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Abandoned checkouts: reminders that stop the moment a basket becomes an order
A shopper who typed their email and then left is the order closest to happening. GoCommerce’s new cart-recovery module notices that basket within minutes, emails the shopper a few times, and stops the moment the basket becomes an order. Then it shows you which orders it actually brought back.
What counts as abandoned
A basket with something in it that sits untouched long enough gets a record of its own, with the items and prices as they were.
| Type | What it means | Idle time before it counts (default) |
|---|---|---|
| Checkout | The shopper typed an email, which a guest does at checkout’s first step | 10 minutes |
| Cart | No email was typed | 30 minutes |
A cart can be emailed only when it carries a verified address, such as a signed-in shopper’s confirmed email. It is listed either way.
Baskets that went idle before you installed the module are shown, but the reminders never go to them — nobody wants a backlog mailed on day one.
A shopper who comes back and leaves again resumes the same record, and the next reminder waits for that visit to go quiet.
The reminder sequence
Checkouts and carts each get a sequence: an on/off switch, the idle time, and up to five “wait, then send” steps. Each wait counts from the step before; the first from when the basket was marked abandoned.
| Step | Checkout (default) | Cart (default) | Email it sends |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 hour | 2 hours | cart.recovery.1 — “You left something in your basket” |
| 2 | 20 hours | 24 hours | cart.recovery.2 — “Still thinking it over?” |
| 3 | 48 hours | — | cart.recovery.3 — “Last chance for the items in your basket” |
The idle time can be 1 minute to 7 days, and each wait 1 minute to 30 days. Both sequences live on Marketing › Automations; the emails’ wording is edited on Notifications › Setup Email, with the store’s other emails.
Nothing is decided early. Before every send, the module checks the basket as it is now:
| Check | If it fails |
|---|---|
| The basket still exists | The record is marked expired |
| It has not become an order | Nothing more is sent |
| Reminders are not suppressed for it | Nothing is sent |
| The shopper has not been in it within the idle time | The step moves to when the visit counts as over |
| It has an email address | Held until the shopper comes back with one |
| At least one item can still be bought | Held until the shopper comes back to it |
| The automation is on | Held until it is switched on and saved |
| An email provider is set up | Held until one is, and the automation is saved |
A held reminder shows its reason. If the provider refuses a message, the module retries after 10 minutes, then 20. After three failed tries it stops with “sending kept failing”; saving the automation tries again.
The link back
Where a reminder’s link goes depends on two addresses you set.
| You set | The link | Click counted? |
|---|---|---|
A storefront address and GOCOMMERCE_PANEL_URL | <panel URL>/x/cart-recovery/r/<token>, which counts the click, then <storefront>/cart/<cart token> | Yes |
| A storefront address only | Straight to <storefront>/cart/<cart token> | No |
| No storefront address | No link; the default email gives a basket reference instead | — |
If the basket was already bought or has gone, a counted link opens the storefront’s home page instead.
How an order is credited
The engine’s order.created event now carries cart_id, the basket the order came from. The module marks that record recovered, with the order number and total, and notes whether any reminder — automatic or by hand — went out first. So the figures keep “recovered after a reminder” apart from “came back on their own”.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Abandoned | Recorded; nothing scheduled, and the reason shown |
| Scheduled | A reminder is planned |
| Contacted | At least one reminder has gone out |
| Recovered | It became an order — final |
| Suppressed | Staff stopped the reminders, with a reason |
| Expired | The basket was deleted by the store’s retention clean-up |
What staff can do
Orders › Abandoned checkouts lists every record. A record’s page shows the basket then and now — a price that moved, a line that sold out — the address’s past orders, and a timeline of what happened and who did it.
| Action | Right | Given by default to |
|---|---|---|
| See the list, records and figures | abandonment.read | Owner, Manager, Staff |
| Send a reminder now, copy the link | abandonment.contact | Owner, Manager, Staff |
| Suppress, with a reason | abandonment.suppress | Owner, Manager, Staff |
| Change the automation | abandonment.automate | Owner, Manager |
Send now picks one of the three emails and does not move the sequence on. Copy link is for pasting into a chat; it goes on the timeline, because the link opens the basket for whoever holds it. Suppress asks why: contacted manually, asked for no more contact, invalid customer, fraud or test, or other, with a note.
If an action cannot happen — the basket was just bought, say — the screen says why.
The figures
Six cards sit above the list and filter with it: abandoned, potential revenue, recovery emails sent, recovered orders, recovered revenue, and the recovery rate (recovered ÷ abandoned).
Marketing › Recovery analytics adds three views:
- A funnel: abandoned, recoverable, emailed, link clicked, recovered. The last stage counts only orders placed after a reminder.
- Recovered revenue over time, by day, week or month.
- Carts against checkouts: abandoned, recovered and the rate for each.
How to turn it on
| What | How |
|---|---|
| The module | The -recovery flag — already on in both Docker Compose files |
| Where the basket lives | STOREFRONT_URL, or the automation screen, which wins |
| Counted clicks | GOCOMMERCE_PANEL_URL, where the store’s panel is reached (a multi-store platform uses each store’s domain) |
| An email provider | -resend or -sendgrid with its key; without one, reminders are held |
One store with recovery on
# Where the shopper's basket lives
export STOREFRONT_URL=https://shop.example.com
# The engine's public address, so clicks are counted
export GOCOMMERCE_PANEL_URL=https://admin.example.com
# An email provider; without one, nothing is sent
export RESEND_API_KEY=your-resend-api-key
./gocommerce -recovery -resend serveFlags and variables from cmd/gocommerce/main.go. As for any store, the database comes from DATABASE_URL and the admin token from GOCOMMERCE_ADMIN_TOKEN.
For developers: the module adds no third-party dependency and sends through the store’s installed email notifier. Its admin routes are under /api/admin/x/cart-recovery/. The one engine change is cart_id on order.created, explained in decision D82 of PLAN.md.
What it does not do yet
- SMS or WhatsApp. A basket carries no phone number, so these steps are listed but switched off.
- Create a discount or notify staff as a step. Listed, not built.
- Chase a failed payment. Once checkout runs, the basket is an order, and nothing reopens it.
- Wait for payment before crediting. A recovery counts when the order is created, so an order whose payment then fails still counts.
- Count clicks without
GOCOMMERCE_PANEL_URL. The link still works; the click is not counted.
Further reading
- Checkout features — abandoned checkouts beside the rest of checkout.
- The admin panel — the screens these live in.
- GoCommerce — the engine and its modules.
- The source on GitHub — the module is
ext/cart-recovery.