Abandoned cart or abandoned checkout: the difference that decides who you can reach

Where the line falls

The two terms get used as if they meant the same thing, but they describe different moments. A cart is the list of products a shopper means to buy. Shopify’s developer documentation describes it as “the merchandise that a buyer intends to purchase, and the estimated cost associated with the cart, throughout a customer’s session” (Cart object). Putting something in a cart does not ask the shopper who they are.

A checkout comes later, when the shopper sets out to pay. Shopify’s help center calls a checkout abandoned when it “remains incomplete, even though the customer has provided their email information,” and it lists one as abandoned after it has stayed incomplete for more than ten minutes. A store can also let shoppers give a phone number in place of an email address.

What Shopify keeps on an abandoned checkout

Shopify’s Admin API describes the record as “An incomplete checkout where the customer added items and provided contact information” (AbandonedCheckout object). Among its fields:

• the recovery link, “The URL for the buyer to recover their checkout”;
• the customer who created it, which can be empty when the checkout came from a draft order or an app;
• the line items, subtotal, taxes and total;
• any discount codes the buyer entered;
• billing and shipping addresses, when the buyer got that far;
• when the checkout was created, last updated and, if it ever is, completed.

The older REST version of the same record, which Shopify now marks as legacy, also lists the email address and phone number, and two flags set by the opt-in boxes at checkout: whether the customer “would like to receive email updates from the shop,” and whether they would like to receive text updates.

Why ACR starts from the checkout

A call or a text needs a phone number, and an email needs an address. A cart usually has neither, so a campaign that started from carts would have no one to contact for most shoppers. A checkout has the contact details, the opt-in boxes that ACR reads as consent records, and the link that takes the shopper back to the checkout they left, which is what ACR sends by default.

It also gives the agent something specific to talk about: what is in the cart, the total and any code already applied. Start conditions use the same facts, so a campaign can, for example, skip carts under a certain total.

Two details follow from Shopify’s data. Its checkouts record consent for texts and for email marketing, and nothing about calls, which our post on how a campaign picks its channel explains. And ACR waits 30 minutes with no activity before it treats a checkout as abandoned, longer than the ten minutes Shopify uses for its list. Our post on the abandonment window gives the reasons.

Shoppers who only filled a cart get nothing from ACR. If your email platform already knows who they are, its cart flow is the place for them. Klaviyo’s help center, for example, treats the two as separate flows, one triggered when someone adds to cart and one when they start checkout, and suggests a filter on the cart flow so a shopper who goes on to checkout does not get both. Running recovery next to your email flows covers how ACR fits beside them.