8 Cart Abandonment Promotions Examples That Work in 2024

In marketing, the phenomena of cart abandonment concerns a situation when a customer adds items to their online car but then leaves the website without proceeding with a payment – completing a purchase. According to the research carried out by the Baymard Institute, the average online cart abandonment rate amounts to 69.99%. Consequently, cart abandoners create a significant challenge that online retailers and marketers need to face, as such customer behavior can result in lost sales and lowered revenue for businesses.

Among the most common reasons for cart abandonment are: high shipping costs, a complicated, unclear checkout process, or simply, a change of mind of the customer. 

However, there are various strategies that can be used in order to influence customers so they complete their purchase.

In this blog post, we will cover a couple of inspirations for abandoned cart email campaigns based on real-life use cases. We have tried to pick offers that differ from each other to show you various examples of promotion conditions that you can offer to cart abandoners. We hope you find them helpful in planning your next campaign! 

{{EBOOK}}

{{ENDEBOOK}}

What are cart abandoned campaigns?

All types of e-commerce businesses have to deal with cart abandoners – retail, fashion, and travel. 

Accordingly, brands have come up with various cart abandonment strategies whose primary goal is to encourage customers to return to their abandoned carts and complete the purchase.

‍Cart abandonment campaigns refer to a series of marketing tactics aimed at reconnecting with customers who abandoned their shopping carts, which can be anything from improvements made within the checkout experience, retargeting ads, or, most popularly, clever abandoned cart emails containing discounts or special offers (such as free shipping). These campaigns are typically automated and triggered by specific customer actions – for example, leaving the checkout page without proceeding with payment. 

Offering time-limited discounts has become the perfect way to nudge the customers along the sales funnel and recover carts. Research suggests that the abandoned cart offers recover between 3% and 11% of orders. Importantly, instant messages with 5% to 10% discounts are usually enough to note a significant uplift in recovery rates.

Examples of email cart abandoned promotions

According to Sale Cycle, email marketing produces an average open rate of 21% and a click-through rate of 3.74%. As clever abandoned cart emails undeniably prove to be influential, below we gathered some inspirations for creating an email cart abandonment campaign which will effectively incentivize your customers to complete their purchases.

Amount discounts

TigerDirect ($20 off for cart abandoners)

TigerDirect is an El Segundo, California-based online retailer dealing in electronics, computers, and computer components catering to business and corporate customers.

They have sent an email to cart abandoners with the subject line “Leave Something In Your Cart? Take $20 OFF!” offering $20 off their last viewed item or any order above $200 value. That is a very interesting condition. Most probably, that email was sent only to cart abandoners of carts above $200 value. They wanted to let customers choose what they can use the discount for, while ensuring the offer would only reach high-spending customers and would be valid only on $200 and above orders. Such limitations are a smart way to ensure that the marketing budget is well-protected. 

Promotion conditions:

• The promotion is valid only as long as the cart is valid (72h since creation). 
• The discount is non-transferable. 
• The discount is only valid for orders above $200.
• The prices of the items are subject to change (prices mentioned in the email are non-binding).
• The cart can only be recovered on the same device it was created on (probably a purely technical restriction). 
• It is an in-cart discount. It does not require using a coupon code at checkout.

Shinesty (10$ off the abandoned cart)

Shinesty is an American fashion brand that is difficult to describe, so I will just leave their mission statement instead:

“The Shinesty brand was created for one reason only: to force the world not to take itself too seriously. We’re talking pre/post-coital party kimonos, ball hammock boxer briefs, denim-print swimwear, neon ski suits, the original Christmas Suit, and a cornucopia filled with oh, so much more. Stay weird and shine on.”

Shinesty kills it with the on-brand, blunt copy of this cart abandoned email. They explain the offer clearly and even admit they are monitoring customer’s data to send that offer, all stated pretty bluntly. They even made a fun graphic to explain the offer better. Despite the email being funny and non-serious, it explains the offer very clearly and stays on-brand. Bravo to their copywriters! The offer consists of $10 off the abandoned cart. 

‍Promotion conditions: 

• $10 off the abandoned cart. 
• Promotion applied in-cart.

Percentage discounts

Rebecca Minkoff (15% off for cart abandoners)

Rebecca Minkoff is a global “affordable luxurious” fashion brand founded in 2005 in New York City and is distributed in over 900 stores worldwide.

They have launched an abandoned cart campaign with the subject line “15% Off | Complete Your Order!” offering a 15% off for the whole order (with exceptions, see the promotion conditions to learn more). They have focused on the offer urgency by highlighting it in the subject line, header, and email body. 

Promotion conditions: 

• To use the promotion, users have to use the unique coupon code provided in the email.
• The promotion is valid both online and offline.
• The coupon code can be used only once. 
• The promotion cannot be combined with other offers. 
• The promotion can be applied only to future orders and cannot be used retroactively for already placed orders. 
• The promotion expires in 30 days.
• The promotion can be used for any items* (not only for those that the customer “left” in the basket), meaning they can add even more items to their cart and use the promotional code for the whole order. 
• The promotion cannot be applied to luggage, sunglasses, and watches.

Bare Minerals (15% off the cart price) 

The final inspiration for an eye-catching cart recovery campaign comes from Bare Minerals is a cosmetics brand offering mineral-based, clean ingredients cosmetics, skincare, and accessories. They have sent an abandoned cart email offering 15% off the abandoned order with the subject line “We saved your cart + 15% off.” 

Promotion conditions: 

• Offer valid only online through the manufacturer’s website (bareminerals.com). The offer is not valid in bareMinerals Boutiques, bare+BEAUTY Outlets, or any other retail store, website, salon, or spa. 
• The offer expires in 30 days from the email reception. 
• The promo code has to be applied at the checkout to redeem the promotion. 
• The promotion cannot be applied on previous purchases, gift cards, or bareMinerals MADE-2-FIT Fresh Faced Liquid Foundation. 

Free shipping

Aden + Anais

Aden & Anais, Inc. is a global lifestyle baby care company. Their collection includes a full range of multi-purpose swaddles, dream blankets, sleeping bags, security blankets, nursery bedding, playtime, gear, and more.

They have launched an abandoned cart promotion with the subject line “We added free shipping to your cart…” offering free shipping with a unique coupon code for cart abandoners. In addition, they have used that abandoned cart reminder to offer other items (boosting up- and cross-selling). 

Promotion conditions: 

• The promotion can be used only with the unique coupon code.
• The promotion is “expiring soon,” but the actual expiration date was not specified in the email.

Bath and Body Works

Founded in 1990 in New Albany, Ohio, Bath and Body Works is an American retail store which offers a wide selection of soaps, lotions, fragrances, and candles. As a brand that has been in the market for decades, Bath and Body Works has found their effective way of retaining cart abandoners. 

The signed-up customers who have their carts full and then exit the page receive an email with a reminder that time is ticking and that customers should come back to their cart and proceed with the purchase. But! As actions speak louder than words, within the email Bath and Body Works also includes a special promo code for free shipping.

Promotion conditions:

• The promotion is only valid with a unique coupon code provided within an email.
• The minimum order value that qualifies for free shipping is $25. 

With such a strategy, not only are customers incentivized to come back and take care of their carts, but they also may eventually decide to buy a little more to get free shipping and spend money on products rather than postal fees. The encouraging CTA – “take me to my bag” – will certainly make customers not want to miss such a deal. 

Subscription offer

BJ’s Wholesale Club

Another example of a successful cart abandoned campaign is BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc., commonly referred to as BJ's, is an American membership-only warehouse club chain. BJ’s Wholesale Club sent an email to the membership subscription abandoners offering 60% off the 1st year subscription. They have used the subject line “Finish joining now – save over 50% off your Membership.”

Promotion conditions:

• The offer is valid online only. 
• The offer cannot be combined with any other offers. 
• The offer is non-transferable. 
• The offer is only valid for new members. 
• The offer is only valid for a specific payment method – upon enrolling in BJ’s Easy Renewal (directly charging debit/credit card first used at BJ’s after accepting the offer the first day the previous membership period expires). 

BarkBox

Based in New York, BarkBox is an American subscription-based service providing dog toys, treats and other pet-related products and technologies sold in the form of personalized boxes which are created in accordance with a dog’s needs. 

The brand also uses a cart abandonment offer to incentivize customers to complete the purchase of a BarkBox subscription.

Promotion conditions: 

• If a logged-in customer abandons their cart mid-purchase, they receive an email offering a discount on their first subscription box. 

Best practices of cart abandoned campaigns 

Having read through 30+ abandoned cart email campaigns, here are the most prominent trends for cart recovery that we saw: 

• Most offers consist of a percentage-based discount and vary between 10% and 20%.
• Most offers have some exclusions, especially when it comes to the redemption channels (online/offline only). 
• Most promotions have short (between 3 days to 30 days) expiration dates. 
• Most promotions require a unique promo code placed at the checkout. 
• Most emails contain up- or cross-selling offers, either personalized to the user or simply “bestsellers.” 
• The most personalized offers discount the recently viewed items or only on the cart contents before abandonment. More general offers consist of a discount for the whole cart, regardless of the cart contents. 
• Compelling, on-brand copy dramatically increases the performance of the email campaign and the likelihood of recovering more carts. 
• Some promotional campaigns have further restrictions like minimum order value or products excluded from the promotion. 
  

We hope these cart abandoned inspirations will help you design your next cart abandonment campaign and recover as many carts as possible. If you would like to launch such a promotional campaign but do not have the right cart abandonment software to do it with – we are here for you. 

Voucherify is an API-first Promotion Engine that can power any cart abandoned promotion with customized validation rules, and distribute them omnichannel. Our cart abandonment software also proves to be quick and easy to integrate and get started with.

If you are interested in creating some other types of in-cart promotion, watch our webinar dedicated to the topic:

 {{CTA}}

Ready to create an abandoned cart campaign and distribute it omnichannel with unique coupon codes?

Get started 

{{ENDCTA}}