Abandoned Shopping Carts

When a user places items in their shopping cart but does not complete an order, you can automatically send a reminder email.

There are two ways to configure abandoned cart reminder messages.Both methods require you to sync cart data each time an item is added or removed using the Purchase API, the JavaScript method addToCart, and/or logAbandonedCart in the Mobile SDK, and to have a template prepared for your Abandoned Cart message. The reminder is cancelled if the cart is cleared or if a purchase is made

Use Lifecycle Optimizer to Configure a Custom Wait Time and Template This method takes into account the user's abandonment of browse activity while items are still in their cart. Inactivity is detected based on a lack of pageviews for the industry-standard 30 minutes. You can add any custom wait time in Lifecycle Optimizer before messaging the user.
- You'll create a LifeCycle Optimizer flow with the Entry type Abandoned Cart.
- In addition to syncing cart data and having a template prepared, this feature requires that your company has enabled the JavaScript tag on your site.
- This method is recommended because:
  - it is initiated based on browse activity
  - it is easy for a marketer to use the LO interface to change the additional wait time, template, and other messaging logic, at any time. No coding is required for any of these steps.
- To get started, review the rest of the information on this page, and see the Automate Abandoned Cart Reminders in the Lifecycle Optimizer section.
Configure a Time and Template when Syncing Cart Data Note: This method has been deprecated. We recommend you use Lifecycle Optimizer to handle Abandoned Cart messaging.
- When you sync cart data, your API or JavaScript call will also include two defined values:
  - reminder_time - the time to wait after the last cart addition before sending a reminder message. This time is reset upon each additional cart addition. Note: This time is counted from the last cart update and is not affected by the user's other potential site activity or inactivity.
  - reminder_template - the template to send to the user, reminding them of their cart items).
- To get started, see the Purchase API or JavaScript API Library's addToCart method.

Configuration

Sync Cart Data - To learn how to configure the necessary cart-data sync for either of the above methods, see the Purchase API page or JavaScript API page. The only difference in the data sent for the two methods above is that with Lifecycle Optimizer (Method 1) your call will not contain a reminder_time and reminder_template. However, for both methods, you will send the user's full array of cart data each time the user adds or removes a cart item and when they complete the final checkout.
Set Up a Template - In order to show cart activity in your reminder emails, you will need to create a dedicated Abandoned Cart template.
If using Lifecycle Optimizer, create an Abandoned Cart flow.

Display Cart Activity In Email

You can use Zephyr to display the user's abandoned cart contents which, if it exists, is stored on the user profile. You can include this in Abandoned Cart emails and also in other messaging.

The entire incomplete purchase array is always accessible using {profile.purchase_incomplete}.
For example, you could put a block like this at the top of your campaign email that includes items remaining in the user's shopping cart:
```
{if profile.purchase_incomplete} 
The following is currently in your cart: 
 {foreach profile.purchase_incomplete.items as i} 
 {i.qty} {i.title} ${number(i.price/100,2)} 
 {/foreach} 
<a>Complete Checkout</a> 
{/if}
```
Only those users who have abandoned carts will get that special block of content. If you wish to include an image of the product, you would have to include image URLs in the "vars" parameter when users add items to their cart. See the Purchase API for further information. You can then surface the image content in the template code:
```
{foreach profile.purchase_incomplete.items as i}
<img src="{i.vars.image_url}" />{i.qty} {i.title} ${number(i.price/100,2)}
 {/foreach} 
```

Clear Incomplete Purchases from a User Profile

Should you need to clear a user's incomplete purchase data from their profile--for example, when the user removes all items from their cart without making a purchase--simply pass another incomplete purchase API call with an empty array of items.

For example:

{"email":"example@domain.com","items":[],"incomplete": 1}