If you've ever lost a sale because a buyer DMed you on Instagram while you were on a WhatsApp call, you already know the problem. African sellers don't run one storefront, they run three, four, sometimes five at once. WhatsApp. Instagram. Facebook. TikTok comments. The occasional "Where do I pay?" voice note. It piles up fast, and the moment something slips, the customer moves on.
Stur Smart Inbox is our answer. One screen. Every conversation, from every channel you sell on, sorted by AI so the high-intent buyers float to the top. No more switching tabs. No more lost orders. Sell more on WhatsApp, and everywhere else, without burning out.
One Inbox, Every Channel
Smart Inbox pulls in every conversation that touches your store. WhatsApp Business. Instagram DMs. Facebook Messenger. Comments on your latest post. Even the customer who replies to your Stories. They all land in one feed, threaded by buyer, with the products they've already looked at attached to the chat.
If three different staff members are running your DMs, no problem, each chat shows who replied last and what the buyer said before. The days of two team members quoting two different prices to the same customer end here.
Sorted by Buyer Intent, Not by Time
Most messaging tools show you messages newest-first. That's fine for chatting with friends. It's terrible for selling. The buyer who said "I'll send the money in 10 minutes" three hours ago doesn't get a reminder. The cold lead who just asked for a price gets the same priority as a returning customer about to spend ₦80,000.
Stur Smart Inbox uses an AI scoring layer trained on chat-commerce signals: cart actions, repeat purchases, payment intent, and conversation language. Each chat lands in one of three lanes, Hot (about to pay), Warm (browsing seriously), Cold (just looking). You spend your time on the chats most likely to convert today.
AI Replies in Your Voice, Even at 2 a.m.
You sleep. Your customers don't. A meaningful share of orders on Stur stores happen between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., and many of those buyers expect a reply within five minutes. Without automation, you lose them.
Smart Inbox replies in your voice while you're offline. It pulls from your catalog, answers questions about price, sizing, delivery and returns, and even handles the negotiation chat ("Boss, last price?") with rules you set. When a buyer is ready to pay, it sends them straight to a Paystack or Flutterwave checkout, inside the chat. By the time you wake up, the order is already paid.
Built-In Catalog and Conversational Checkout
A lot of "AI inboxes" are just smart reply tools with no commerce engine behind them. Smart Inbox is different because it sits on top of your full Stur storefront. Every product, every variant, every price, every stock count is one tap away. When a buyer asks "Do you have the green one in size 38?" the AI doesn't guess, it looks at your live catalog and answers truthfully.
When the buyer says yes, the AI quotes the price, suggests a complementary product if margin allows, and generates a checkout link. The buyer pays in the chat, gets an automatic receipt, and joins your CRM list. You don't lift a finger.
Repeat-Buyer Alerts and CRM
The fastest growth comes from your existing customers. Smart Inbox tags every contact with the products they've bought, the average they spend, and the last time they ordered. When someone is due for a re-order, say, a skincare buyer 28 days after their last cream, the AI nudges you. Or, if you allow it, it nudges them directly with a personalized message.
This is the part most sellers ignore because they're drowning in new leads. Stur surfaces your most valuable buyers automatically, so you stop letting your best customers go cold.
Bulk Broadcasts That Don't Feel Spammy
Smart Inbox lets you broadcast to a segment without breaking the conversation. Send a restock notice only to people who bought a specific product. Send a flash-sale alert only to buyers who spent over ₦25,000 in the last 60 days. Send a "new in" message only to people who follow your Instagram. Each message lands as a normal one-to-one chat, no "Hi all", with the product card embedded. Buyers reply, and the AI handles the rest.
The biggest unlock in 2026 is not getting more new customers. It's making sure the buyers you already won don't quietly disappear into your inbox.
Why This Matters for Sellers in 2026
Chat-commerce in Africa just crossed a tipping point. More buyers prefer to checkout in WhatsApp than on a website. Instagram DMs are now where new fashion brands are launched. Facebook Marketplace is still where most resellers find their first 100 customers. If your tools force you to handle each channel separately, you're losing time and money every single day.
Smart Inbox is built for the way African sellers actually sell, fast, conversational, multi-channel, and around the clock. It is also built for the future: as your store grows, the same inbox handles 10 chats a day or 1,000, with the AI learning your style over time.
Open Your Free Stur Storefront Today
Stur is Africa's first AI-native storefront. Smart Inbox is included on every Stur plan, including the free tier, no add-on fees, no developer needed. Five minutes from now, you can have a real storefront, a working checkout, and an AI assistant that handles your DMs while you focus on growing. Sell more on WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook without working harder. Open your free Stur store at stur.africa today.