Cart abandonment recovery

Cart abandonment recovery tries to bring back shoppers who add something to their basket and leave without buying. It can work in two ways. On the site, a campaign appears when the shopper is about to leave, reminding them of the basket or offering help. By email, an automated message is sent some time later with the items and a link back to checkout. Justuno and OptinMonster are examples of tools that offer it.

Many online shoppers leave without buying, and some of them only needed a reminder, a shipping answer or a small nudge. Recovering even a small share of those baskets is usually cheaper than winning a new customer from scratch.

You need it if you run an online shop with a meaningful number of baskets started. It is much less useful if you sell services, take enquiries rather than orders or have very few transactions.

A caution: reminders that arrive too often, or discounts offered by default, can train customers to abandon baskets on purpose. Timing and the use of incentives are worth thinking through.

• Does it recover through on-site messages, email or both, and which is included.
• Can it identify the shopper and the items, or does it only show a general message.
• Does it connect to your shop platform so it knows the contents of the basket.
• Can you control the delay, the number of reminders and whether a discount is offered.