Recover abandoned carts
See who filled a cart and left, send a reminder email, and hold stock for shoppers who reach checkout.
Most people who add something to a cart don't buy it that visit. They get interrupted, they compare prices, they mean to come back. A gentle reminder recovers a meaningful share of those sales — and it's the cheapest revenue in your store, because the shopper already chose the product.
Turn it on
Open Settings → Modules and enable Abandoned Carts. A Carts entry appears in your sidebar.
What the Carts page shows
| Metric | What it means |
|---|---|
| Active Carts | Shoppers with something in their cart right now |
| Abandoned Carts | Carts that were left behind and are awaiting recovery |
| Recovery Rate | The share of abandoned carts that turned into orders, and how much that's worth |
Below the metrics you'll find the carts themselves, so you can see exactly what people are leaving behind. Patterns show up fast — a product that's abandoned far more often than others usually has a price, photo, or shipping-cost problem worth investigating.
Reminder emails
Abandoned carts trigger a cart abandonment reminder email to shoppers who left an address behind. You can edit its wording in Email Automation — see Email notifications & automation.
A cart counts as abandoned once it's been idle for a while — roughly half a day — and stays recoverable for about a week before it goes stale.
Tip: Keep the reminder short and friendly. "You left something behind" with a picture of the product and a link back to the cart outperforms a hard sell almost every time.
Hold stock at checkout
The same module has a Stock hold setting, which solves a different problem: two shoppers racing for the last unit.
When it's on, reaching checkout reserves the stock in that cart so a second shopper can't buy the same low-stock unit while payment is going through. The hold releases automatically when it expires.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Hold stock at checkout | Turns reservations on. With it off, two shoppers could check out the same last unit. |
| Hold duration | How long the reservation lasts. The default is 30 minutes, and it also defines the activity window behind the Active Carts count. |
Tip: Don't set the hold too long. Held stock is stock nobody else can buy, so an hour-long hold on a popular item quietly costs you sales.
FAQ
Why are my abandoned cart numbers so high?
Abandonment rates well above half are completely normal across e-commerce. Watch the trend and your recovery rate rather than the raw number.
Do all abandoned carts get an email?
Only carts where the shopper left an email address — usually because they signed in or started checkout. Anonymous carts show in the list but can't be emailed.
What's the most common reason people abandon?
Unexpected costs at checkout. If your abandonment spikes at the shipping step, look at Set up shipping methods and consider a free shipping threshold.
Does the stock hold apply to every product?
It applies to carts that reach checkout, and it matters most for low-stock items where two buyers could collide. See Manage inventory.
What's next
- Bring shoppers back with Send newsletters & grow subscribers.
- Raise cart value with Cart recommendations.
- Edit the reminder wording in Email notifications & automation.