Abandoned checkout emails are on by default. Here is how to tune them

A shopper fills a cart, starts checkout and leaves before paying. Some of those shoppers were interrupted, not uninterested, and a short email with a link back to their cart brings a share of them back. Since October, Tanqory sends that email for you.

What the default email does

About 10 hours after a checkout is left, Tanqory sends one email with the cart and a recovery link. It carries no discount.

• Only to shoppers who agreed to marketing. A shopper who never accepted your marketing sign-up does not get it.
• Never after a sale. A checkout that became an order is skipped.
• On without setup. New stores get it when they are created. An existing store gets it only if it had no abandoned checkout automation of its own, and one you turned off stays off.

The link still works days later

A recovery link that opens a cart with a sold-out product or last week's price costs you the sale it was meant to save. When a shopper opens the link, Tanqory removes items that are no longer on your online store, updates prices to today's, recalculates the totals and clears a shipping rate that no longer applies.

See what was sent

Each recovery send is recorded with its result. Under Orders > Abandoned checkouts you can filter checkouts by recovery status, destination country or date, and archive old ones in bulk.

You can also write to one shopper yourself. Select a checkout with the checkbox at the start of its row and a bar appears with Send recovery emails. Nothing shows until you select a row, which is why it is easy to miss. Open a checkout and Copy checkout URL gives you the link to paste into a message of your own.

Build your own timing and words

The default suits most stores. If you want a different wait or your own wording, build a workflow in Store Automation, its own entry in the admin's sidebar:

1. On the Workflows tab, choose Create Workflow, then Select a trigger.
2. Search for checkout, not cart, and choose Checkout abandoned. The group is headed CART, but no trigger has cart in its name, so searching cart finds nothing.
3. Set Abandoned After (minutes). It starts at 60, which reaches the shopper while the cart is still on their mind.
4. Add the Send email action. Put {{checkout.email}} in To, write a plain subject that names what they left, and put {{checkout.abandonedCheckoutUrl}} near the top of the message.
5. Fill in Reply To so a shopper who answers reaches a person.
6. Connect the trigger to the email, save, and switch the workflow from Draft to active.

Only checkouts abandoned after you switch it on start the clock. The full walkthrough is in abandoned checkout recovery.

A second reminder

The workflow builder has no wait step, so one workflow sends one email. For a second reminder, build a second workflow with the same trigger and a longer Abandoned After time. Both fire for a shopper who never comes back, and neither fires once the checkout becomes an order.

If you plan to offer a discount, hold it for that second email. Offering one in every first reminder teaches shoppers to leave carts on purpose.

Mind the transactional switch

The Send email action has a Transactional (always send) option that ignores marketing consent. It is meant for order and return notices. A recovery email exists to win back a sale, so treat it as marketing unless the rules where you sell say otherwise, and take advice if you are unsure. Turning the switch on to reach shoppers who never opted in is how stores get into trouble.