An abandoned checkout is a checkout a shopper started — and entered contact details in — but didn't complete. Shopify's documentation puts it in one sentence: "A checkout is considered abandoned after the customer has added contact information, but before the customer has completed their purchase."
What it is not
It's not the same as an abandoned cart. A shopper who adds products and leaves without opening checkout, or opens checkout but never enters an email or phone number, produces no abandoned checkout record — there is nothing to list and no address to write to. That distinction matters for every recovery number you'll ever see; it's laid out in abandoned cart vs. abandoned checkout.
When it comes into existence
As soon as contact information is entered at checkout. In our own testing the checkouts/create webhook fired within seconds of an email address being typed — well before any "abandonment" delay — which is covered in when does Shopify create an abandoned checkout.
Where you see it
- In the admin: Orders → Abandoned checkouts. Each entry has the shopper's details, the cart contents, and a recovery link that returns them to their checkout with everything still in it. The admin also lets you send a recovery email by hand from an abandoned checkout's page.
- For how long: Shopify's Help Center states that abandoned checkouts older than three months are deleted from the admin automatically.
- "Recovered": when the shopper completes the order through the recovery link, Shopify marks that checkout as recovered, which is how the admin's recovery figures are counted.
Why the consent column is usually empty
The list shows whether the shopper agreed to marketing, and for most entries it won't. That's not shoppers declining — Shopify only records the checkout marketing checkbox when the shopper proceeds to Pay now, and an abandoned checkout is by definition one where they didn't. The explanation, with Shopify's documentation linked, is in why your abandoned checkout shows no marketing consent.