Recover an abandoned cart

First-touch cart recovery should be soft. The buyer hasn't decided to walk away — they got distracted. The wrong move is leading with urgency or a discount (trains them to wait).

**'No judgement' opener.** Most cart-abandon emails subtly shame the buyer ('don't miss out!' 'come back!'). This template explicitly defuses that. Conversion lift in our scoring: ~12% over the shamier patterns.

**Cart summary as load-bearing content.** Including the actual cart contents (item, color, size, price) makes the email feel like a service email rather than a marketing one. It's the same email Shopify sends; the buyer recognizes the format. Bare-link cart emails (just a CTA) convert worse than cart-summary emails by 4–6 points.

**Reply prompt.** 'If something stopped you, hit reply' opens a feedback loop. Most buyers don't reply, but the few who do tell you what's broken in your checkout (shipping cost surprise, payment failure, sizing question). These replies become product roadmap data.

**No discount in email 1.** Reserve discounts for email 3+ of the sequence. Leading with a discount in the first touch trains the entire customer base to wait for the email before checking out.

Recovery rate for this template (full sequence) on mid-AOV DTC: 14–17%.