The most challenging problem of most small- scale e- commerce operators is the lack of a reliable and accessible means of interacting with their customer base. More often than not, they choose to get SMS as their medium since there is a greater than 100% mobile penetration everywhere in the world. Existing solutions involve using SMS gateway providers. However, these usually come with set usage quotas and are specific to a country or region. Clearly, there is a need to re- work these solutions as operators expand to other countries and do not provide SMS local reply capability without  minimum usage quotas.

But you don’t have to worry, Sen.ly has found a solution. Sent.ly is a service that allows your application to send/receive SMS globally using your Android phones. Using a simple HTTP API, your apps can start sending SMS in minutes. So basically, it lets you set up a localized SMS gateway on your Android phones.  Setting up an account is rather simple. To get started, all you have to do is to enter email and click sign up, download the app from Google Play, sign in on the app, and login and read documentation.

What’s best is that it allows for SMS replies to be handled automatically. That is to say, you can have your much coveted full customer interactivity. If you intend to expand operation, you just have to add more phone as needed, and Sent.ly scales.

Sent.ly has done a tremendous change to messaging by making it universal through its applications on technology and platform that have global reach. By choosing the ubiquitous SMS (Short Message Service) over a mobile data connection, our aim is to ease the adoption of information systems globally, be it in ‘developing’ or ‘developed’ societies.