So in this lecture we're going to talk about how to recover abandoned carts and checkouts using email.
Now before I even get started, it's crucial to understand that for this process to work, the person
visiting your store already needs to be a customer.
In other words, they've already bought something from you because if they haven't, you don't have
their email address.
And if you don't have their email address, you can't send them the email reminders that this system
relies on.
So while it might be a little bit limited, it is definitely worth implementing because of course you
are going to have many repeat customers.
And so to kick things off, we'll come over to marketing and then to automations.
And it's here that you see abandoned checkout drive customers back to your store to complete their checkout.
And by default, you can see that it's turned off.
So we need to turn it on.
So clicking on the turn on button and then click on continue.
And then to show you how this process is going to work, come up here to these three little dots.
Click on this and then click on edit.
And this is what Shopify refers to as the workflow.
In order to decide whether to send an abandoned checkout email or not.
Now this really is a very powerful tool, but good news, we really don't need to touch anything because
the default behavior is exactly what we're looking for.
And the highlights of that default behavior are as follows.
First of all, as you can see, it starts with the customer abandoning the checkout, then having abandoned
the checkout.
There's a waiting period.
And you can see here by default that it's ten hours.
Now, if I were to click into this, I could very easily change how long that wait could be.
But keep in mind, this ten hour wait is not just an arbitrary figure.
It's a period of time that Shopify has optimized, having analyzed thousands, if not millions of abandoned
checkouts.
And so therefore, I would encourage you to leave as is.
And so after the ten hour wait has expired, it's then that it's going to send an email to the customer
and scrolling over to the right hand side here you can see this send marketing email.
And if I click on this and scroll down, here is the email that will be sent.
And as you can see, it includes an image of the products that were abandoned at the checkout, including,
crucially, a button at the bottom here, which of course once clicked, takes them back to the checkout
itself to complete their purchase.
Now, you could very easily edit this with this Edit email button up here, but to be honest, unless
you've got any strong feelings otherwise, this default design is a fantastic start.
So now you know that if somebody reaches the checkout and then after ten hours they still haven't made
the payment, they're going to receive the marketing email.
A process, as I'm sure you would agree, was incredibly easy to set up.
So let's now do the same thing.
But for the cart, which is in fact a very similar process.
You can see it here, the abandoned cart.
So the first thing we need to do is to turn it on.
We now have both abandoned checkout and abandoned cart here.
And in order to see how the abandoned cart is actually working, if we come over here to the three little
dots, click on them and then click on edit.
We see the workflow, which is triggered by somebody leaving the online store without making a purchase,
effectively abandoning the cart.
And then in this case, rather than waiting ten hours, it's going to wait four hours by default.
And once that's complete, it's going to, of course, send another email, which of course notifies
them of the products that they left in the cart.
And scrolling on down a bit here, you see the button view cart, taking them back directly to their
cart on the store and therefore nudging them towards actually making the purchase itself.
So coming out of this now, both the abandoned checkout and the abandoned cart emails are going to go
out automatically.
There really is nothing for you to do.
But having said that, I would like to give you a really good tip because if you come up here to orders
and then click on abandoned checkouts, it's here that you're going to see all of your abandoned checkouts
accumulating over time.
And you can see that I already have one, which of course, I simulated so that I can show you this
part of the process.
And so if I click into this, it gives me more details about the abandoned checkout itself, which in
this case involved the super smart food dispenser.
Now make no mistake, this extra information can be incredibly valuable because over time you may well
see patterns in your abandoned checkouts.
For example, maybe everybody's abandoning the food dispenser, which might indicate a problem with
the price.
Now, of course, that's just an example, but I hope it illustrates how by coming back to this list
on a regular basis, and I suggest at least once a week, it can provide incredibly valuable insights
into the functioning of your store.
Okay, so that's how you recover abandoned carts and checkouts using email.
And as I pointed out at the beginning of the lecture, this is only going to work for existing customers
because otherwise you don't have the email address.
And so it's highly likely at this point that you're thinking to yourself, well, hang on a second.
Surely the vast majority of people visiting my store.
Or are not going to be previous customers and therefore I won't have their email address.
How do I recover the carts and checkouts for those people?
Because surely that's an incredibly important source of additional revenue.
And of course you'd be absolutely right.
So let's have a look and see how to do that in the next lecture.