Abandoned cart emails are the messages a store sends when someone shows clear buying interest and then leaves without paying. Done well, they are a useful service: a reminder, an answer to a question, a way back to the cart. Done badly, they are three increasingly anxious discount codes that teach customers to wait.

This guide covers how to plan the sequence around why people actually stop, what to write, when an incentive earns its place, and how to test whether the emails are doing anything at all. If you are still deciding which automated emails to build first, start with which ecommerce email flows to build first.

Understand cart and checkout abandonment

Not every abandoned cart is the same event, and your platforms may treat them differently. Three situations are worth separating.

  • Cart abandonment.

    Someone added a product to the cart and left before starting checkout. You can only email them if you already know who they are, for example because they are logged in or subscribed, and your tools can connect the visit to that person.

  • Checkout abandonment.

    Someone started checkout, entered an email address and left before paying. This is the most common trigger for a recovery sequence, because the store has an address and the intent is stronger.

  • Browse abandonment.

    Someone looked at products without adding anything. It is a weaker signal and usually belongs in a separate, lighter flow, if at all.

What counts as abandoned, how long a platform waits before deciding, and whether a purchase through another route stops the flow all vary by platform and by how your store and email tools are connected. Check the current documentation for both before you build, then test it with a real checkout of your own.

Why people stop

The reasons fall into a few groups. Each needs a different reply, which is why a single generic reminder only goes so far.

  • A cost they did not expect: shipping, a surcharge, or a total that looks different from the product price.
  • Delivery doubts: how long it takes, whether it arrives before a date that matters, what happens if nobody is home.
  • Product uncertainty: size, fit, compatibility, or how it compares with the option open in another tab.
  • Trust: an unfamiliar brand, an unclear returns policy, a payment method they do not recognise.
  • Friction at checkout: forced account creation, a form that fights them on mobile, a missing payment option.
  • Timing: they were comparing, waiting for payday, checking with someone, or were simply interrupted.

Some of these are email problems. Several are not. If most abandoned checkouts stop at the shipping step, the fix is probably on the site, and the email is a patch. Read what to check when traffic arrives but does not buy and how to improve product pages before you ask the emails to carry the whole load.

An abandoned cart email can remind, reassure and answer. It cannot fix a delivery price that is wrong for the product.

Plan a sequence around real buying friction

Start with evidence, not a template. Look at where in checkout people stop, which products are abandoned most, and what customers ask your support inbox before they buy. Half an hour with recent customer questions often tells you more than any template.

Then decide what each email is for. A useful sequence gives each message one clear job, rather than sending the same reminder three times.

An example sequence structure. Each email has one job.
EmailJobWhat it contains
1. Reminder Make returning easy while the visit is recentThe product, the cart link, nothing more complicated
2. Answer Remove the most likely reason for hesitationDelivery times and costs, returns, sizing or use guidance, a way to ask a question
3. Last note Close the loop politelyA short final reminder, stock or timing information if it is true, and possibly a tested incentive

Example structure, not a rule. Some stores need one email, some need two.

Timing is a hypothesis, not a schedule

There is no send schedule that fits every store. A $30 refill and a $1,200 chair are decided on very different clocks. Set your starting timing from how your customers buy, then test it.

  • Price and consideration time.

    Lower-priced repeat items tend to be decided quickly. Considered purchases may involve research, a partner's opinion or waiting for pay.

  • How urgent the need is.

    A gift before a date, or a replacement for something broken, shortens the window.

  • When your customers read email.

    Look at when your own campaigns get opened and when orders come in, in the customer's time zone.

  • Stock and price changes.

    If an item is about to sell out, saying so is useful. If it is not, do not invent urgency.

  • Overlap with other emails.

    A customer who abandoned a cart may also be in a welcome flow. Decide which message takes priority so nobody receives three emails in an afternoon.

Consent and platform checks before you switch it on

In Australia, commercial emails are covered by the Spam Act 2003. In general terms, it requires consent to send, clear identification of who the message is from, and a working way to unsubscribe. Whether an email address entered at checkout gives you consent to send recovery emails depends on how you collect it and what the customer was told.

This is not legal advice. Before implementation, check your checkout wording and consent settings against the Australian Communications and Media Authority's current guidance, and ask a legal adviser if you are unsure. Check your platforms too: triggers, settings and consent handling change, and the defaults may not match what your business needs.

Write useful reminders and evaluate incentives

Good recovery emails sound like a helpful shop assistant, not a debt collector. Keep them short, show what was left behind and make the way back obvious. The examples below are for a hypothetical Australian store selling linen bedding. Borrow the structure, then fill it with your own customers' real questions.

Notice what is missing: no countdown timer, no invented scarcity, no discount in the first email. Each message has one job and one button.

When an incentive earns its place

Discounts are not the automatic first move. They recover some orders that would not otherwise have happened, but they also go to people who would have bought anyway, and they can teach regular customers that leaving the cart pays. The question is whether the extra orders are worth more than the margin you give away on all of them.

Hypothetical example

Does a 10% cart discount pay for itself?

A store's average order is $150. After product, shipping, packaging and payment costs, each order contributes $60. All figures are ex GST and hypothetical.

Without a discount, the sequence recovers 40 orders in a month: 40 × $60 = $2,400 of contribution.

With a 10% code in the sequence, it recovers 50 orders, and in this simplified version every one of those buyers uses the code. Each gives up $15, so contribution per order falls to $45: 50 × $45 = $2,250.

The discount produced ten more orders and $150 less contribution. To match the no-discount result it would need 54 recovered orders ($2,400 ÷ $45 = 53.3, rounded up). In practice some buyers return before the code appears and pay full price, which is one reason to test rather than assume.

If you do test an incentive, try options that cost less or protect price first: clearer delivery information, a free shipping threshold explained properly, a guarantee stated plainly, or a small add-on rather than money off. If you discount, keep it to the final email, exclude recent discount users, and watch whether abandonment rises once customers learn the pattern.

Test timing, suppression and results

A recovery sequence is not finished when it is switched on. The first version is a hypothesis about what your customers need.

Checklist

Suppression and safety checks before the sequence goes live

  • The flow stops the moment an order is placed, including orders on another device or through another channel, if your systems can see them.
  • Each email checks its send conditions again at the moment of sending, not only when the flow starts.
  • People who have unsubscribed, or have not given the consent your process relies on, are excluded.
  • Priority against other flows is set, so one person is not in three at once.
  • There is a limit on how often one person can enter the flow, for example a regular browser who abandons every week.
  • Out-of-stock items are excluded, or the email changes so it does not send people to a dead end.
  • A test checkout has been run through every path, and every email has been read on a phone.

Measure what the emails added

Your email platform will report revenue from people who received an email and then bought. That number includes people who would have come back anyway. It is useful for spotting problems, but it is not proof that the sequence created the revenue.

The clearest way to estimate what the emails add is a holdout: a random share of abandoners who receive no emails. Compare that group's purchase rate with the group that received the sequence, over the same period. The difference is closer to what the emails caused. Check whether your platform supports a holdout or split test before building a workaround.

  • Recovered orders against the holdout.

    The difference between the two groups, not the total attributed.

  • Contribution, not just revenue.

    Subtract discount cost and any free shipping you gave away.

  • Unsubscribes and spam complaints.

    A rise after a change tells you the sequence has become irritating.

  • Where abandonment happens.

    If the same checkout step keeps losing people, fix the step.

Be careful at low volumes. If twenty people abandon checkout each month, a difference of two or three orders between groups can be chance. Change one thing at a time, let enough carts pass through, and treat early results as a direction rather than a verdict.

Cart recovery is one flow among several. If you would rather it were built and measured as part of a wider plan, our ecommerce email marketing work explains how we approach it. More email and conversion guides are in the resources hub.

Not ready yet? Get Founder Friday. One number worth checking in your store, every Friday, from Mareike.

Free. Unsubscribe any time.

About the author

Mareike Niedermeier

Mareike Niedermeier is the founder and CEO of Sales Savvy Online and the creator of Survivable Distance, a theory of ecommerce viability. Since 2019 her team has worked with more than 200 ecommerce brands. The Australian Business Journal named her a Top Ten Marketer in Australia.

More about Mareike →