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Recipe: abandoned checkout follow-up

Goal: when a checkout with contact details is left alone for an hour, email the buyer the items and the link back to their checkout.

Template: Remind customers about an abandoned checkout (category Discounts and checkouts). Steps: 1. Needs: an email sender, access to orders, and Shopify's approval for protected customer data including the email field. See Permissions and store data access.

Before you start

  1. Set up a sender under Email senders and send yourself a test email. See Send email and email senders.
  2. Turn off Shopify's own abandoned checkout email if you do not want buyers to get two reminders.

Create it

In Browse templates, search for abandoned and select Use template on Remind customers about an abandoned checkout.

How it is built

Part Setting
Trigger Customer abandons checkout, Waiting time in minutes 60
Trigger filter, all rules event.payload.email has a value, and event.payload.buyer_accepts_marketing is equal to true
Send email To {{ event.payload.email }}, Subject You left something behind, Format Plain text

The email:

Hi {{ event.payload.customer.first_name | default: "there" }},

your cart is still waiting for you:

{% for line in event.payload.line_items %}{{ line.quantity }} x {{ line.title }}
{% endfor %}
Finish your order here:
{{ event.payload.abandoned_checkout_url }}

default covers buyers without a first name. The for loop writes one line per item. The last variable is the checkout's recovery link.

Make it yours

  1. Select the trigger and set Waiting time in minutes: from 10 minutes to 7 days.
  2. Rewrite subject and text in your voice. Switch Format to HTML for a designed email.
  3. Test as a preview: no email is sent. The step checks the address and names the sender it would use. For a real email, put your own address into email in the Event (JSON) and choose Run for real.
  4. Save and Turn on.

How the waiting works

  • Only checkouts that begin while the workflow is on are seen.
  • A buyer who comes back and edits the checkout restarts the waiting time. A buyer who orders is dropped.
  • When the time is up, the app asks Shopify about the checkout once more. A completed checkout starts nothing.
  • Each checkout starts the workflow once. Checks happen once a minute.

More in Abandoned checkout and left without purchase.

A second reminder with a discount

The template Win back abandoned checkouts with a discount is the same workflow with one more step before the email: Create discount code, for example 10 percent, valid for a few days, limited to one use. The email reads the code from that step's result. Give it a longer waiting time, such as 1,440 minutes. Both workflows can be on at once: each starts when its own time has passed.

If the second email should only go to buyers who still have not ordered, that is already taken care of: an order removes the checkout from the waiting list.

Count against your sending limit

Every recipient counts against the daily sending limit of your plan. See Send email and email senders.