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GlossaryUpdated

What is an abandoned cart?

An abandoned cart is a shopping cart that still contains items after the shopper leaves without completing an order. Stores infer it from cart or checkout events. Recovery email should be specific, respect consent and stop when the customer orders. The label describes a behavioural signal, not a promise that the shopper wants marketing.

Key facts

  • Shopify labels a checkout that was started but not completed an abandoned checkout, which the store can review. Source
  • Klaviyo describes an abandoned cart flow as a message or sequence of messages triggered by a cart or checkout event. Source
  • A checkout event is a behavioural signal, not a marketing consent record. Source

What an abandoned cart means

This definition is part of the Mailprompt glossary. An abandoned cart is the state that exists after a shopper has put something in a cart and then left without completing an order. The phrase describes a moment, not a person: the same customer may abandon a cart on Monday and buy without help on Tuesday.

Stores rarely observe abandonment directly. They infer it from an event and the absence of a later event. A cart is created, a checkout begins, and then no order arrives within the platform's window. The exact window and the event names differ by platform, which is why two tools can report different abandoned-cart counts for the same store.

Cart, checkout and the gap between them

A cart and a checkout are different states. A cart exists when items are added. A checkout exists when the customer starts the payment flow. Some platforms treat both as one event; others separate them.

Shopify uses the term abandoned checkout for a checkout that was started but not completed. That is a stronger signal than a product view or a cart add, because the customer took a deliberate step toward payment. A flow built on a cart event may contact people who were still browsing. A flow built on a checkout event is closer to the moment the customer almost bought.

The label matters less than the trigger. If the flow starts on the wrong event, the copy will describe the wrong situation and the exit rules will miss the customers who already bought.

How detection works

A typical store records a cart or checkout event with a cart identifier, a profile identifier and a timestamp. When an order is placed, the order carries the same identifiers. The platform compares the two streams and marks the cart as recovered or abandoned.

The comparison is not perfect. A customer can use a different browser, a different email address or a guest checkout that never links back to the profile. A store can also have a checkout event without an email address, which means the recovery message has nowhere to go.

That is why a recovery flow should not claim to recover every cart. It contacts the carts the store can identify and the profiles it is allowed to email. The rest is a data limitation, not a copy problem.

Recovery email, briefly

A recovery email has one job: make it easy to finish the purchase. It should show the product, the cart total and a working link back to the saved cart. The subject line should name the thing the customer was considering. A generic reminder is easier to ignore.

Timing is a hypothesis. A short delay can catch an interrupted checkout; a longer delay can catch a customer who was comparing options. Change one variable at a time so you can tell what moved the result.

Consent is not optional. A cart event is not a marketing opt-in. The flow has to respect the consent state the store records, the unsubscribe list and the account's suppression rules. A blocked send is better than a message the customer did not agree to receive.

Measuring recovery

The useful measures are sends, clicks, recovered orders and attributed revenue. Opens are a weak signal because privacy features and security scanners can load the tracking image without a person reading the message. Measure the flow against a control period or a holdout when you can.

Frequently asked questions

Is an abandoned cart the same as an abandoned checkout?

The labels vary by platform. A cart is usually the earlier state: items are in the cart but checkout has not started. A checkout is the later state: the customer began the checkout flow and stopped. Shopify uses abandoned checkout for the later state. The important question is which event your store emits and what the customer had done when it fired.

How do stores detect an abandoned cart?

The store records an event when items are added to a cart or when checkout begins, then watches for a matching order. If no order arrives within the store or platform window, the cart is treated as abandoned. The window and the event names differ by platform, so read your store documentation before you build a flow.

Should a recovery email include a discount?

Not by default. A discount trains customers to abandon on purpose and gives away margin on orders that might have completed anyway. Start without one, measure the recovery rate and the margin, and add a discount only when the data shows the flow needs it. If you add one, make the code specific to the flow and give it an expiry.

Sources