Wix Stores: Setting Up and Managing Abandoned Carts

When a customer adds products to their cart but then doesn't complete a purchase, the cart is considered abandoned. A great way to improve sales and foster user retention is to email shoppers who abandon their carts.

Sending customers a personalized email with the image of an item that was left in the cart along with a direct link makes it easy for customers to go back and complete the purchase.

What is considered an abandoned cart?

To be considered abandoned, these conditions must be fulfilled:

• The customer added items to the cart.

• No changes have been made to the cart for at least an hour or an hour has passed since the customer closed the tab.

• Wix Stores has the customer's email address (either because the customer has logged in to your site or because they completed the "Delivery details" part of the checkout process).

In this article, learn more about:

• Activating abandoned cart emails: Quick setup

• Activating and customizing abandoned cart emails

• Testing the abandoned cart email

• Deactivating existing abandoned cart emails

• Sharing carts that customers abandoned

• FAQs

Tips:

• Automated emails to customers who abandon their carts are created through Wix Automations.

• You can activate abandoned carts in just a few clicks using the quick setup. If you want to customize the default settings, follow the rest of the steps below.

Activate abandoned cart email: Quick setup

To save you time, this automation is already set up for you. Just activate it and you're good to go. Your customers will receive an email 2 hours after they first placed an item in the cart.

To set up the abandoned carts using the quick setup:

1. Go to Automations in your site's dashboard.

2. Click Set Up Automation under Increase sales by reminding customers of abandoned carts.

1. Click Activate.

Activating and customizing abandoned cart emails

Every automation has a trigger, an action, and timing. In this case, the automation is triggered when a customer abandons their cart.

Instead of using the Quick Setup and leaving all the default settings, you can customize the delay and the  "action" (editing the email that's sent to customers) of this automation.

To create and customize the abandoned cart automation:

1. Go to Automations in your site's dashboard.

2. Click Set Up Automation under Increase sales by reminding customers of abandoned carts.

1. (Optional) Edit the default delay time:Click Delay.
   Select how many minutes, hours, days, etc. you want to delay the action.
   Click Apply.
   

2. (Optional) Edit the default action:Click Edit under Sender details.
   Enter a Senders name (select a name customers will recognize, such as your business name).
   Enter a Reply-to email (the email address that gets the customer's reply).
   Click Save.
   Tip: You may be prompted to confirm your email address.
   

3. (Optional) Edit the text and design of the email:Click Edit under Create an email.
   Edit the text and design the look of the email.
   When ready, click Save & Continue.
   

Important:

The email shows each customer a product they abandoned. We suggest not editing the sections outlined in red below. The design of the button (outlined in green) can be edited, but do not change the button link.

4.  When ready, click Activate at the top right.

Testing the abandoned cart automation

After setting up the automation, you can test it to see it in action. Both the "customer" and the site owner receive notifications.

Timing of notifications:

If you set a 2-hour delay, notifications arrive in 3 hours (since it take an hour before a cart is considered abandoned).

To trigger a test abandoned cart email:

1. Access your live site in incognito mode.

2. Add an item to the cart and proceed to checkout.

3. Enter the shipping details (including an email address).

4. Click Continue.

5. Close the site tab.

Temporarily deactivating the automation

If you want to temporarily stop sending abandoned cart emails, you can deactivate the automation. When you're ready to send emails again, click the toggle to enable it.

To deactivate the automation:

1. Go to Automations in your site's dashboard.

2. Click the More Actions icon  next to the abandoned cart automation.

3. Click the Active toggle to disable it.

Sharing carts that customers abandoned

While communicating with a customer, you may want to share the cart that the customer abandoned. For example, in a chat, you can send them the direct link to their abandoned cart along with a discount coupon.

Note:

Carts remain in the Abandoned Cart tab for 30 days and are then removed.

To access your store's abandoned carts:

1. Go to Abandoned Carts in your site's dashboard.

2. (Optional) Filter the carts to view only certain types (e.g. recovered carts).
   

3. Get a shareable link to a specific customer's abandoned cart:Click the More Actions icon  next to the cart you want to view.
   Click Copy link to cart.
   

Tip:

If the customer is not a site member, you can use the link to view their cart. For security reasons, it's not possible to view the cart of a site member.

FAQs

Click a question below to learn more about abandoned carts.

If a customer unsubscribed from my mailing list, will they still get an abandoned cart email?

No, emails are not sent to customers who unsubscribed from your mailing list.

How can I view more information about a customer in the abandoned cart list?

Click an abandoned cart to open the customer's contact card. There you can see their information, view past emails they sent, and much more. 

Can I send more than one reminder?

You can send a second email to the same customer by creating a second automation with a longer time before the email is sent.

You can even sweeten the deal by including a coupon code.

Can I use the link to cart to view my customer's cart?

You can paste the URL into a browser tab to view the cart your customer abandoned, provided that they aren't site members.

It's not possible to view site members' carts for security reasons.