Abandoned Cart Recovery

Abandoned cart recovery sends a WhatsApp reminder to customers who started checkout, entered a phone number, but did not complete the purchase. WhatPro supports up to two reminders, each sent after its own delay and each able to carry an optional discount code.

Trigger

The flow keys off Shopify’s checkout webhooks, not the order webhooks.

1. A customer reaches the contact-information step of checkout. Shopify fires checkouts/create and, as more fields are filled in, checkouts/update.
2. WhatPro records the checkout once a phone number is present. The create webhook often arrives before the customer has entered a phone, so the update webhook is what usually starts recovery for guest checkouts.
3. WhatPro waits for Shopify to formally flag the checkout as abandoned (Shopify only marks a checkout abandoned after a period of customer inactivity, and the recovery link is not usable until then). Reminders are only scheduled once Shopify confirms the checkout is abandoned and the recovery URL is live.
4. Each reminder is then delivered after its configured delay.

If the customer completes the purchase at any point, Shopify fires checkouts/update with a completion timestamp. WhatPro marks the cart as recovered and cancels every pending reminder for it, so a customer who converts never receives a reminder.

Note

A checkout with no phone number cannot be recovered over WhatsApp. The phone is read from the checkout’s contact information and shipping address. Recovery is also skipped if no enabled abandoned-cart flow exists for the shop.

The two reminders

There are two distinct flow types, each with its own template, language, delay, and discount setting:

Reminder	Purpose	Plan availability
Reminder 1	First nudge after the cart is abandoned.	Basic, Growth, Plus
Reminder 2	Follow-up for customers who ignored the first reminder.	Growth, Plus

You can enable one or both. If only one is enabled, only that reminder is scheduled.

Basic includes the first reminder only

On Basic, abandoned cart recovery is limited to Reminder 1. The second reminder requires Growth or Plus. Starter does not include abandoned cart recovery at all. See Plans.

Reminder timing

Each reminder’s delay is configured on its flow and counts from the point the cart is confirmed abandoned.

Follow-up 24-hour floor

WhatsApp enforces a 24-hour minimum delay on marketing follow-up messages. The second reminder’s delay is clamped to this floor at send time even if a shorter delay slips through the editor, so set the second reminder to at least 24 hours after the first.

Discount codes

Each reminder can optionally include a discount. When a discount is enabled on a reminder, WhatPro generates a Shopify discount code at send time and appends it to the recovery link, so the customer lands back in checkout with the code already applied. The reminder’s template must reference the discount variables for them to render.

Note

If the discount code cannot be created in Shopify (for example, throttling or a missing scope), the reminder is not sent rather than sent without a working code. The failure is recorded in Logs.

Variables

The recovery message is built from the abandoned checkout’s data. Available variables depend on whether the reminder carries a discount.

Standard reminder

Variable	Description
customer_first_name	Customer’s first name; falls back to a generic greeting when unknown.
checkout_url	The Shopify recovery link that returns the customer to their checkout.
support_phone	Your store’s support phone number.

Reminder with discount

Variable	Description
customer_first_name	Customer’s first name.
checkout_url	The recovery link with the discount code pre-applied.
discount_code	The generated discount code.
discount_value	The discount’s display value.

Recovery links are single-use

Shopify’s recovery URL is single-use and tied to the original checkout. Do not test it by opening it in a tracked context that consumes the link before the customer does.

Tags

Abandoned cart recovery is not part of the lifecycle order-tagging system used by the payment confirmation flows, because an abandoned checkout is not yet an order. Recovery results are visible in Logs, and a checkout that converts is recorded as recovered. See Order tags for how tagging applies to order-based flows.

Setup

1. Confirm your plan includes the reminder(s) you want — Basic for Reminder 1, Growth or Plus for Reminder 2. See Plans.
2. In Flows, create or enable Abandoned cart reminder 1 (and Reminder 2 if available).
3. Set each reminder’s delay. Keep the second reminder at least 24 hours out.
4. Optionally enable a discount per reminder and configure its value.
5. Wait for each reminder’s template to be Approved by Meta before it can send. See Flows overview.

Related

• Flows overview
• Order tags
• Plans
• Logs