Shopify abandoned checkout emails not sending? The cases Shopify skips
Abandoned checkout emails are one of the cheapest ways to win back sales, so it’s alarming when they don’t go out. Often nothing is broken: Shopify deliberately doesn’t send a recovery email in certain situations. Here’s the list, and how to check a specific checkout.
Cases where Shopify doesn’t send the email
According to Shopify’s help, a recovery email isn’t sent when:
- the customer completes a purchase before the email would go out;
- a payment processing error happened when they tried to complete checkout;
- your shop doesn’t ship to the customer’s address;
- you let customers enter a phone number instead of an email, and they chose a phone number;
- none of the products in the checkout are available for purchase;
- all the products are free, and the customer didn’t reach the shipping step or shipping was free too;
- Shopify Payments blocked the payment because the checkout was identified as high risk.
Check who the automation sends to
In your abandoned checkout automation, check the send to setting — you choose which customers receive the email. If it’s limited to customers who are subscribed to email marketing, shoppers who didn’t opt in won’t get it.
Check a specific checkout
Open Orders → Abandoned checkouts and look at the checkout in question. Shopify shows why a recovery email wasn’t sent. If the reason is one of the cases above, it’s working as designed.
If the payment error case keeps coming up
“Payment processing error” checkouts don’t get a recovery email — and they’re often your most motivated buyers. If you see many of them, test your own checkout end to end and review your payment settings; a misconfigured payment method stops sales, not just emails. See Shopify store getting traffic but no sales.
Don’t switch the automation to email everyone without checking the marketing rules where your customers are. Sending marketing email to people who haven’t consented can break privacy and anti-spam laws in some countries.
Email copy you can use
If you edit the recovery email’s text, keep it short, name the product and make the way back obvious. Replace the [brackets]:
Subject: You left something in your cart
Hi [first name], your [product] is still waiting for you. We’ve saved your cart, so you can pick up right where you left off.
[Button: Return to your cart]
Questions about sizing, shipping or returns? Just reply to this email — a real person will answer.
Subject: Still thinking it over?
Hi [first name], we noticed you didn’t finish checking out. [Free shipping on orders over $X / Easy 30-day returns] — and your cart is saved for you.
[Button: Complete your order]