Every online store owner knows the frustration of abandoned carts in WooCommerce. It’s painful to see shoppers add products to their carts but leave without completing the purchase. Worse still, it happens more often than you think.
According to the Baymard Institute, the average cart abandonment rate is 70.19 %, based on 49 studies. That means seven out of 10 shoppers who add products to their cart don’t finish the checkout process.
If you run a WooCommerce store, abandoned cart recovery should be your priority. But how do you recover abandoned carts? Is it possible to recover these lost sales? We’ll answer all your questions in this detailed blog post.
Let’s get started with the basics.
What Is Cart Abandonment?
Cart abandonment happens when a shopper adds products to their cart but doesn’t complete the purchase. It results in a wasted opportunity to acquire that customer plus lost revenue.
If you don’t recover abandoned carts, you leave potentially thousands on the table every month. In fact, $260 billion worth of abandoned products are recoverable, according to the data released by Baymard Institute.
Why Do Customers Abandon Their Carts?
Understanding why customers leave without buying is the first step in recovering abandoned carts in your WooCommerce shop. Here are the top reasons:
- Unexpected Costs: Extra fees like shipping, taxes, or handling charges surprise customers at checkout. They see the final price and back out, as many as 41% of them, making it the most common reason for abandonment.
- Complicated Checkout Process: If your checkout requires too many steps, account creation, or filling out unnecessary details, customers lose patience and leave.
- Lack of Payment Options: Shoppers expect multiple payment choices, including credit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, and “Buy Now Pay Later” options. Almost two in every 10 customers (17%) will abandon a purchase if the preferred payment method is unavailable.
- Website Errors or Slow Load Times: A slow checkout page or technical glitches can frustrate customers, making them give up. Google reports that the bounce rate increases by 32% if your page load speed goes from one second to three seconds.
7 Proven Strategies to Recover Abandoned Carts in WooCommerce
Even if your store has seen minimal cart abandonment, you should still focus on this issue. It’ll help your website thrive in the long run. Here are seven proven strategies for WooCommerce cart abandonment recovery to help you get started:
1. Use Automated Cart Recovery Emails
With a whopping ROI of $36 for every $1 spent,email is still one of the best ways to recover abandoned carts. A well-timed, automated, and engaging email can bring customers back to complete their purchase. Here’s how:
- Send a Reminder: Within an hour of abandonment, send a friendly nudge reminding them about the items left behind. Keep it casual and helpful. Something like, “Oops! You left something in your cart. Want to take another look?” This keeps your brand in their mind without feeling pushy.
- Keep It Personalized: 89% of marketers see a positive ROI when their campaigns include personalization. So, use their name and list the products they left behind. Adding a product image makes it even easier to recover an abandoned cart.
- Offer an Incentive: A small discount (like 10% off or free shipping) can be the final push to complete the purchase. Frame it as a “special offer just for you” to make them feel valued and less likely to walk away again.
- Create Urgency: Use phrases like “Your cart expires in 24 hours!” or “Only a few left in stock!” to encourage quick action. If your customers think they might miss out, they’re more likely to act fast and complete their purchase.
2. Use Exit-Intent Popups
Give your shoppers a reason to stay before they leave. Exit-intent popups can detect when someone is about to leave and hit them with a last-minute offer. Here’s how to make them work:
- Offer a Discount or Freebie: A little incentive goes a long way. A discount, free shipping, or a bonus gift can turn hesitation into action. People love feeling like they’re getting a deal they won’t find later, which makes it an excellent way to recover abandoned carts in a WooCommerce store.
- Collect Emails for Follow-Ups: Not everyone is ready to buy right now, but that doesn’t mean they won’t come back. Offer a discount in exchange for their email so you can follow up with a cart recovery email later.
3. Simplify the Checkout Process
Nobody likes a long, painful checkout. If you make customers jump through hoops just to buy, they’ll leave before finishing. So, keep it short and simple:
- Reduce the Number of Steps: Every extra step increases the chance of abandonment. Keep it quick and easy. Ideally, it should be one page with minimal clicks. If checkout takes more than a minute, you’ll lose potential sales.
- Offer Guest Checkout: Not everyone wants to create an account only to buy something. Allow guest checkout so customers can complete their purchases without hassle. If they love your store, they’ll come back and create an account later.
- Auto-Fill and Save Information: Use auto-fill for addresses and payment details to optimize the checkout process. The less effort customers have to put in, the more likely they are to hit that “Buy Now” button.
4. Offer Multiple Payment Methods
Another way to lower cart abandonment in WooCommerce is to provide multiple payment options. Shoppers expect flexibility when it comes to payments. They’ll abandon the cart without a second thought if they don’t see their preferred payment option. This means you need to:
- Accept Multiple Payment Options: Credit and debit cards are great, but don’t stop there! Offer PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) options like Klarna or Afterpay. The more choices, the fewer abandoned carts.
- Cater to Global Customers: If you sell internationally, support local payment methods. Some regions prefer specific gateways, and not having them can cost you a sale. Stripe and PayPal handle international payments well.
- Secure Payment Processing: Customers won’t complete a purchase if they don’t trust your checkout. Use SSL encryption, display security badges, and choose reliable WooCommerce payment gateways to boost trust.
5. Optimize Site Speed and Mobile Experience
A slow, clunky WooCommerce store is a conversion killer. If your store isn’t fast and mobile-friendly, you’ll be losing sales daily.
- Improve Load Times: Optimize images, enable caching, and use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to speed up your site. A faster site keeps customers engaged and reduces bounce rates.
- Use Mobile-Friendly Checkout: Most shoppers browse on their phones. If your checkout isn’t smooth on mobile, people won’t bother completing their purchase. Use responsive design and mobile-friendly payment options for a hassle-free experience.
- Fix Website Errors Quickly: If your checkout page crashes or lags, customers won’t stick around. Regularly test for bugs, broken links, and slow-loading pages to ensure a frictionless experience.
6. Leverage Retargeting Ads
Retargeting ads can also streamline your WooCommerce cart abandonment recovery. Many customers visit your store, add items to their cart, and then disappear.
But that doesn’t mean they’re gone forever. Retargeting ads remind them about their abandoned carts and bring them back to finish the purchase.
- Show Personalized Ads: Use dynamic retargeting ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Google that display the exact items left in an abandoned cart in your WooCommerce store. Seeing the product again makes them more likely to return and buy.
- Create a Sense of Urgency: Add messaging like “Your cart is waiting!” or “Limited stock left—act fast!” to make the shopper feel they might miss out if they don’t come back. You can offer a small incentive like 10% off or free shipping to make the final push they need.
7. Provide Real-Time Customer Support
Some shoppers abandon their carts simply because they have a question. Maybe they’re wondering about shipping times, return policies, or product details. If they don’t get answers quickly, they’ll leave. So, you need to:
- Add Live Chat to Checkout: A simple “Need help? Chat with us now” option can keep customers from leaving. Answering questions in real time helps close more sales on the spot.
- Use AI-Powered Chatbots: If you can’t have 24/7 live agents, use a chatbot! AI-powered chatbots answer common questions instantly, helping hesitant shoppers move forward with their purchases.
- Provide a Phone or Email Option: Some customers prefer human interaction. Offering a customer support email or phone number builds trust and gives them a way to ask for help before they abandon their cart.
5 Top WooCommerce Abandoned Cart Plugins for Quick Recovery
WooCommerce has a plugin for almost every part of your store, including abandoned cart recovery. Here are the top five plugins if you want to recover abandoned carts in your store – handpicked by our WooCommerce developers.
1. CartFlows
This WooCommerce abandoned cart plugin is a reliable way to recover lost sales. CartFlows is a top-rated plugin that helps you catch the email addresses of users on the checkout page. This makes it easy to send cart recovery emails.
Features:
- Automated email, SMS, and push notifications
- Detailed cart recovery analytics
- Easy setup with WooCommerce
Pro Tip: Best for stores looking for a complete abandoned cart recovery solution.
2. Retainful
With this plugin, you can recover up to 30% of the abandoned carts. Retainful sends automated cart recovery emails at well-timed intervals.
Features:
- Sends email reminders with discount codes
- Tracks customer behavior for better engagement
- Includes next-order coupons to encourage repeat purchases
- Easy-to-setup email automation
- Customize emails with a user-friendly editor
- Pre-built automation workflows
- High email deliverability
Pro Tip: Perfect for WooCommerce stores focused on email marketing.
3. CartBounty
CartBounty is a perfect way to automate cart recovery. This WooCommerce abandoned cart plugin helps you save and display all shopping cart activity from the moment your customers add a product to the cart.
Features:
- Stores incomplete customer data for retargeting
- Integrates with popular email marketing tools
- Tracks abandoned carts in real-time
- Detailed abandoned cart reports
- Discover the top most abandoned products
- View shopping cart abandonment data by country
- View anonymous carts
- Send email reminders using WordPress, ActiveCampaign, GetResponse or MailChimp
- Gather user’s contact details right after “Add to cart” button is clicked using Early capture
- Use Exit Intent popup to minimize cart abandonment and increase sales
- Provide Instant coupon codes to motivate customers to complete their purchase using Exit Intent and Early capture tools
- Reduce cart abandonment using dynamic browser Tab notification
- Save contact details from 3rd party plugins and custom email fields
Pro Tip: Great for tracking and personalizing cart recovery emails.
4. Abandoned Cart Recovery for WooCommerce:
With this extension, you can create multiple follow-up emails and schedule to send them at specific intervals. You can include coupons and other incentives to improve conversion rates. And you can track your recovery performance using the extension’s built-in analytic dashboard.
Features:
- Intuitive abandoned carts and recovery dashboard
- Maintains a list of
- all abandoned carts along with cart details
- all recovered carts along with complete details
- all pending orders along with details
- Email log to keep a record of all emails sent by extension
- Create multiple email templates for different user roles
- Tracking performance of email templates (Open rate, click rate and more)
- Option to send emails manually or automatically as per schedule
- Set a time delay for sending messages after cart abandonment
- Ability to set the time span after which a cart is considered abandoned
5. YITH WooCommerce Recover Abandoned Cart:
There are many reasons for users to abandon their shopping carts: the absence of immediate capital, or maybe a sudden distraction that lets you forget what you were doing. Luckily, YITH WooCommerce Recover Abandoned Cart can remind your customers what they left and encourage them to complete their purchase process by sending coupons with a special discount on products they want.
Features:
- Enable cart recovery options
- Decide after how long to consider a cart as “abandoned”
- Decide after how long to delete an abandoned cart
- Choose whether to enable cart recovery for guest users or only for registered users
- Choose whether to enable cart recovery only for specific user roles
- Create unlimited cart and order recovery emails, CCustomize the content of the emails
- Set when to send emails automatically (e.g. 2 hours after cart abandonment, 3 days after the order was placed but not paid, etc.)
- Customize the header, sender, and subject of the emails
- Choose whether to add a discount coupon to the recovery emails
- View the log of all carts recovered thanks to the recovery emails
- Use the advanced dashboard to monitor email conversion rate, total amount recovered in carts/orders due to email strategies, number of emails sent, etc.
Measure the Success of Your Cart Recovery Strategies
These strategies can help you recover abandoned carts in WooCommerce, but how do you know if they’re working? Tracking these key metrics helps you see what’s effective and where you can improve.
- Monitor your abandoned cart rates. Track how many shoppers leave without completing their purchase. A declining rate means your strategy is working.
- Measure the recovered revenue. Check how much money you’re reclaiming from abandoned carts. Higher recovered sales = better ROI.
- Analyze email marketing metrics like open and conversion rates. Are people opening and acting on your cart recovery emails? If not, tweak your subject lines and messaging.
- Rely on A/B testing. Compare different discounts, free shipping, or urgency-driven messages to see what works best.
- Streamline your strategies based on the data. Do this regularly with the help of insights from analytics tools.
Recover Abandoned Cart in Your WooCommerce Shop Now!
Recovering abandoned carts is one of the easiest ways to boost revenue and conversions. By implementing automated cart recovery emails, exit-intent popups, multiple payment options, retargeting ads, and live chat support, you can reduce cart abandonment and bring lost customers back.
Need a WooCommerce expert? CoSpark can help fine-tune your WooCommerce abandoned cart recovery strategy. Let’s recover those lost sales today!
