Win back abandoned Shopify carts with a timed recovery email
Catch carts left behind on your Shopify store, wait an hour to see if the order still completes, and send a one-off recovery email with the exact cart contents to whoever didn't check out.
What this looks like
One step on screen at a time. Read it, do it, tap Next.
Win back abandoned Shopify carts with a timed recovery email
Step 1 of 10
Add the Cart Created trigger
Create a workflow and add a Shopify Trigger node named "Cart Created", connected to your Shopify credential. This fires as soon as a customer starts a checkout, before you know whether they'
Checkpoint
The Shopify Trigger node sits on the canvas, connected to your store.
Before you begin
Tick these off as you sort them. Stopping halfway to create an account is how a fifteen-minute build becomes an hour.
0 of 8 ready
Ticks are saved on this device, so you can come back to them.
- Account
Abandoned checkout data only exists if Shopify is capturing customer email addresses at checkout, even when the order isn't completed.
- Credential
Create a custom app in your Shopify admin with read access to orders and checkouts, and connect it in n8n so the trigger and the order lookup can both use it.
Shopify custom apps - Credential
The Send Email node uses raw SMTP rather than Gmail or another app-specific node, so you need host, port, username and password for whichever mailbox sends these.
- Have ready
A short, friendly note referencing the actual cart contents and a link back to checkout.
- Time
The workflow itself is six nodes; most of the effort is in wording the email and confirming the wait timing suits your store.
The basics — ticked once, remembered everywhere
- Account
Either the hosted version or a self-hosted install. Everything here works the same on both — the only visible difference is the shape of your webhook URLs.
Create a workspace - Know-how
Adding a node, connecting two of them, and pressing Execute. If any of that is new, the free primer covers it in about ten minutes.
- Credential
You will paste at least one secret during setup. A password manager beats a notes app, and it stops you pasting a live key into a chat window by accident.
The shape of the workflow
The nodes you will end up with, left to right, in the order you add them.
4 things to set here- 1Shopify Trigger — the trigger — everything starts here
- 2Wait — Add Wait 1 Hour
- 3Shopify — Check if the order actually went through
- 4If — Branch on whether the cart is still abandoned
Skip the node hunting
Import a starter file with every node for this build already on the canvas, named after its step and wired in order, each one carrying a sticky note with the values to enter. You still connect your own accounts and fill the fields — that is what the walkthrough takes you through — but you never start at a blank canvas.
In n8n: Workflows → Import from file.
What you will build
Jump straight to any step, or print the list and tick it off beside your n8n tab.
- 1Add the Cart Created trigger
- 2Add Wait 1 Hour
- 3Check if the order actually went through
- 4Branch on whether the cart is still abandoned
- 5Format the email data
- 6Send the recovery email
- 7Dry run, then activate
- 8Start a checkout and abandon it
- 9Start a checkout and complete it
- 10Check the wait duration suits your store
If something goes wrong
Everything ready?
Start walkthrough