What is Abandoned Cart?
In short
An abandoned cart is a shopper who added products to the basket, and often left an email address, but never finished the checkout. The order never exists, yet the intent to buy was real. Recovering those carts is usually the cheapest source of extra revenue a store has, because the traffic is already paid for.
Recovering abandoned carts is typically done with automated email flows or SMS reminders, sometimes bundled with a small incentive to complete the purchase.
How cart recovery actually works
The moment a shopper enters an email or logs in, the store can save the cart and tie it to that contact. If checkout is not completed within a set time, an automated sequence goes out: a first reminder soon after, a second one the next day, sometimes a third with a reason to come back.
Each message carries a link that restores the exact cart, so the shopper lands on the payment step rather than starting over. Anything that adds friction here — a forced account, a lost basket, a broken link on mobile — quietly cancels the whole effort.
A discount is optional and not always wise. If every abandoned cart is rewarded, regular customers learn to abandon on purpose. Reminding, reassuring and removing the original blocker usually works better than paying people to finish.
Why it matters for an online store in the EU
Shoppers in the EU compare delivery cost, delivery time and return policy before paying, and most abandonment happens exactly where one of those becomes visible for the first time. A shipping fee that only appears on the last step is one of the most reliable ways to lose a ready buyer.
There is also a legal layer: recovery messages are marketing, so consent and an easy unsubscribe are not optional, and the store has to be able to prove how the address was collected. A concrete example: a store selling across several countries can show the final delivery cost on the product page per destination, then use recovery emails only for the carts that still drop off.
Common mistakes
- Treating every abandoned cart as a lost sale instead of asking what the checkout hid until the last step.
- Sending the first reminder days later, when the shopper has already bought elsewhere.
- Attaching a discount to every message and training customers to wait for it.
- Recovery links that do not restore the cart, or that break on a phone.
- Emailing people who never consented, which turns a revenue tactic into a compliance problem.
Related terms
Ready to scale your business?
Start your Shopify store today with Shopify's trial period.
Try ShopifyFrequently asked questions about abandoned carts
When should the first recovery email go out?
Soon enough that the shopper still remembers the product, usually within the first hours rather than the next day. A short sequence of two or three messages works better than a single late one. Test the timing on your own store, because a considered purchase behaves differently from an impulse buy.
Should every recovery email include a discount?
No. Start by removing the reason people left: unclear delivery cost, a slow form, a missing payment method. Keep the incentive for a later message in the sequence, and only for carts above a value that still leaves you a margin after shipping and fees.
Can I email everyone who abandoned a cart?
Only within the consent you actually collected, and always with a working unsubscribe link. Rules differ between markets and change over time, so confirm the current requirements for the countries you sell to with a specialist rather than copying what another store does.