The two phrases are used interchangeably in most marketing copy, but in Shopify they mean different things — and the difference explains why your Abandoned checkouts list is so much shorter than any cart-abandonment statistic would suggest.
Abandoned checkout: a Shopify record with a precise definition
Shopify's Help Center page on recovering abandoned checkouts defines it directly: "An abandoned checkout refers to a checkout process that remains incomplete, even though the customer has provided their email information." It also gives the timing rule: "A checkout is considered abandoned if it remains incomplete for more than ten minutes after the customer has provided their email information." The API documentation says the same thing in developer terms: abandoned "after the customer has added contact information, but before the customer has completed their purchase."
So an abandoned checkout is a concrete object with three properties:
- It has contact details by definition — that is what creates it. A shopper who never typed an email (or phone number) at checkout does not produce one.
- It lives in your admin under Orders → Abandoned checkouts, and per the same Help Center page, records older than three months are deleted automatically.
- It is channel-specific: the Help Center notes that abandoned checkout recovery covers the Online Store and Buy Button sales channels; POS and third-party channels don't get recovery emails.
Abandoned cart: an industry term, not a Shopify object
"Cart abandonment" in industry statistics means a shopper added something to a cart and left without buying — at any stage, including the large group who never opened the checkout page at all. The Baymard Institute puts the average documented rate at about 70% across the 50 studies it tracks, and reports that 42% of US online shoppers have abandoned a cart simply because they were "just browsing / not ready to buy".
Shopify does expose the pre-checkout cart to developers — there are carts/create and carts/update webhook topics — but a cart isn't tied to an email address the way a checkout is. There is nobody to write to.
Why the two numbers are so far apart
Think of it as a funnel:
- Session → item added to cart
- Cart → checkout opened
- Checkout → contact details entered
- Contact details → payment completed
A "70% cart abandonment rate" counts everyone who dropped out anywhere after step 1. Your abandoned checkouts list only contains people who reached step 3 and stopped before step 4. They are different populations, and both figures can be true at once.
| Abandoned cart | Abandoned checkout | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it's measured | Analytics funnels, industry studies | Orders → Abandoned checkouts |
| Contact details | Usually none | Email or phone, by definition |
| Can be followed up by email | No (unless the shopper is a known customer) | Yes, if an email was entered |
| Shopify's built-in recovery email | Not applicable | Yes — see what it does by default |
What each one is good for
The cart abandonment rate is a diagnostic. Baymard's reasons data (among shoppers who weren't just browsing, the most common reason was extra costs such as shipping, tax and fees) points at pricing transparency, delivery options and checkout friction — things you fix in the store, not with a reminder.
Abandoned checkouts are the recoverable set. These shoppers gave you a way to reach them, and a well-timed reminder can bring some of them back. One nuance worth knowing before you set any rules: most of them will show no recorded marketing consent, for reasons explained in why your abandoned checkouts show no marketing consent.
To put your own numbers on this, the cart abandonment calculator works out your rate from carts and orders and estimates what the abandoned checkouts add up to. And if you're wondering exactly when the record is created, see when Shopify creates an abandoned checkout.