Most people who put something in your cart don’t buy it. Some were comparing prices. Some got distracted. Some hit a surprise at checkout and left. A good recovery sequence wins back a share of them, and it costs far less than buying a new visitor.
It also has to respect the law. In South Africa, POPIA governs how you contact people, so the sequence below is built around consent first.
Start with consent, not messages
You can only message someone who has agreed to hear from you, or who is in an existing customer relationship with a clear way to opt out.
- Ask for the email address early in checkout, and say what you’ll use it for.
- Add a clear, unticked opt-in for WhatsApp. Don’t pre-tick it.
- Put an unsubscribe link in every email and a “reply STOP” option on every WhatsApp message, and honour both straight away.
If you’re unsure, our guide to POPIA and email marketing covers the basics.
The three-message sequence
Message 1, one hour later: the helpful nudge. Don’t sell. Remind them what they left behind, with the product image, and make it one click to return to the cart. Answer the most likely question: delivery time and cost.
Message 2, the next day: remove the doubt. Show reviews, your returns policy and the payment options, including instant EFT and buy now, pay later. Most hesitation is about risk, so lower it.
Message 3, day three: the last reminder. If you offer an incentive, this is where it belongs, and only here. Training every shopper to expect a discount teaches them to abandon on purpose.
Which channel for which message
- Email is the default. It’s cheap, it carries images well and it’s easy to unsubscribe from.
- WhatsApp gets higher attention, but only use it for shoppers who opted in, and keep it to one or two short messages.
Keep it short and human
Write the way you’d text a customer. One idea per message, one button, no walls of text. Use the customer’s first name and the actual product they left.
Measure the right things
Track the recovery rate (carts recovered divided by carts abandoned), revenue per message and unsubscribe rate. If unsubscribes climb, you’re sending too much.
Fix the leak, too
Recovery is a safety net, not a strategy. If many carts are abandoned, find out why. Our 20-minute phone test is a quick way to spot what’s pushing shoppers out.
