide describes only what the Hub sends.
Open today
There is nothing to apply for and nothing to read first. Sign in to your Hub, set it up through onboarding if you are new, and it activates with your first credit purchase on BlastCredits at standard retail pricing. The retail documentation covers every screen this guide mentions, in customer and store-manager language.
See it in action at Morrowpine Market (a fictional example organization created to show the product, not a customer)
Product facts on this page reflect published Blasts.app information as of 2026-08-17.