What's a Good Abandoned Cart Recovery Rate for Shopify in 2025? (Industry Benchmarks + Your Target)

Most Shopify store owners obsess over their cart abandonment rate (which is typically 70-75% across ecommerce). But few know if their recovery rate is good or terrible.

The industry average abandoned cart recovery rate for Shopify stores in 2025 ranges from 8% to 15%, depending on your industry, average order value (AOV), and recovery strategy quality. However, this "average" is misleading. A luxury watch store with a $2,000 AOV should expect 18-22% recovery, while a low-AOV impulse purchase store might struggle to hit 6%.

The real question isn't "What's the average?" It's "What should MY store be recovering, and how do I get there?" This article provides segment-specific benchmarks, shows you how to calculate your rate correctly, and identifies the three optimizations that move the needle fastest.

What is the average abandoned cart recovery rate for Shopify stores in 2025?

The average abandoned cart recovery rate across all Shopify stores is approximately 10.7% in 2025. This means that for every 100 shoppers who add items to their cart and leave, about 11 complete their purchase after receiving a recovery email or SMS. However, performance varies significantly by industry, average order value, and the sophistication of your recovery sequence.

Here's how recovery rates break down by industry segment:

Why the variance? Higher AOV products (jewelry, luxury goods) give customers more time to deliberate, making them more responsive to well-timed recovery messages. Low-consideration impulse buys (phone accessories, fast fashion) see lower recovery because if the customer didn't buy immediately, they've often moved on.

Why do most Shopify stores recover less than 10% of abandoned carts?

Most stores fail to recover carts because they send generic, single-touch emails 1 hour after abandonment. This captures only the low-hanging fruit (genuine forgetfulness) and misses the 60% of abandoners who need different timing, messaging, or incentives. The three biggest recovery killers are poor timing, lack of personalization, and no multi-channel strategy.

Here's what's broken in most recovery flows:

1. Single touchpoint syndrome: Sending one email 1 hour after abandonment only reaches people who were interrupted mid-checkout. You miss the "comparison shoppers" (need 12-24 hours), "discount seekers" (need urgency + offer), and "mobile abandoners" (need SMS).
2. Generic messaging: "You left something behind!" emails treat a $50 t-shirt cart the same as a $500 skincare bundle. High-value carts need trust reinforcement (reviews, guarantees), not just product images.
3. No exit-intent capture: If you're not collecting email addresses BEFORE checkout (via exit-intent popups or progressive profiling), you can't recover 40-60% of anonymous abandoners.

Quick diagnostic: If your recovery rate is below 8%, you likely have a technical issue (emails not sending, broken checkout link). If you're at 8-12%, you have a messaging or timing problem. If you're above 12%, focus on incrementally testing offer strategies and segment-specific copy.

How to calculate your abandoned cart recovery rate accurately

Your abandoned cart recovery rate = (Recovered Orders ÷ Total Abandoned Carts) × 100. A "recovered order" is any purchase completed within 30 days of cart abandonment by someone who received a recovery email or SMS. Most Shopify analytics platforms calculate this automatically, but many store owners miscalculate by including organic returns or excluding multi-touch conversions.

Here's the correct formula and how to pull the data:

Formula:

Recovery Rate = (Orders from Cart Recovery Campaigns ÷ Abandoned Carts with Contactable Email) × 100

Critical distinctions:

• Only count abandoned carts where you captured an email address (exclude anonymous abandoners from the denominator)
• Attribute orders to recovery campaigns if the customer clicked a recovery email/SMS within 30 days before purchase
• Exclude bot traffic and test orders from your abandoned cart count

Where to find this data in Shopify:

1. Go to Analytics → Reports → Marketing
2. Filter by "Abandoned Cart Recovery" campaign performance
3. Cross-reference with your email platform (Klaviyo, Omnisend, Shopify Email) for click-through and conversion attribution

Common calculation mistakes:

• Using "all abandoned carts" instead of "contactable abandoned carts" (inflates your denominator, deflates your rate)
• Not accounting for multi-touch attribution (customer receives 3 emails, buys after the third, still counts as one recovery)
• Including orders from customers who would have returned organically anyway (use a control group test to isolate true incrementality)

What recovery rate should you target based on your store type?

Your target recovery rate should be 1.5-2× the baseline for your AOV band, assuming you implement advanced tactics. A fashion store with a $75 AOV should target 15-19% recovery (advanced tier for $50-$100 AOV), while a supplement brand with a $120 AOV should target 19-24% (advanced tier for $100-$200 AOV). Using industry-wide averages as your benchmark is a losing strategy. You need segment-specific targets based on purchase intent and deliberation time.

Use this framework to set your target:

How to interpret this table:

• Baseline Target: What a competent email sequence (3 emails over 7 days) with basic personalization should achieve
• Advanced Target: What's possible with multi-channel (email + SMS), dynamic discounting, and segment-specific creative

Why AOV matters more than industry: A $200 skincare bundle and a $200 pair of sneakers have similar deliberation psychology, even though they're in different industries. Customers spending more money take longer to decide and respond better to educational, trust-building recovery content rather than urgency tactics.

If your recovery rate is below the baseline: You have a technical or strategic gap (poor email deliverability, broken checkout links, or a single-email flow). Fix this before optimizing creative or offers.

If you're at baseline but not advanced: You're leaving 30-50% of recoverable revenue on the table. The next section shows you exactly where to focus.

What to do now if your recovery rate is below benchmark

If your recovery rate is below your segment's baseline target, implement these three optimizations in order: fix your email timing sequence, add SMS to high-value carts, and introduce dynamic social proof. These changes can increase recovery rates by 40-70% within 30 days without offering discounts.

Priority 1: Fix your timing sequence (Potential lift: 25-40%)

Most stores send emails at 1 hour, 24 hours, and 3 days. This misses the behavioral windows.

Instead, use this sequence:

• 15 minutes: Catch checkout friction (broken payment, confusion). Subject: "Still checking out? Here's your cart"
• 6 hours: Catch comparison shoppers during the same browsing session. Subject: "Noticed you're comparing options? Here's why customers choose us"
• 24 hours: Catch deliberators. Include reviews and UGC. Subject: "See what 1,247 customers say about product"
• 72 hours: Last chance urgency (with or without discount). Subject: "Your cart expires in 12 hours"

Priority 2: Add SMS for carts over 1.5× your AOV (Potential lift: 15-25%)

Email open rates are declining (18-22% average for cart recovery). SMS gets 90%+ open rates within 3 minutes.

When to use SMS:

• Only for carts that exceed 1.5× your average order value (signals higher intent)
• Send 3-4 hours after abandonment, between 10am-8pm in the customer's timezone
• Keep it under 140 characters with a direct link

Example SMS: "Hey Name, you left Product in your cart ($XXX). Still interested? Complete checkout here: link - Store Name"

Priority 3: Add dynamic social proof to emails (Potential lift: 10-20%)

Generic product images don't rebuild confidence. Show proof that others bought and loved the item.

What to include:

• Star rating + review count for each product in the cart
• "127 people bought this in the last 7 days" inventory urgency
• 1-2 customer photos or short testimonials specific to the abandoned product

Technical implementation: Most Shopify email apps (Klaviyo, Omnisend) support dynamic blocks that pull real-time review data from your review app (Judge.me, Loox, Yotpo).

Next Steps

Your abandoned cart recovery rate is a direct function of three variables: your ability to capture emails before checkout, the relevance and timing of your recovery messages, and the trust signals you embed in those messages.

Do this now:

1. Calculate your current recovery rate using the correct formula (contactable abandoned carts only)
2. Compare it to your AOV-based benchmark from the table above
3. If you're below baseline, implement the timing sequence fix this week
4. If you're at baseline, layer in SMS and dynamic social proof over the next 30 days

One final insight: Recovery rate optimization has diminishing returns after 20-25% for most store types. Beyond that point, focus on reducing abandonment in the first place (checkout friction audits, shipping cost transparency, trust badge placement) rather than squeezing more from recovery emails.

The stores that win don't just recover carts well—they give customers fewer reasons to abandon in the first place.