What Is a Cart Abandonment Flow? How It Runs

Cart recovery is the goal: winning back carts people left. A flow is one way to get there, a set of messages that runs on its own.

The Four Parts of a Flow

In email tools like Klaviyo, a "flow" is any automated series of messages. An abandoned cart flow has four parts:

Trigger: the event that starts it, like a shopper leaving a checkout they'd started.
Wait: how long it holds off before each message goes out.
Messages: the reminders themselves, which usually show what's still in the cart.
Exit rule: what stops the flow, such as the shopper placing an order. Skip it and someone who already paid can still get a "you forgot something" email.

Shopify's built-in abandoned checkout email is the simplest flow. It only reaches shoppers who got to checkout and typed in their contact details. Want more steps? An email app lets you build a longer flow. The full setup is in our cart abandonment email sequence setup guide.

Where the Code Goes Changes the Cost

Lots of flows include a discount code. Anyone who buys after that email pays less, so where you put it decides what it costs you.

Example: a tea shop's three-email flow

Say your flow wins back 50 orders a month. Your average order is $40 and your gross margin is 50%, so a full-price order leaves $20 of gross profit. A 10% code takes $4 off, and you keep $16.

Code in email 1: all 50 orders use it. That's 50 x $4 = $200 a month.
Code only in email 3: 30 shoppers buy at full price after email 1 or 2, and the other 20 use the code after email 3. That's 20 x $4 = $80.

Moving the code saves you $120 a month in discounts. That only holds if emails 1 and 2 still bring those 30 back, and you won't know until you test it on your store.

There's a slower cost too. If every left cart gets a code in the first email, some shoppers may learn to leave their carts and wait for it. That's discount fatigue. For when each message should go out, see our abandoned cart email timing guide.

Myth: Every Abandoned Cart Enters Your Flow

A flow can only message people it can name. Lots of shoppers add to cart and leave without ever giving you an email or phone number, and no flow can reach them.

In our data from 958 Shopify stores, 76.04% of carts ended without an order. Most were lost before checkout: 58% of carts never started it. Of the shoppers who did start checkout, 43% left without paying. A flow triggered at checkout only sees that last group. Full numbers are in our cart abandonment statistics.

Our app, Growth Suite, works on the page, not in the inbox. It predicts purchase intent from behavior like cart activity and shows time-limited offers only to visitors it rates as less likely to buy. Its email capture connects to Klaviyo and Mailchimp. A shopper who shares an email early is one your flow can reach later.

When a Flow Can't Fix the Problem

The reason they left is on your site. If a surprise shipping fee made them leave, every reminder just sends them back to that same fee.
You've got two flows running. With Shopify's abandoned checkout email and an email app's flow both switched on, one shopper can get two sets of reminders.
Your margin is thin. Put a 10% code on a product with a 20% margin and you've given away half your gross profit on that order.

Still picking a tool for your flow? Start with our list of the best cart abandonment apps for Shopify.

Related Terms

Cart Abandonment: the behavior behind the flow. A filled cart, no order.
Checkout Abandonment: the part of cart abandonment that Shopify's built-in email can see.
Browse Abandonment: leaving after looking at products, before anything goes in the cart.
Email Opt-in: a shopper's yes to getting your marketing emails.
Single-Use Code: a code that works for one order, so it can't be passed around.