The most common abandoned cart setup I encounter looks like this: three emails, a discount in the third one, the same sequence for every customer.

This is not a strategy. It is a default that someone configured years ago and nobody has touched since.

The problem is not the timing. The problem is that every customer receives the same sequence regardless of who they are, what they abandoned, how much it is worth, or how close they are to qualifying for free shipping.

How I approach it

My first few emails are reminders, not selling. No discount, no manufactured urgency. Most people who will convert from the first email do not need to be talked into it — they need the reminder.

The third email I send is in plain text — no images, no branded template. Just a short message that looks more like a personal note than a marketing send. The format shift alone tends to get attention.

After those emails, I stop sending the same message to everyone and start segmenting by basket value. Someone who abandoned a high-value order deserves a different conversation from someone who left with one item. The free shipping threshold is worth checking here too — sometimes the right move is suggesting an additional product rather than offering a discount.

Discounts come last, not first. A customer who is close to converting does not need a margin-eroding offer to get there. I wait until someone has been genuinely inactive for an extended period before introducing stronger incentives. Before that point, discounting is a margin cost in exchange for revenue you would likely have recovered anyway.

The part most stores skip

Segmentation. Most abandoned cart sequences treat every visitor identically because conditional logic takes effort to set up. The result is copy that is wrong for everyone.

The customer who left a €150 basket and the customer who left a single €20 product are not the same person. The message, the format and the offer should reflect that.

Vít Sláma works with ecommerce brands on email marketing, frontend development and automation. Based in the Czech Republic.