Turn on abandoned cart recovery

Most carts never become orders. Some of those shoppers were only browsing, but many were interrupted, distracted or unsure. A polite reminder brings a share of them back. This is the first campaign to switch on, because it costs nothing and its result is measured in real orders.

How a cart becomes "abandoned"#

Kambloo checks carts every ten minutes. A cart counts as abandoned when all of these are true:

• No activity for a set time. The default is 60 minutes; you can change it.
• The cart has at least one item.
• Kambloo has a way to reach the shopper: a logged-in customer, or an email or phone the shopper typed at the first checkout step.
• The cart total is above a minimum you can set. The default is zero.

The third point matters. Kambloo captures a guest's email or phone as soon as they leave the field at checkout, before they submit anything. Without that, there is no one to remind. This is one reason to keep the first checkout step short.

If the shopper comes back and touches the cart, it is active again and any pending reminders are cancelled.

The default sequence#

Kambloo ships a three-step sequence. You can change every part of it.

Before each step is sent, Kambloo checks that the cart is still abandoned, that no order has been placed, and that the shopper's permission covers that channel and message. Step 3 uses the same coupon as step 2. Kambloo does not generate a second coupon; stacking discounts trains customers to wait.

If the shopper orders at any point, the sequence stops and the order is marked as recovered. Kambloo attributes an order to recovery when it is placed within five days of clicking a recovery link.

The recovery link#

Every reminder contains a signed link. Clicking it restores the cart without logging in, merges it with anything already in the shopper's current cart, applies the step's coupon if there is one, and opens the cart, not the checkout. Kambloo deliberately lands the shopper on the cart, because pushing straight to payment feels forced and converts worse. The link is valid for seven days.

If a product's stock dropped in the meantime, the cart shows a notice rather than failing silently.

Permission and message types#

The first reminder without a coupon is a service message about the shopper's own cart. Kambloo sends it whether or not the shopper ticked the marketing box.

Steps that include a coupon are marketing messages. Kambloo sends them only to shoppers who have given marketing consent for that channel. A shopper without consent still receives step 2 as a plain reminder without the coupon. SMS and WhatsApp steps also need a connected provider account of your own, because Kambloo does not sell message credit. Lesson 3 covers consent in detail.

Switching it on#

In your store admin open Marketing → Cart Recovery. You will find:

• a global on/off switch,
• the abandonment delay in minutes and the minimum cart total,
• the list of steps, one to five, each with a delay in hours, a channel, a template, and an optional coupon with type, amount and validity.

Turn it on with the defaults. Change the delays or the coupon later, once you have seen real results.

Measuring it#

The Marketing → Performance dashboard shows recovered revenue, the recovery rate (recovered divided by abandoned), and a per-step funnel: sent, opened, clicked, ordered. Look at it after two weeks, not two days.

Common mistakes#

• Leaving recovery off because the store is new. The first abandoned cart can arrive on day one.
• Making the coupon larger to "improve" recovery, which trains customers to abandon on purpose.
• Adding an SMS step before connecting an SMS provider account, so the step never sends.
• Editing the templates into long sales letters. A reminder with the product image and one link works better.

Apply this in your store: switch cart recovery on, then abandon a cart with your own email and watch the sequence arrive.