Cart-recovery rates across 8 UK stores — what actually moves them

We run cart-recovery automations for eight UK e-commerce clients. The median recovery rate across those stores is 12%. The best performer is at 19%. The worst was at 4% when we took it over; it is now at 11%.

Here is what the data shows actually moves the number.

Timing

The first email needs to go out within one hour of abandonment. Not four hours. Not the next morning. One hour. The drop-off after the first hour is steep — people have moved on or bought elsewhere.

The second touchpoint should be 24 hours later. The third, if you send one, should be 72 hours — and only to people who opened the first two without buying.

Copy

The copy that works does not beg. "Did you forget something?" performs worse than "We held your basket." Framing it as a service converts better than framing it as a nudge.

Personalisation matters, but only when it is real. Using the product name in the subject line works. "Hi [First Name], we noticed you were interested in [PRODUCT CATEGORY]" does not — customers can see the template.

The one timing change that doubled our median

We moved the first email from four hours post-abandonment to 45 minutes. Across the eight stores, median recovery rate went from 6% to 12% over the following quarter. That single change was worth more than all the copy testing we did in the same period.

What does not move it

Discount codes in the first email. The customers who recover without a discount are the same ones who would recover anyway. The ones who only recover with a discount are training themselves to abandon cart in order to get one.

Get in touch and we will benchmark your cart recovery setup against what we see across our clients.