How to Recover Shopify Abandoned Carts

Whether you’re a brick-and-mortar store looking to get your products in front of more people, or an ecommerce business making sales in cyberspace, you need a strong online presence.

Marketing your products and services online is more important than ever in order to reach the widest audience possible. In fact, its predicted that by 2021, over 2.14 billion people worldwide are expected to buy goods and services online.

The ecommerce world is a big one, and your business needs to stand out to get a piece of the pie.

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Why use email marketing for ecommerce

You have your website setup, along with your catalog of products for sale online. Now what?

You could just sit around and wait for customers to come and find you. Or you could be proactive.

One of the biggest tools in your ecommerce marketing tool belt should be email marketing. With email marketing, you have so many ways to communicate with your customers and prospects to get them to buy.

For example, next time you’re running a sale, let your email subscribers know. Send out an email and include a coupon code or discount code. Take these emails one step further and establish a referral program where current customers receive a discount on their next purchase for referring a friend. You could also build a loyalty program around current customers who purchase a certain amount, or at a certain frequency.

Another option is to nurture your audience with a monthly newsletter. Include content that resonates with them that is relevant to your products so you stay top of mind. Your newsletter could even eventually yield $1.5 million in sales like it did for Light Health Research.

While all of these are excellent strategies to increase sales through email marketing, one of the most lucrative strategies is what’s called an “abandoned cart email.” In fact, it may be more of a necessity than just another type of email strategy. According to Shopify, 67.45% of online shopping carts are abandoned before the customer completes a sale. That implies that your sales numbers may only be one third of what they could be. Alarming? We agree.

Recover abandoned shopping carts

If you sell your products online, you’ve probably had people add items to their cart, but leave before purchasing. Some of these customers may have changed their minds about their purchase, but some may not have intended to abandon their purchase. Setting up an automated abandoned cart reminder email re-engages those customers who left the purchase flow, and encourages them to follow-through.

Given the high cart abandonment rate, every business should lean on abandoned cart emails.

How to use abandoned cart emails

Let’s get started with the abandoned checkout recovery process through Shopify:

1. Integrate your ecommerce store with your ESP

The first thing you need to do to get started with your abandoned cart recovery process is a bit technical. You need to integrate your ecommerce platform, like Shopify, with your email service provider (ESP). This way you can easily reach your Shopify customers through email.

Don’t give up yet. Constant Contact makes it really easy to integrate with Shopify. Plus, we have real-human support experts to help you every step of the way, so you’re up and running in no time. Visit our Marketplace to get started.

2. Create your email

Like any good email template, you’ll need to build out your content, add your logo, and seal the deal with an epic call-to-action (CTA). The good news is, you only have to build one email template. This is personalized, and then sent to all of your cart abandoners. Plus, building out emails in Constant Contact is a breeze with tons of pre-made templates you can use for free.

Tip: Don’t forget a catchy subject line! Check out the Ultimate Guide to Abandoned Cart Email Subject Lines for inspiration.

3. Set and forget

Once your cart recovery email is set up, it sends automatically until you decide to update it. The Shopify abandoned cart email triggers whenever a Shopify customer visits your store, adds something to the shopping cart, reaches the shipping page (or beyond) in the purchase flow, and doesn’t complete the purchase.

4. Analyze and adjust

The reporting for your abandoned cart email shows you how many reminders have been sent, and how much revenue you’ve generated from reminding customers to complete their purchase. If you aren’t seeing the results you expected initially, you may need to make some adjustments to the content, design, or CTA. Keep testing these variables to see what works best for your business.

Additional value of abandoned cart emails

Abandoned cart emails can be used for recovering lost sales, but they can also help provide customer feedback.

Why did your shoppers abandon their products in the first place? Most likely they just got distracted or forgot about it, but what if there was a bigger issue? What if they got confused about a product, or did not really understand its value completely? Ask your customers why they left products in the cart, not just to remind them, but also to show them that you care. “Can we help you pick?” “Would you like some assistance?” “Is there something we can do?” These questions show that you’re available, if needed.

If you feel that the customer has abandoned the cart because of a certain problem — address it. If the problem is high shipping charges, offer a discounted price. If the problem is lack of trust, offer privacy policies. If the problem is the competition, offer a loyalty program. Adding value with solutions to the most probable issues can generate the greater possibility of the customer completing their purchase – allowing you to recover abandoned carts more easily.

Sometimes, there are even technical issues that need to be addressed. Maybe your site crashed, or froze, before they could make a purchase. Maybe there was a broken link on your purchase page, or wrong information in the content. Maybe the discount code they’re trying to use is broken. Sending an abandoned cart email with your contact info allows the shopper to respond and let you know the reason they abandoned. You need to address any issues immediately, especially if there is something wrong on your website.

Tip: Looking for even more ways to use abandoned cart emails? Check out the Top 10 Abandoned Cart Email Ideas for inspiration!

Start the sales recovery to get ahead

Long story short: if you’re selling online, you need to be utilizing abandoned cart recovery emails. There’s just no justifiable reason to be missing out on one third of potential sales and vital customer feedback. The good news is that it’s easy to get started recovering abandoned carts from your ecommerce store. Be proactive with your email marketing, and cut yourself a big slice of the pie offered up by today’s online shoppers.