Abandoned cart email examples, and the setup behind them.

Why they matter

About 70% of online carts are abandoned, the average of 50 studies (Baymard). Many of those shoppers were only browsing, but the rest left for reasons an email can answer: extra costs (40%), slow delivery (20%), not trusting the site with a card (19%), returns (13%).

In Klaviyo’s 2026 benchmarks, abandoned cart emails averaged $6.77 in revenue per recipient, with a 6% click rate; the top tenth made $13.70 (Klaviyo). They earn more per send than almost any other email a store sends.

Eight examples, described

1. The plain reminder. A short line (“You left something behind”), the cart, and one button back to it. It goes first, and often it’s all a shopper needed.
2. The real cart. Each item’s photo, its variant (the size and color they picked), the quantity and the price, pulled from the cart itself, not a generic “your items are waiting”.
3. The objection answered. Shipping cost and delivery time, the returns policy, how payment is secured: the reasons Baymard’s shoppers gave for leaving, answered in three lines under the cart.
4. The reviews. Two or three reviews of the product in the cart, so the second email gives a new reason, not the same reminder again.
5. Low stock, when it’s true. “Two left in your size”, read from your inventory when the email sends. Never a countdown that resets.
6. The last-email offer. Free shipping or a small discount, only in the last email, and only for carts above a value you set.
7. The text handoff. For shoppers who agreed to texts, a short message the next day in place of a second email.
8. The alternative. When the reminders get no reply, a last email with the best sellers next to what they left, in case it wasn’t quite right.

Cart or checkout: the right Shopify event

Klaviyo’s pre-built flow starts from Started Checkout: the shopper entered an email at checkout and didn’t finish. It recommends a second flow from Added to Cart, for shoppers Klaviyo already knows who added to cart but never reached checkout. On Shopify, Added to Cart only arrives once Klaviyo’s behavioral tracking is switched on (Klaviyo).

Run both, and filter them so nobody gets both: the cart flow stops anyone who then starts a checkout.

One sender, and a flow that stops when they buy

The two mistakes behind most complaints about cart emails:

• Two senders. Shopify can send its own abandoned checkout email from its Messaging app (Shopify). If Klaviyo sends one too, turn Shopify’s off, as Klaviyo itself advises, or the shopper gets both.
• No exit. Every email in the flow needs the filter “Placed Order zero times since starting this flow”, so a customer who paid an hour later never gets the reminder.

Klaviyo on Shopify: duplicate cart emails and missing events goes through both fixes, and what to do when an event stops arriving.

How many, and when

Klaviyo recommends the first email two to four hours after checkout starts, a second 20 to 48 hours later, and two or three in all (Klaviyo). Too soon and you email someone still deciding; a day late and they’ve bought somewhere else.

The button goes back to their cart

The button opens the shopper’s own checkout, rebuilt with what they left in it, never your homepage or the product page. In Klaviyo that’s the checkout link from the Started Checkout event, and the product block lists only what they abandoned.

Discounts: late, and not for everyone

Klaviyo warns that a discount in every cart email trains shoppers to wait for it (Klaviyo). Most carts come back without one, so the first email never has one. If you offer one, put it in the last email and limit it to carts worth the margin.

Consent

In the US, CAN-SPAM doesn’t ask for consent first, but every email needs an accurate sender, an honest subject line, your postal address and an unsubscribe that works within ten business days (FTC). Treat a cart email as marketing, not a receipt: nothing was bought. The EU and Canada need consent first, which is why Shopify’s own automation sends only to subscribed shoppers by default (Shopify).

Related: Klaviyo email, Klaviyo on Shopify.