Every online store has shoppers who fill a cart, reach the payment page and then stop. The card was in the other room, the phone rang, or the delivery fee surprised them. Those carts are the warmest leads you will ever have: the customer already chose the products and gave you their contact details. Most stores never follow up, simply because they cannot see who left.
Wink You records these checkouts on an Abandoned Carts screen and can email the shopper a link that takes them back to their saved cart. Here is exactly how it works and where it stops.
When a checkout counts as abandoned
An order that chose online payment and was not paid within 1 hour is treated as abandoned. The unpaid order is cancelled automatically, its pending payment is closed, and a copy of the cart, with the customer, the items, the totals and the payment details, is saved on Abandoned Carts. The check runs about every 10 minutes, so a cart can appear a little after the one hour mark. Cash on delivery orders are never abandoned, because they do not wait for an online payment.
See and follow up abandoned carts
- Open Abandoned Carts from the menu on the left, under Orders.
- Read the cards at the top: Last 24h, Last 24h Value, Last 7 days and Last 30 days, plus Reminders sent (30 days), Link opened (30 days) and Recovered and paid (30 days).
- Search by order, customer or phone, or filter by dates.
- On a cart, choose View details to see the customer, the items, the subtotal, coupon, delivery, tax and total.
- Choose Call customer to phone them and help them finish the order.
Turn on automatic recovery emails
- Open Emails from the menu.
- Scroll to Abandoned Cart Recovery and switch on Send recovery emails.
- In Send after (minutes), choose how long to wait, from 15 minutes to 24 hours. The default is 60.
- Optionally write your own Email Subject and Email Message in English and Arabic.
- Save your changes.
Your message can use four placeholders that are filled in for each shopper: {customer_name}, {store_name}, {total} and {recover_url}. Always keep {recover_url}, because that is the link back to the saved cart. Leave both fields empty to use the built in wording. The wait starts once the cart is abandoned, so with the default setting the email goes out about two hours after the unpaid checkout began.
Measure what comes back
Each cart shows its reminder status: Reminder sent, Link opened, not paid, or Recovered and paid with the new order number. The 30 day cards tell you how many reminders went out, how many were opened and how many turned into paid orders, so you can see if a shorter or longer wait works better for your store.
What is not included
- WhatsApp or SMS reminders. Automatic reminders go by email only.
- A button to send or resend a reminder by hand. Each cart gets one automatic email.
- Carts without an email address, and shoppers who unsubscribed from your marketing emails. Use Call customer for those.
- Automatic recovery emails for restaurants. They are an online store feature.
Write a message that brings them back
The built in wording works, but your own voice often works better. Keep it short, name the store, remind them what they left and give one clear button. For example: Hi {customer_name}, you left items worth {total} in your cart at {store_name}. They are saved for you here: {recover_url}. The subject can be up to 200 characters and the message up to 4,000. Write both the English and the Arabic version, so each shopper reads it in their own language.
Who can see abandoned carts
Abandoned Carts is opened by the business owner and by branch managers with the Manage the online store permission. The branch picker at the top of the screen limits the list to one branch, which helps when each branch follows up its own customers. Phone numbers and emails are shown only to these roles, so customer details stay with the people who need them.
A simple daily follow up routine
Automatic emails do most of the work, but a quick daily look adds more. Open Abandoned Carts each morning and read Last 24h and its value. Sort out the biggest carts first and use Call customer, or open View details and contact the shopper from your own WhatsApp or email, since reminders from Wink You go by email only. Carts with only a phone number never get an email, so these are the ones worth a call. Over a few weeks, the 30 day cards show whether the routine is paying off.
Frequently asked questions
How do I send abandoned cart emails automatically?
Open Emails, scroll to Abandoned Cart Recovery, switch on Send recovery emails, pick the wait in Send after (minutes) and save.
Why didn't a customer get the recovery email?
Check that recovery emails are on, that the cart has an email address, that enough time has passed, and that the shopper has not unsubscribed. A failed send is retried for up to 24 hours. Ask them to check spam too.
What does the shopper see when they click the link?
Their saved cart, ready to pay. If they pay, the cart shows Recovered and paid with the new order number.
Get started
Abandoned cart recovery is part of Wink Store at winkyou.com/products/online-store. Watch the walkthrough at winkyou.com/support/online-store/how-to-follow-up-abandoned-carts.