How to Recover Abandoned Carts in WooCommerce?

Cart abandonment is on the rise and is a nightmare for any WooCommerce store owner. For those amateurs out there, here is a look into what cart abandonment is actually about.

Webopedia defines cart abandonment as

“Abandonment is an eCommerce term used to describe a visitor on a web page who leaves that page before completing the desired action. Examples of abandonment include shopping cart abandonment, referring to visitors who add items to their online shopping cart, but exit without completing the purchase.”

When one or two people do this, the after-effect is nanoscopic.

But, did you know that 7 out of 10 shoppers abandon their carts without a checkout? That is a whopping 70% which cannot be ignored at any cost and this brings us to the next question.

Why is abandoned cart recovery important?

$1.79 trillion USD worth of goods are abandoned every year. This is the result of cart abandonment and imagine when you get all of that money back. Firstly, cart recovery will help you do this and grow your business eventually.

Secondly, customer retention becomes a reality with abandoned cart recovery considering the fact that it is 5 times more costlier to acquire a new customer than to retain one.

And if you question me on the best method to recover WooCommerce carts, I would ask you to send out emails. Not just any email but a ‘Cart Recovery Email’ using a recover abandoned cart plugin WordPress can integrate.

WooCommerce recover abandoned cart FREE plugin, Retainful, is the most comprehensive solution to your cart abandonment issues.

But before looking into that, here are some examples of good abandoned cart recovery emails.

Two noteworthy ‘recover abandoned cart’ examples for WooCommerce stores

[icon icon=”arrow-circle-right” size=”large” color=”#d6561b”] Example 1: Simple yet effective email

This is a classic example of an abandoned cart recovery email which is in-line with the theme of the product, giving the brand a unique projection. Temptations is a company that makes treats for your feline companions.

The opening line of the cart recovery email catches the eye because

  • It is nothing like the usual ‘Forgot something?’
  • It is one of the slogans of the brand

Now, about the color of the email – you can never take your eyes off it without finishing the read. You can clearly see that nothing new has been incorporated other than the single line of copy but it still grabs the attention and entices you to recover the abandoned cart.

The copy ‘Our cat treats are flying off the shelves’ creates a sense of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) to act without a second thought.

[icon icon=”arrow-circle-right” size=”large” color=”#d6561b”] Example 2: The perfect email with all elements to recover an abandoned cart

Birchbox uses white space cleverly in their cart abandonment email. This email is definitely a winner in every sense for the following reasons:

  • A clear, mess-free image.
  • The white background which highlights the opening line, product images, and the CTA.
  • Personalization in the body copy.
  • Reviews in the forms of star ratings to remind about the quality of products.
  • Finally, an offer for free shipping.

Won’t you recover abandoned cart when all of these are offered? I would for sure.

Now that you are familiar with the components that go into a cart recovery email to strike the right chord, you seem to be ready to implement it yourselves.

Oh yes, you can.

How about a helping hand from Retainful? – A stellar recover abandoned cart WooCommerce FREE plugin to reduce your abandoned cart rates.

Get to know more of it.

Retainful is a recover abandoned cart WooCommerce plugin that sends out automated cart recovery emails with live cart notifications and other interesting features.

Steps to recover abandoned carts with Retainful

Here are the steps on how to recover abandoned carts in WooCommerce

  1. Install the plugin
  2. Key in the abandoned cart settings
  3. Create your email template

Install the plugin

  • Navigate to Plugins section of your WordPress page.
  • Select ‘Add New’ option.
  • Type ‘Retainful’ in the keyword search field.
  • Click on ‘Install Now’.
  • Finally, activate the plugin.

You can also download Retainful manually from the WordPress plugin repository here.

Then, upload the plugin and activate it on your WordPress website.

And you are done! As simple as that.

Click here for more detailed information on installation.

Key in the abandoned cart settings

Open up Retainful plugin → Settings tab

The settings are simpler than you can ever imagine with just 5 fields.

Time to consider a cart as abandoned

This is to set the time for which a shopping cart will be considered as abandoned. For example, set it as 60 minutes. When the customer does not check out after 60 minutes of shopping, the cart is considered as abandoned by you, the store owner.

Number of days to wait to automatically delete the cart

Abandoned carts can get piled up in your database. Retainful provides you the option to delete the cart automatically when the recovery campaign is unsuccessful. On setting the number as 20 days, the cart gets removed from the database after the 20th day.

Notification for a recovered cart

For the sake of supervising the WooCommerce recover abandoned cart free campaign, you can get notified when a cart is recovered.

Real-time cart tracking

Enable this option if you wish to track carts even before they get abandoned.

Compliance

This is mandatory if you want to track live carts as per the GDPR rules. Here, you must type in the message to be displayed to the customer to let them know about the tracking.

Finally, save the settings.

To be honest, in order to create a cart recovery email, only the first setting ‘Time to consider a cart as abandoned’ is mandatory and the rest are for the extended processes.

Create your email template

Move on to ‘Email Templates’ tab.

  • Fill in the sender’s name, address and the recipient’s address.
  • Save the data
  • Click on ‘Create New Template’ CTA at the bottom of the page.

This takes you to the page where you create the cart recovery email.

At first, you will find the template name and subject text boxes.

Type in the name, subject and draft your email message in the ‘Email Body’ section like shown below.

Unlike the regular WordPress text editor, Retainful provides an additional feature – shortcodes to get things personalized. Customer name, site link, cart recovery link, and cart details can be personalized.

Lastly, schedule the email in hours after which the message will be sent out.

Similarly, you can create 2 or 3 emails and set them at specific intervals to be sent out.

There you are. Good to go to recover most of your abandoned carts.

Retainful is not only a recover abandoned cart WordPress tool but also a next order coupon generator. It also helps you track sales conversions with actionable analytics and insights.

What are you waiting for?

Don’t fall victim to cart abandonment and lose your money to it. Join the club of hundred others who use Retainful.

Retainful as a WooCommerce recover abandoned cart download is available here. Give it a head start and keep it going.


Author Bio

Sharon Thomas is a freelance technical and creative content writer. With experience in working for e-Commerce, beauty & wellness, travel, pregnancy & parenting, and hospitality sectors, she leaves no stone unturned when it comes to her passion – Writing.

Bozh
I'm Bozh, and I've been creating websites with WordPress for 15+ years. Since 2016, I've worked with top affiliate companies, run my own e-commerce business, and managed several niche blogs. I founded WPCtrl.com with the idea of sharing my knowledge, personal experiences, and recommending better alternatives to you.
WPCtrl.com