Someone who leaves a full cart may have been interrupted, wanted to check the shipping cost, or was not ready to pay yet. A reminder that takes them back to the exact cart they left gives them an easy way to finish; a discount in the first email can teach customers to wait for one.
First, look at the checkout itself
Before writing any email, check what people see at the step where they leave. Some reasons people leave at this step are things you can fix directly:
- shipping cost appears for the first time at checkout;
- an account is required before paying;
- the payment method they wanted is missing;
- delivery time is not shown anywhere.
If shipping is the surprise, show it on the product page or state a flat rate at the top of the store. That fix reaches every visitor, not only the ones who later get an email.
The first reminder
A reasonable first setup is one email sent one to four hours after the cart was abandoned. It should contain:
- the product image and name, so they recognise it at a glance;
- one button back to their cart, with the cart still filled;
- the answer to the question you get most often before a purchase (shipping time, returns, sizing);
- a sender name and reply-to address that a person actually reads.
Leave the discount out of this first email. You can test it later against a version without one.
Adding a second and third email
Once the first email has run for a few weeks and you can see it recovering orders, a second reminder about 24 hours later is a simple next step. The second email can deal with an objection: your returns policy, a sizing guide, reviews you really have. A third email with a small incentive, two to three days later, is optional. Check whether it lowers your margin more than it adds in orders.
Which tool sends the emails
On Shopify, start with the abandoned checkout automation in the Shopify Messaging app. It sends an email with a link back to the customer's checkout, you can edit the wording and timing, and these emails do not count towards your Shopify Messaging sending allowance. That covers the single reminder above without another app.
When you want a multi-step sequence, different emails for different products, or SMS, a dedicated email platform is easier to manage. Omnisend has pre-built Abandoned Cart and Abandoned Checkout workflows that can combine email, SMS and push messages; the trigger, delays and exit conditions come pre-set, and you can change them. It is more than you need if you only ever send one reminder and a monthly newsletter.
What to measure
Track recovered orders and recovered revenue for each email, not open rate. Change one thing at a time (timing, subject line or incentive) and compare a few weeks before and after.