The three abandoned cart emails that bring a stalled checkout back

Seven of every ten carts leave without paying.

That is not a guess about your store. Baymard Institute’s running average across 50 studies is 70.22 percent, and it has barely moved in a decade. You paid Meta to walk each of those shoppers to your checkout. Meta kept the money either way.

Here is the part worth sitting up for. Baymard also asked people who left during checkout why. Set aside the group that was only browsing, and the three biggest answers were extra costs at 40 percent, delivery too slow at 20 percent, and not trusting the site with a card at 19 percent.

Read those again. Not one of them is “I changed my mind about the product.” They are three questions the shopper still had when they closed the tab.

One email cannot answer three questions. Three emails can, one each. That sequence is the whole method on this page. It is written out below, with the template and the Shopify and Klaviyo wiring, so you can swap in your product and switch it on this week.

What does an abandoned cart email have to do?

Remove one reason to stall. Not resell the brand.

An abandoned cart email is an automated message to a shopper who entered contact details at checkout and stopped. Its job is to hand the cart back in one tap and remove one reason the shopper stalled. Baymard’s checkout research puts the top reasons at extra costs (40 percent), slow delivery (20 percent) and card trust (19 percent).

The shopper was in your checkout an hour ago. They know your brand. They picked the variant. Writing them an advert is the mistake most templates make, which is why the stock copy in every email platform opens with “Did you forget something?” and a logo.

What they need is smaller and more specific. The cart, one tap away. And one answer to whatever stopped them.

That gives the sequence its shape:

The four-hour first delay is what Klaviyo ships in its pre-built abandoned cart flow, and the same guide says two to three messages perform best. The sequence below is three. A fourth is optional, and covered later.

What do the three abandoned cart emails look like?

Written out for an example coffee roaster. Swap the nouns.

Three emails, each with one job. The reminder assumes an interruption and hands the cart back. The answer states shipping cost and delivery time, the two biggest reasons in Baymard’s checkout research. The proof carries three reviews and the guarantee. None of the three opens with a discount, and none asks the reader to do two things.

The store, the product and the reviews below are written for this page. They are an example, not a customer’s results. Everything in square brackets is a fact you replace with your own.

Email 1. The reminder. Four hours after the checkout stalls.

Why it works: it assumes nothing went wrong, because usually nothing did. A phone rang. A tab closed. This email costs the reader two seconds and recovers the easy ones before you spend a discount on them. The reply line is not politeness. It is how you learn the real objections in the shopper’s own words, and email two is built from them.

Email 2. The answer. About a day out.

Why it works: Baymard’s two biggest checkout reasons are extra costs and slow delivery. This email answers both in two lines, in numbers, and does not apologise for either. If your shipping is expensive, say so here and say what the shopper gets for it. A shopper who leaves over a stated cost was never going to buy. A shopper who left over an unstated one might.

Email 3. The proof. About two days out.

Why it works: three reviews with one honest complaint read as true. Three glowing ones read as marketing. The mixed review also does quiet work. It names who the product is not for, and the guarantee under it removes the last risk of a first order. That is Baymard’s third reason, trust, handled without a discount.

Optional. Email 4, the last call. About three days out, and only once the first three have run long enough to read. One line: this is the last email about this cart. Naming the end lowers unsubscribes, and it is the only place a small code belongs, if you use one at all.

What is the abandoned cart email template?

Six parts. Change one per email.

Every abandoned cart email uses the same six parts: a subject that names the product, one line of context, the cart with an image, the one thing this email adds, one button to the recovery link, and a reply line. Klaviyo’s guidance is two to three messages per flow, so the sequence changes only the fourth part each time.

• Subject. Name the product, not the cart. “You left the [product] in your cart” beats “Did you forget something?” because it is specific and it is true.
• Preview text. A second line that adds something. Not the subject again.
• First line. What happened, without drama. “You started a checkout for [product] and did not finish.”
• The cart. Image, name, variant, quantity. This block does most of the work.
• The one thing this email adds. Reminder, answer, or proof. One per email, never two.
• The button. One. To the recovery link, never the homepage.
• The reply line. “Reply if something got in the way.” You get the objection in their words, for free.

How do you set up abandoned cart emails on Shopify?

Two routes. Finish one. Never run both.

Shopify’s built-in automation sends one recovery email. It lives under Apps, then Messaging, then Automations, where Send to picks who receives it and Send after sets the delay. Klaviyo replaces it with a flow on the Started Checkout trigger, which fires when a shopper enters contact details and moves to the next step.

Route one, Shopify. Open Apps, then Messaging, then Automations, and edit the abandoned checkout automation. Choose recipients under Send to and the delay under Send after. It sends one email, only to shoppers who typed an email address, and it skips anyone who finishes buying before it fires. Shopify’s guide to abandoned checkouts has the current path. Ten minutes, one email, and it beats a store with nothing.

You cannot run the three-email sequence on it. One message is the ceiling.

Route two, Klaviyo. Build a flow on the Started Checkout trigger. Klaviyo’s abandoned cart guide, linked above, walks the build and ships the four-hour first delay. Two filters matter more than any copy:

• Placed Order zero times since starting this flow. Without it, people who bought after email one still get emails two and three.
• Has not been in this flow in the last X days. Without it, a shopper who checks out twice a week gets the sequence twice a week.

Both are flow filters, checked at every step, not trigger filters checked once at entry. The filters and triggers behind every Klaviyo flow explains the difference, because getting it wrong is the most common way an abandoned cart flow breaks while its dashboard still reports healthy.

Then turn one off. If Klaviyo is live, switch off Shopify’s automation. Two systems watching one checkout send two emails about one cart, and the shopper does not care whose fault it is.

Should an abandoned cart email include a discount?

Not in the first. Usually not at all.

A discount in the first abandoned cart email pays a shopper for a purchase they were probably about to finish, and it teaches repeat buyers to abandon on purpose. Answer the objection first. Keep any code for a fourth, last-call email with a real end date, and test it against no code before you keep it.

The argument for discounting early is that it lifts the recovery number. It usually does. It also lifts the number of people who learn that leaving a cart produces a code, and that lesson is permanent.

A cleaner order:

1. Fix the reason people stall. Shipping cost shown on the last screen, an account wall, a slow payment step. Baymard’s top reason is extra costs, and no code fixes a cost the shopper only met at the end.
2. Answer the top objection in email two.
3. Only then test a code in a last-call email, with an end date you honour.

If you sell a considered purchase, replace the discount with the guarantee. “Try it, tell us, we replace it” answers the trust question. Ten percent off does not.

Why do abandoned cart emails stop working?

The wiring, not the words.

The common failures are mechanical: two systems sending for one cart, a missing exit filter so buyers keep receiving, a recovery link that expires, sends to people who never consented to marketing, and a flow nobody has read since launch. Check all five before you rewrite a line of copy.

• Double sending. Shopify’s automation and a Klaviyo flow both live.
• No exit filter. Buyers stay in the sequence and get email three.
• Broken link. The recovery URL points at a homepage or an expired checkout.
• Consent. The flow sends to people who typed an email at checkout but never opted in to marketing. A deliverability problem first, a legal one second.
• Nobody reads it. Written eighteen months ago, still naming a product you stopped selling.

The last one is the real one. A flow is written once and forgotten, which is why it needs a written brief: trigger, filters, delays, the job of each email, and who approves a change. Clockwork holds that brief as a job with your products, your customer language and your last corrections attached, so the next run never starts from zero. Anything it is unsure about comes back held, with the reason. Nothing goes live without your yes.

FAQ: what else do people ask about abandoned cart emails?

Four that decide the build.

The usual questions are how many emails to send, the difference between an abandoned cart and an abandoned checkout, whether these emails need marketing consent, and whether SMS should join the sequence. Short answers: two to three, per Klaviyo’s guidance; the trigger point; yes for marketing mail; and only with its own consent.

How many abandoned cart emails should you send?

Three covers most stores: a reminder at four hours, the answer at about a day, proof at about two days. Klaviyo’s own guidance says two to three messages perform best. A fourth is a last call with an end date. Past four you are spending list goodwill on a cart the shopper has already decided against.

What is the difference between an abandoned cart and an abandoned checkout?

An abandoned cart is an item added with no checkout started, so you usually have no email address for that person. An abandoned checkout is further along: the shopper entered contact details and stopped. Shopify’s built-in automation and Klaviyo’s Started Checkout trigger both work from the second one.

Do abandoned cart emails need marketing consent?

Treat them as marketing mail and get consent. Rules vary by region and by how the address was collected, so check what applies to your buyers. The FTC’s CAN-SPAM guide gives you 10 business days to honour an opt-out. Sending to people who never opted in raises complaints, and complaints cost inbox placement.

Can you send an abandoned cart message by SMS as well?

You can, with its own consent, separate from email. SMS has stricter rules in most regions and less tolerance for repeats. If you run both, filter the flow so one person gets one channel per cart, not two messages an hour apart. Abandoned cart text messages covers the rules and the timing.

What should you do this week?

Build one sequence. Three emails.

Write the three emails from the template, wire the Started Checkout trigger, add both flow filters, switch off whatever else was sending for the same cart, and turn it on. Then leave it until enough real checkouts have passed through to read, which on most stores means weeks, not days.

Write the brief before the copy. Trigger, filters, delays, the job of each email, and who approves a change. The brief is what turns the next review into a read instead of a rebuild.

Read next: once this flow runs, the welcome email series is the one to build, because it owns the moment before this one. Both sit inside the ecommerce email marketing system, flows first, campaigns second.