Abandoned checkout email: what to send, when, and when to add an offer

What counts as an abandoned checkout?

Someone added a product, clicked through to checkout, typed in their email, and left before paying.

On Shopify, Klaviyo calls this event Checkout Started (you'll also see it as Started Checkout). According to Klaviyo's troubleshooting guide, it tracks after a customer fills out the email address field on the checkout page, on both one-page and multi-page checkouts.

That detail matters. Because the shopper hands you their email at checkout, this flow catches people your cart and browse flows can't. Someone who found you through an ad and went straight to checkout is in.

Abandoned checkout is one of the 8 core flows I install for every brand, and it's the highest-intent recovery flow of the lot. If you're unsure how it differs from abandoned cart, I break that down in abandoned cart vs abandoned checkout.

Why do people abandon checkout on a consumable?

I'd write the emails around the reasons people actually stall. For food, drinks, supplements and skincare, these come up again and again:

• Shipping cost showed up. The price looked fine until the total did.
• They weren't sure how much to buy. One bag or three? A 30-day supply or 60?
• They weren't sure it was for them. Flavor, taste, ingredients, skin type, whether it'll actually work.
• They got pulled away. Phone rang, kid needed something, meant to come back.
• They wanted to think about subscribing. If you sell subscriptions, that's a bigger decision than a one-time order.

Most of these aren't about price. They're about doubt and distraction. So your emails should mostly remind and reassure. The offer comes later.

When should you send abandoned checkout emails?

Klaviyo's guide suggests a first message 2 to 4 hours after someone starts checkout and a second one 20 to 48 hours later. Its research says 2 to 3 messages performs best.

I go faster and longer. Faster, because the first email should land while they still remember the checkout. Klaviyo notes some integrations sync slowly, but it doesn't flag Started Checkout from Shopify as delayed. Longer, because people keep buying deep into these flows. In my pooled data from 4 consumable brands, cart abandonment email #5 still earned about $0.25 per person, the same as email #3. That's cart data, not checkout, but checkout shoppers are even closer to buying.

Here's the timing I install.

Non-customer path (8 days):

1. 35 minutes: complete your order. Plain and fast. Product image, price, one button back to checkout.
2. Day 2: build desire. Why people love it. What it tastes, smells or feels like.
3. Day 5: build confidence. Reviews and social proof, plus shipping and return details stated plainly.
4. Day 7: lifestyle benefits. How it fits into their day. How long it lasts.
5. Day 8: final reminder. Short. Last link back, and the final offer expires.

Customer path (7 days):

1. 35 minutes: complete your order. Same fast reminder.
2. Day 1: restock reminder. If it's a reorder, they're probably running low.
3. Day 4: use cases. New ways to use it, or how the new thing fits with what they already buy.
4. Day 6: urgency to complete. A nudge to finish before they run out.
5. Day 7: final reminder.

The customer path is deliberately faster. They already trust you, so they need fewer touches to finish.

How does the customer and non-customer split work?

Every flow in my system starts with one routing check: "Placed order ever?" No goes to the non-customer path. Yes goes to the customer path.

The two groups stall for different reasons:

• Non-customers don't know you yet. They need desire, then proof, then a reason it fits their life. That's why their path is a little longer.
• Customers already trust you. They mostly need the reminder, and for a consumable, the nudge that they're about to run out. That's why their path opens with a restock reminder on Day 1.

How should the offer work in an abandoned checkout flow?

Not in the first email. Klaviyo says it plainly in its abandoned cart guide: coupons in the first email can train customers to abandon carts.

In the flows I install, the offer follows the same pattern every time:

• Email 1: no offer. Plenty of people just got distracted. A reminder is enough to bring them back at full price.
• Later emails: the offer comes in. It shows up partway through the sequence.
• The last email: the final reminder carries the offer, and it expires with that email. The deadline is real, so it means something.

What the offer is depends on the path:

• Non-customers get the same offer your welcome series gives at signup. Never a bigger one. If abandoning checkout got someone a better deal than signing up did, you'd be teaching people to abandon on purpose.
• Customers get one of three things: a slightly upgraded version of that offer, an offer built around a bigger order (more product or a bundle), or a monthly subscription offer. The subscription option lets them save by committing to a monthly order, and for the brand, that's predictable, recurring revenue.

Customers who order in large quantities are usually excluded from these automations.

The filters that keep this flow clean

A checkout flow with bad filters sends "you forgot something" to people who just paid. That's the fastest way to look sloppy.

From Klaviyo's guide, the main one is: Placed Order zero times since starting this flow. Profile filters are checked before each message, so anyone who buys after email 1 gets skipped from the rest. In my system, purchase is the exit.

Klaviyo also suggests an optional "has not been in this flow" filter so people don't enter over and over. All five of my abandonment flows (site, collection, browse, cart and checkout) share a 35-day re-entry window: nobody re-enters the same flow within 35 days. For a consumable brand with frequent small orders, that matters.

And if you run an abandoned cart flow too, the cart flow needs its own filter so people who reach checkout leave it. I cover that in the cart vs checkout post linked above.

Common abandoned checkout mistakes

• No checkout flow at all, just cart. You're treating your warmest shoppers like casual browsers.
• First email hours late. By then they've moved on. Mine goes at 35 minutes.
• Discount in email 1. You're paying people who'd have come back anyway.
• No exit on purchase. People who bought keep getting reminders.
• Same email for customers and strangers. Your best customers get a pitch they don't need.
• Broken links back to checkout. Click every link before the flow goes live. Clicks with no sales means something broke.

If checkout looks fine, the next place to look is earlier in the funnel: browse abandonment, collection abandonment and site abandonment. All five sit inside the full build order in the essential Klaviyo flows for CPG brands.

Where these numbers come from

The cart abandonment number comes from pooled data across 4 consumable brands, 2,897 campaigns and $17.7M in email revenue. It's a small sample, so treat it as directional. Klaviyo's timing and filter guidance is linked below.

FAQ

WRITTEN BY Jack White

Founder of Bardown Digital, a Chicago-based Klaviyo email and retention agency for Shopify brands. He's worked with brands doing $500K to $100M a year, with $100M+ in email-attributed revenue across them.

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