21 July 2026 · 3 min read
Across ecommerce, roughly seven out of ten online shopping carts are abandoned. Most recovery sequences start with email — and for good reason. Email can show the shopper what they left behind and take them back with a direct recovery link.
But email only works once an address has been captured, and only if the shopper notices the message. Web push adds a second, permission-based route back to the cart.
Email gives you room for product details, images, reassurance, and a clear call to action. It is familiar to shoppers and relatively inexpensive to send at scale.
Its main limitation is attention. A reminder that arrives at an inconvenient local hour may be buried before the shopper returns to their inbox.
A strong recovery email:
Timing matters too. Instead of applying the same fixed delay to every store, a recovery sequence can schedule reminders around the hours in which that store's audience is more likely to shop.
A web push notification can appear as a system notification even when the shopper does not have their inbox — or your store — open. The shopper opts in through a browser permission prompt, without entering another contact detail, and can later withdraw that permission in their notification settings.
Support is broad across desktop browsers and Android. On iPhone and iPad, web push is available for web apps that shoppers have added to their Home Screen.
Push works best alongside email rather than as a replacement for it. Email carries the full context; push provides a short, visible route back that doesn't have to compete inside a crowded inbox. A shopper who misses the email may still notice a concise "your cart is waiting" notification and return to checkout.
The permission request should clearly explain what the shopper is opting into, and every recovery sequence should stop as soon as the purchase is completed.
SMS can be effective for stores whose shoppers explicitly opt in, but it requires another contact detail and introduces additional delivery costs and operational considerations.
Cartback focuses on email and web push to cover two different attention surfaces while keeping its pricing flat and predictable. SMS may still make sense as an optional third channel, but it does not need to be the foundation of every recovery sequence.
A coordinated recovery flow should:
Cartback combines AI-timed email and web push in one recovery sequence. It uses store buying patterns and recovery results to improve timing, supports consent-aware sending and unsubscribe handling, and encrypts shopper email addresses at rest.
Recover abandoned carts with coordinated, AI-timed email and web push — shopper email addresses encrypted at rest, no revenue-share pricing. Install Cartback free on the Shopify App Store →