How to Recover Abandoned Carts on Shopify: The 2025 Guide

Cart abandonment is the most frustrating metric in e-commerce. You pay for the traffic. You get them to your site. They browse, they click, they add to cart. And then… silence.

They leave.

If you’re a Shopify store owner, you know this pain well. You aren’t just losing a single sale; you’re losing the acquisition cost (CAC) and the potential lifetime value (LTV) of that customer.

The reality is stark: Research from the Baymard Institute shows that the average cart abandonment rate sits at nearly 70%.

That means for every 10 shoppers who add an item to their cart, only three complete the purchase. But here’s the good news: a significant chunk of that revenue is recoverable. You just need the right blueprint.

This guide isn’t just about "saving" a few sales. It’s about building a retention engine that automatically captures lost revenue and increases revenue per customer over time, using a mix of fundamental best practices and advanced strategies that most of your competitors are ignoring.

Why Shoppers Abandon Carts

Before we fix the problem, we have to understand the bleeding. Why do 7 out of 10 people walk away at the finish line?

According to Statista, abandonment rates have been climbing steadily. But why? It’s rarely just one thing. Usually, it’s a combination of friction points that cause a shopper to hesitate and eventually leave.

• Unexpected Costs (48%): Shipping, taxes, and fees that appear only at checkout are the #1 conversion killer.
• Forced Account Creation (25%): Friction is the enemy. If you force a user to create a password before they pay, they will leave.
• Complicated Checkout Process (18%): Too many fields, too many pages, or a confusing layout.
• Trust Issues (19%): If the site looks sketchy or doesn't show security badges, credit cards stay in wallets.

There’s a hidden fifth reason that’s often overlooked: The Mobile Web Experience. Mobile commerce (m-commerce) is growing, but it has a problem: conversion rates on mobile web are significantly lower than on desktop.

Navigating a store on a mobile browser can be clunky. The browser UI competes for space, forms are harder to fill out on a small touch keyboard, and tabs get lost. This friction is a major driver of cart abandonment.

Reduce abandonment before you ever send a reminder. Steal 15 more ways to cut cart abandonment in your store

Strategy 1: Optimize the Checkout Experience

The best way to recover a cart is to prevent it from being abandoned in the first place. You need to remove every possible barrier between "Add to Cart" and "Pay Now."

1. Guest Checkout is Non-Negotiable

Don’t force users to create an account. Period. Enable guest checkout on Shopify. You can always ask them to save their info after the purchase is confirmed.

2. Be Transparent with Pricing

Surprise costs are the top reason for abandonment.

Show estimated shipping and tax costs on the cart page, not just the checkout page. Better yet, offer a "Free Shipping" threshold and display a progress bar (e.g., "Add $15 more for free shipping").

This boosts Average Order Value (AOV) while reducing abandonment.

3. Offer Express Payment Options

Typing out a 16-digit credit card number on a smartphone is a nightmare.

Enable digital wallets like Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal. These allow users to checkout in seconds with a fingerprint or face scan, bypassing the tedious form-filling process.

4. Flash Trust Signals

Place security badges (Norton, McAfee, or simple "Secure Checkout" icons) near the "Place Order" button. It sounds small, but it reassures first-time buyers.

Strategy 2: The Perfect Abandoned Cart Email Sequence

Email marketing is the classic recovery method. It’s reliable, cost-effective, and familiar to customers. A well-structured email sequence can recover a significant portion of lost sales.

To actually move the needle, you need a strategic sequence.

Open Rates Reality Check: While effective, email has its limits. Average open rates for ecommerce emails hover around 20-25% according to Klaviyo benchmarks. Abandoned cart emails perform better (often 40-45%), but you’re still missing more than half of your audience.

Here is the 3-part sequence that works best:

Email 1: The Helpful Nudge (1-4 Hours Later)

• Goal: Customer service, not sales.
• Tone: Helpful, casual. "Did something go wrong?"
• Content: Show the item they left. Provide a direct link back to the checkout.
• Do Not: Offer a discount yet. You don’t want to train customers to wait for a coupon.

Email 2: Social Proof & Objection Handling (24 Hours Later)

• Goal: Remind them why they wanted it.
• Tone: Excited, confident.
• Content: "Still thinking about it?" Include 2-3 reviews or testimonials specifically about the product in their cart. Remind them of your easy return policy or satisfaction guarantee.

Email 3: The Closer (48-72 Hours Later)

• Goal: Create urgency.
• Tone: Urgent, final.
• Content: "Last chance." This is where you drop the incentive. Offer 10% off or free shipping, but put a time limit on it (e.g., "Expires in 24 hours").

Want ready-made timing and copy ideas? Use this high-converting abandoned cart sequence across email, SMS, and push

Strategy 3: SMS and Messenger Marketing

If email is the workhorse, SMS is the racehorse.

It’s fast, direct, and almost impossible to ignore. SMS marketing is powerful because it’s immediate, but that immediacy comes with a catch: it’s intrusive.

You have to be careful not to annoy your customers, or they’ll unsubscribe just as quickly as they opted in.

When you use SMS for cart recovery, keep each message short and to the point as you’ve got roughly 160 characters, so every word has to earn its place.

Always include a link, ideally using a URL shortener, that takes shoppers straight back to their pre-filled checkout so they can complete their purchase with minimal friction.

Make sure you’re compliant with regulations like TCPA and GDPR, and only send SMS to people who’ve given explicit consent.

In terms of timing, a good rule of thumb is to send the message about one hour after abandonment, or to use SMS as a final “last call” alongside your email sequence.

To execute all of this effectively, you can lean on tools like Yotpo, Klaviyo, or Postscript, which are built to handle SMS flows and Shopify integrations.

Strategy 4: Retargeting Ads

Sometimes, you don’t have their email or phone number. This is where retargeting ads come in. You can "follow" users who visited your cart page to Facebook, Instagram, and Google.

Retargeting ads on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Google allow you to "follow" shoppers around the web.

You can show them the exact products they left behind. Shopify notes that retargeting is a key strategy for keeping your brand top-of-mind.

Strategy 5: Push Notifications

Here is the new reality: Email and SMS are incredibly valuable channels, but they’re also more saturated than ever.

Inboxes are overflowing. "Promotions" tabs hide your best emails. SMS filters are getting aggressive.

If you want to cut through the noise in 2026, you need a channel you control.

It should be free to send and show up right on your customer’s lock screen or notification tray for people who’ve installed your app and turned notifications on.

That channel is push notifications.

Why Push Wins on Retention

• High Visibility for Engaged Customers: Unlike emails that can get buried in the "Promotions" tab or ads that get scrolled past, push notifications can appear directly on the lock screen for customers who have your app installed and have opted in to notifications.
• Higher Engagement: Push notifications often see higher click-through rates than email, especially for time-sensitive offers and recovering abandoned carts, where average cart abandonment rates are over 70%.
• Deep Linking: You can deep-link a notification directly to the user’s cart in the app, so with one tap they’re back where they left off and ready to check out.
• Cost: Unlike ads or SMS, push notifications are generally free and unlimited.
• Speed: They are instant. A user taps the notification, and the app opens right to the checkout flow.

In our 2025 Ecommerce Mobile App Benchmark Report, we found that ecommerce apps recover 17% more abandoned carts when push is added on top of email and SMS flows.

The Barrier (and the Solution)

To send native push notifications, you need a mobile app. This is where MobiLoud comes in.

Many Shopify owners stop here. They assume an app costs $50k and takes six months to build. That is no longer true.

MobiLoud lets you turn your existing Shopify store into a premium native iOS and Android app in just a few weeks.

You do not rebuild anything. Your current website is the base, so your plugins, themes, and checkout flow still work.

You also get a real native app experience with smooth navigation and a focused environment that keeps your store front and center.

The "Abandoned Cart Push" Playbook

With a MobiLoud app, you can set up an automated flow just like email, but with higher engagement:

1. User adds to cart in the app.
2. User leaves.
3. 1 Hour Later: A push notification is sent to users who have installed your app and enabled notifications: "You left something behind! 🛒"
4. Tap: The app opens instantly to the checkout page with their cart ready to go. In just a couple of taps, they can complete their purchase using the same payment methods they already use on your site (for example, Apple Pay or Google Pay where available).

This kind of low-friction experience is a powerful driver of ROI for top brands, especially among their most loyal customers.

Top Shopify Apps for Recovery

To build this ecosystem, you need the right tech stack. Here are the heavy hitters:

• Klaviyo / Omnisend: The gold standards for Email and SMS automation. They integrate deeply with Shopify and allow for complex segmentation.
• PushOwl: A popular web push notification app. (Note: Web push is less effective than native app push, as it doesn't work on iOS in the same way).
• Recart: Excellent for Facebook Messenger marketing.
• MobiLoud: A powerful solution for native app push notifications. It integrates with tools like Klaviyo and OneSignal, so you can manage your app push campaigns right alongside your email flows.

Turn cart recovery into a scalable retention channel. Download the Push Notifications for Ecommerce Guide and build a high-ROI push strategy

Final Thoughts

Recovering abandoned carts is not just about saving a single sale. It is about building a better customer experience and increasing the value of every customer over time.

A smooth checkout, well timed emails, and the high visibility of push notifications can work together to boost both revenue and retention.

Start by optimizing your checkout so customers do not drop off at the last step.

Use email for detailed, persuasive follow ups that answer questions and remove doubts. Use SMS when you need a quick, urgent nudge that is hard to miss.

Add retargeting ads to bring back people who left without giving you their email or phone number.

If you want to truly future proof your store and maximize LTV, you need to own your main engagement channel.

That means having your own app.

Turning your Shopify store into a native app with MobiLoud gives you a powerful retention tool: a direct line to your customer’s pocket through push notifications.

Stop leaving money on the table. Get a live preview of your future app today to see the potential of your webstore.

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