Abandoned carts: the automatic reminder that earns a small shop the most
Updated: 2 days ago
Seven out of ten visitors who add a product to their cart never finish the order. In the run-up to the holidays, when your traffic doubles and your margin for the year is decided in a few weeks, that number hurts.
The good news: of all the automations we set up on our clients' stores, the abandoned cart reminder is the one that brings back the most money for the least effort.
Why abandoned carts are your first untapped source of sales
An abandoned cart is not a lost customer. It is someone who has already chosen a product, compared the price and sometimes created an account. All that is missing is a nudge: an interruption, a doubt about shipping costs, a child asking for dinner. The reminder simply picks up the conversation where it stopped.
On the Wix Stores and Shopify shops we manage, the abandonment rate sits between 65 and 80% depending on the season and the average basket. In December it climbs, because people browse several sites before buying.
That is exactly when a well-tuned reminder makes the difference: the customer is hesitating between you and two competitors, and the first one to speak to them again wins.
In our projects, a properly configured reminder sequence recovers between 5 and 12% of abandoned carts. For a small shop losing 200 carts a month at an average of 60 euros, that means 600 to 1,400 euros of monthly revenue recovered without spending a cent on advertising. During the holidays, those figures easily double.
Wix Stores and Shopify: what each platform already does for you
Good news for our Wix clients: abandoned cart recovery is included in Wix Stores, with no extra app. You set it up from the dashboard, in the Automations section (or directly in the store settings, under abandoned cart). You pick the delay, customise the email, switch it on.
The email automatically lists the products left in the cart with a button that leads straight back to checkout.
On Shopify, it is comparable: the abandoned checkout recovery email exists natively, and Shopify Flow or Shopify Email let you go further with a sequence of several messages. Where Shopify has the edge is in the granularity of conditions (cart value, known customer or not).
Where Wix is simpler is that there is nothing to install and everything is available in French.
What neither platform does for you: write a message that makes people want to come back. The default text ("You forgot something!") is the same on thousands of shops. Your customers recognise it and delete it.
Timing, number of messages and tone: the settings that change everything
Timing first. A first message sent one hour after abandonment gets the best open rates among our clients: the person is still in buying mode. Waiting 24 hours is often too late during the holidays, when people buy the same evening from a competitor.
So we set: first email at 1 hour, second at 24 hours, and possibly a third at 72 hours in December only, with a logistics argument ("order before Friday to receive it before the 24th").
Tone next. A good reminder email reads like a message from the shop, not from a machine. A handmade candle shop we work with replaced the standard text with three lines signed by the founder: "Your cart is waiting, I'm keeping it aside until tomorrow evening.
A question about the scents? Reply to this email, I'm the one reading." Her recovery rate went from 4 to 11% in one month, without any discount.
Content last: the product photo, its price, a single button, and an answer to the most frequent objection. If your customers hesitate over shipping costs, say so plainly in the email. If it is the delivery date before Christmas, give the cut-off date. A reminder that answers the real question sells more than one that shouts "sale".
Discount code or not?
This is the question everyone asks us. Our honest answer: not in the first message. If you offer 10% off from the first reminder, you teach your customers to abandon their cart to get the discount.
We saw it with a fashion client: after six months of systematic codes, a third of his orders came through the reminder, and his margin was melting away.
On the other hand, a discount in the second or third message, reserved for carts above a certain amount, can be a good lever. Prefer free shipping to a percentage: it costs you less and often answers the real reason for abandoning.
On Wix as on Shopify, a single-use coupon takes two minutes to create and drops straight into the email.
A quick legal reminder: in France and the EU, a cart reminder is a transactional email linked to an action the customer started. It remains allowed without a newsletter subscription, provided you do not use it to push your monthly promotions. Stick to the cart, and keep a visible unsubscribe link.
Where to start
Open your store automations (Wix: dashboard, Automations, "abandoned cart" template; Shopify: Marketing, Automations, "Recover abandoned checkout") and check that the reminder is switched on. For one client in three, it is not.
Set the first send to one hour after abandonment, and add a second message at 24 hours.
Rewrite the text: three sentences, in the first person, signed with a first name, with an answer to the main objection (delivery, shipping costs, returns).
Keep the discount code for the second message, and only as free shipping above a minimum cart value.
Write down the number of recovered carts and the associated revenue every Monday in December. Within a month you will know what it brings in, and you can adjust in January.
What we take away
The abandoned cart reminder is already in your store, free, and it brings 5 to 12% of extra sales when it is set up properly. The lever is not the discount, it is the timing and the tone.
One hour for the first message, a human text, an answer to the real objection: one hour of work for months of results.
And if you are wondering where to start to get ready for the holidays, start here. It is the shortest path to clear between your December traffic and your revenue.
No time to deal with it before Christmas? We'll set it up for you. In one hour, we activate and tune the reminder sequence on your Wix Stores or Shopify store, with copy written in your voice. Book a slot with les défricheurs agency or take a look at our services for your Wix site.
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