Nothing looks more forlorn than an abandoned shopping cart standing alone in the corner of a car park.
For bricks and mortar businesses, an empty shopping cart represents a completed transaction, and a customer that has left with their purchases.
All they need to do is gather up these wayward carts and replace them in the corral ready for the next customer to use.
A Shopify abandoned cart, however, represents an uncompleted transaction, and a bunch of goods still waiting to be purchased.
It is, therefore, vital to have an effective method for recovering these abandoned carts and converting them into completed transactions.
A simple way to do this is by employing customized abandoned cart emails.
So what are the best abandoned cart emails Shopify users can employ to re-engage with these wayward customers? Let’s take a look at a few options.
Shopify Leads the Way
Shopify is one of the world’s leading e-commerce platforms.
With revenues approaching 3 billion U.S. dollars, this Canada-based company services more than 1.7 million businesses, in approximately 175 countries, around the world.
From Snowboards to Shopping
Shopify was founded in 2006 by a couple of snowboarders who just wanted to sell their winter sports stuff online.
However, they discovered that the existing eCommerce platforms on the market at the time did not meet their requirements.
So, by utilizing their skills as computer programmers, they wrote their own online retail framework, which they named Shopify.
The Shopify platform makes it easy for online stores to launch and manage their businesses.
It is widely regarded as one of the more user-friendly online retail platforms, and is used by many small businesses to set up their virtual stores.
Shopify Abandoned Carts, and How to Fix Them
All online businesses will experience cart abandonment issues.
An abandoned cart is created when a customer browses in an online shop, chooses some items and puts them into their virtual shopping cart, then leaves them sitting there without completing the purchase.
Browsing Animals
There are all sorts of reasons for this behavior.
One of the most common is that the customer is simply browsing, the same way they would in a bricks and mortar store: checking out goods that they would like to have.
This, in itself, is fine. Everyone loves to browse. It’s part of the fun of shopping. But online businesses want their customers to actually buy their goods. Not just look at them.
So every abandoned cart represents some, as yet, unearned revenue.
Inventory Woes
Abandoned carts not only represent lost revenue for an online business.
They also represent a gap in their company’s inventory, which cannot be refilled until the items are either purchased and dispatched, or removed from the abandoned shopping cart and returned to the store’s inventory.
Emails Are The Key
There are, however, numerous ways in which a Shopify abandoned cart can be recovered and its contents converted into a completed sale.
And one of the best ways to do this is by sending out emails encouraging Shopify customers to complete their transactions.
Automation is the Way to Go
Of course, most business owners don’t have time to run their online store and to send out dozens, or even hundreds, of emails to individual customers.
Those marketing team lunches won’t eat themselves, you know! Your team members need to be there in person, not stuck in the office composing abandoned cart recovery emails.
That’s where an automated email workflow system is invaluable. An automated email system will enable you to:
- Contact customers on an individual level
- Personalize emails to suit different customer groups
- Collect and collate data about your customers
- Monitor cart email conversion rates.
Everybody Wins
Let’s face it, when a Shopify abandoned cart is converted into a completed sale, everyone is happy.
Your customer is happy because their shiny new goods are on the way. And you’re happy (maybe even ecstatic!) because you have their cash in your company’s bank account.
So let’s take a closer look at how all this happiness can be achieved…
Customize Your Abandoned Cart Email for Shopify
Nobody likes to receive a generic email that looks as though it has just been sent out by a computer along with hundreds of others.
For a cart abandonment email to be effective, it needs to be personalized, and include as much one-on-one conversation as possible.
Template It
You can easily customize your Shopify cart conversion emails using templates.
If you prefer, you can engage an expert to do this for you. They will design and manage your Shopify email templates for you.
However, there are plenty of online resources available for those business owners who like to do it themselves.
Best Abandoned Cart Emails for Shopify Stores
Each online store is different. And, of course, every one of a store’s customers is unique as well.
For this reason, your abandoned cart emails need to be carefully tailored to suit your business and your customers.
Here are some examples of what a good abandoned cart email for a Shopify store should contain, and how it should be laid out.
Your Cart is Saved
This email template has the feel of a friend who is right there with you in the shop saying “go on, buy it, it looks great on you!”
The phrase “ready to call dibs on those articles” gives the email a friendly, informal feel, while the call to action impetus of the phrase “Seal the deal!” adds a little bit of encouragement to nudge the customer over that purchase line.
→ Tip: Don’t forget to make your abandoned cart emails GDPR-compliant!
Eyeing Something?
And what better way to say “Hi” than by offering a free gift or two?
When you offer an extra item or a discount on an added item, you can make the customer’s original choice of product more attractive.
This approach, however, has to be used with caution. You don’t want customers to deliberately abandon their carts because they know that they’ll get a freebie or a discount.
→ Tip: Choose the best timing to send an abandoned cart email.
Just a Reminder…
One of the best abandoned cart emails Shopify users can employ is one that gives them a subtle prompt that their cart is sitting there just waiting for them to come back.
A friendly reminder message, just like a colored Post-it note stuck to the door of the fridge, will jog the customer’s memory about why they wanted those goods in the first place.
That memory will foster a desire to return to your online store and complete their purchase.
This can be accomplished by perhaps informing them about similar products, or other attractive goods that would compliment the things waiting to be purchased in their abandoned cart.
A template such as this also has a nicely informal feel to it, like a friend asking “hey, where’d you go?” from another aisle in the store.
→ Tip: Write catchy subject lines to improve the open rate.
Expert Help is Just an Email Away
Email templates make it easy to design and send the perfect cart abandonment email to your Shopify customers.
You can easily do it yourself. But if you would prefer, there are plenty of experts out there who can take on the role of designing your cart abandonment email workflow and your Shopify abandoned cart emails.
They will make sure that those emails are perfect, that they work effectively, and help to increase your sales.
The friendly and highly-skilled experts at Flowium are waiting to hear from you. Making your customers, and you, happy is what makes them happy too.
All you need to do is send them an email!
Further Reading
Understand and Reduce B2B Cart Abandonment
Recover an Abandoned Cart with Retargeting Ads
Choose the Right Abandoned Cart Email Software
Recover an Abandoned Cart Without an Email Address
