Draft:Abandoned Cart Reminder

Overview

What Abandoned Cart Reminder does

It is known that a significant number of shoppers abandon their online shopping carts before completing the checkout process. Cart abandonment is not always a bad thing. To many shoppers abandoning a shopping cart is a part of their natural buying cycle: people usually want to review their options, weigh the pros and cons of the potential buy and consider a million of things before making their final decision, which often causes them to make a number of returning visits to your store before the purchase is actually made. However, as an ecommerce store owner you do not want to lose sales because your potential buyer encountered a payment problem, got confused with your checkout process, found a better price at another store or simply was distracted and forgot to complete the purchase.

X-Cart's Abandoned Cart Reminder add-on module helps you recapture the sales that otherwise would be lost by remarketing to customers who abandoned their cart. The module collects the shopping cart content of such customers and allows you to remind them they have an abandoned cart by sending an automatic email notification (or multiple notifications - if you choose to send the reminder email more than once). This way you can learn about and sort out any problems preventing customers from buying things at your store, hear the questions that potential buyers might want to ask about the product they are interested in and even stimulate the purchase by including a coupon for the customer's next order. What is important, the module works for both registered and anonymous customers (anonymous customers need to have specified their email address).

Why Abandoned Cart Reminder?

X-Cart's Abandoned Cart Reminder add-on module:

• Promotes your business by giving you more potential orders. You will be the first to know that an order remained unfinished and will be able to contact your customers even before they contact you.
• Increases the conversion rate by giving customers an option to eventually finish their order with a discount.
• Helps to take care of your clients by providing tools for following them up. Eventually, it brings your merchant to customer relationship to a higher level.
• Provides professional, easy to use and time-efficient facilities to create orders with one button click in the store's Admin area, if your customers contact you about an unfinished transaction by phone (in versions 4.5.3 and later).
• Can work in fully automatic mode. Just set up a cron task, and the module will flick through the abandoned carts and send email notifications automatically.
• Provides an opportunity for admin to set the time period between the abandonment and the reminder along with a number of reminder emails.
• Allows customers to recover their shopping cart content with a single click. Your customers will not need to add items to the bag from scratch.
• Works both with registered and anonymous customers.
• Automatically logs in registered customers.
• Automatically populates address fields for anonymous customers.
• Works with product options and variants.

System requirements

To be able to successfully install and use the Abandoned Cart Reminder module, you must have a working copy of X-Cart GOLD or GOLD PLUS version 4.5.3 or later installed on your server. Make sure that the version of the module is the same as the version of the installed copy of X-Cart.

Note: If you do not remember the version of installed X-Cart, find it in the Environment info section of the Summary page in X-Cart Admin area.

Installation

To install the module for X-Cart 4.5.3 or higher:

1. Obtain a distribution package for the Abandoned Cart Reminder add-on module by downloading it from the File Area section of your X-Cart Account. The distribution package you need is contained in the archive file x-abandoned-cart-reminder-x.y.z.tgz where x, y and z are the version numbers of the module. Make sure the version of the module is the same as the version of the installed X-Cart.
2. Copy the distribution package to the X-Cart root directory on your server or hosting account.
   • If you are using a Windows-based server, or a UNIX-based server without terminal access:

   a) Decompress the archive with the Abandoned Cart Reminder distribution package to a directory on your system using your favorite compression program (WinZIP or any other archiver with support for TAR files).

   b) Use an FTP client to upload all the files contained in the archive (retaining the directory structure) to the X-Cart root directory on your server or your hosting account.

   • If you are using a UNIX-based server with terminal access:

   a) Use an FTP client to upload the archive with the distribution package to the X-Cart root directory on your server or your hosting account.

   b) Decompress the package using the following command:

   tar -xzvf x-abandoned-cart-reminder-x.y.z.tgz

   Important: Make sure you keep the directory structure while unpacking and uploading the distribution package, otherwise some necessary files can be overwritten!

3. In a web browser, run the installation script httр://<YOUR_XCART_DOMAIN>/install-x-abandoned-cart-reminder.php replacing the variable <YOUR_XCART_DOMAIN> with the actual domain name of your X-Cart store.
4. Enter the Auth code, accept the License Agreement and click Next.
5. The installation script patches the files and activates the module. Click Next to continue the installation.
   
   Note: if you are using custom skin, you will need to manually apply the patches to it. Otherwise, the module will not work in this skin.
6. The installation script generates a new system fingerprint. Click Next to complete the installation.
7. Use the ADMINISTRATOR AREA link to log in to the Admin area.
   
   

Enabling the Abandoned Cart Reminder add-on module

After the Abandoned Cart Reminder add-on module installation has been completed, the module you have installed needs to be enabled in your store:

1. In Admin area, go to the Modules section (Settings menu->Modules).
2. Choose the Abandoned Cart Reminder module by selecting the respective check box on the left.
3. Click the Apply changes button. This activates the module.
   
   

Configuring the Abandoned Cart Reminder add-on module

After the Abandoned Cart Reminder add-on module has been enabled in your store, you should check and adjust its configuration:

1. In the Modules section (Settings menu->Modules), click the Configure link opposite the module name ('Abandoned Cart Reminder').
   The module configuration page (titled by the name of the module) opens.
2. Adjust the settings on the module configuration page. Detailed information regarding the Abandoned Cart Reminder add-on module configuration settings is available below.
3. Click the Apply changes button to save the changes.

Abandoned Cart Reminder add-on module configuration settings

Here is an explanation of the Abandoned Cart Reminder add-on module configuration settings:

• Handle sending out notifications manually or automatically? The mode in which you would like abandoned cart reminder email notifications to be sent.
  Manually corresponds to the mode in which abandoned cart notifications are not sent until you specifically instruct the module to send them. In this mode you yourself decide which users should be notified, when the notifications should be sent, with or without a coupon, etc.
  Automatically corresponds to the mode in which sending of abandoned cart notifications is initiated by a cron job. In this mode the number of times that a notification message should be sent, the time of sending the initial and subsequent notifications, whether the notification should include a discount coupon or not, etc are defined based on the add-on module configuration settings. Note that, if you choose the automated mode, you will need to make sure that the script for periodic tasks is properly set up in your store (See: X-Cart:Cron.php - Script for Periodic Tasks).

The following settings affect the work of the module only if the module is working in the automated mode:

• After how many days customer should be notified of abandoned cart: The number of days to wait after cart abandonment before sending an abandoned cart reminder notification to the cart owner.
  
  Note: For stores sending multiple abandoned cart notifications about each abandoned cart this reflects the number of days before the first notification is sent.
• How many notifications should be sent: The number of reminder notifications that should be sent about each abandoned cart. The recommended value is 1. If you wish to notify the users about each abandoned cart more than once, you can specify a greater value here.
  
  Note: Although it is possible to send multiple notifications, it is not recommended to do so, because customers may be annoyed by too many notifications and even mark them as spam.
• Delay between notifications (in days): (This needs to be specified if you are going to send more than one notification about each abandoned cart.) The length of period between reminder notifications being sent to the same user about a specific abandoned cart. Note that setting this value to "0" (zero) will result in that each user will be notified only once.
  
  Example:
  If you use the following configuration:
  
  abandoned cart owners will receive a reminder notification on the 7th, 10th and 13th days after their abandoned cart has been registered by the module.
  
  
• Type of discount coupon that should be attached to notifications: If you want to offer a discount to the users whom you notify about an abandoned cart, you can specify what type of coupon it should be. Choose one of the following options:
  None -- no coupon will be attached to the notification;
  $ off -- a “flat amount off“ coupon will be attached to the notification;
  % off -- a “percentage amount off” coupon will be attached to the notification.
  
  
• Discount coupon value: This setting is related to the previous one; it allows you to specify the value of the discount given by the coupon.
  Two examples below will clarify how it works.
  
  Example 1.
  If you use the configuration below:
  
  the coupon attached to the notification will give the user a 20$ discount off the purchase.
  
  Example 2.
  If you use the following configuration:
  
  the coupon attached to the notification will give the user a 10% discount.
  
  
• Period of abandoned cart expiration (Number of days after which email notifications to customer will no longer be sent and the coupon associated with the abandoned cart will become invalid): This setting defines when an abandoned cart as well as all the coupons associated with it should be deleted from the system.
  
  

Managing Abandoned Carts

You can review the abandoned carts registered by the module on the Orders->Abandoned Carts page in your store's Admin area:

Each record displays information about an abandoned cart:

• Email: Email address specified by the abandoned cart owner.
• Login: User login of the abandoned cart owner - if the abandoned cart owner is a registered customer.
• Products: Shopping cart content including selected options.
• Subtotal: Total price of all the products in the shopping cart.
• Coupon: Coupon code (if any is applied).
• Date: When the abandoned cart was last updated by the customer.
• Is notified? Whether the abandoned cart owner was notified, how many times and when the last notification was sent.

What you can do using the controls of the Orders->Abandoned Carts page:

• Search for abandoned carts
  You can search for abandoned carts:

a) by date (Specify the start and end dates of the period when the abandoned cart was registered by the module);

b) by customer login or email address that were used by the cart owner.

• Notify cart owners about their abandoned cart
  You can notify the users who did not complete their orders about the carts they abandoned:

1. Specify the carts whose owners you want to notify by selecting the check boxes on the left-hand side in the abandoned carts list.
2. Click the Send notifications to selected cart owners button at the bottom of the page.

If you want to attach a discount coupon to the abandoned cart reminder notifications:

1. Select the Attach coupon option near the Send notifications to selected cart owners button.
2. Specify the coupon parameters below:
   :

• Create an order based on a specific abandoned cart
  Sometimes a user may abandon their shopping cart because of some technical issue that prevented them from completing the purchase. If this happens, you can offer the user to create the order for them based on the contents of their abandoned cart:

1. In the abandoned carts list, click the Create order button in the record that represents the abandoned cart for which you need to create an order. This opens a page where you will be able to create the new order.
2. Provide the required information about the order:

• Customer info;
• Order’s total.

• Delete abandoned carts
  You can delete the abandoned carts you no longer need:

1. Specify the carts you want to delete by selecting the check boxes on the left-hand side in the abandoned carts list.
2. Click the Delete selected button at the bottom of the page.

Setting up the module to work automatically

To set up the module to work automatically:

1. Go to the module’s configuration settings and set the option Handle sending out notifications manually or automatically? to Automatically.
2. Adjust the rest of the configuration settings on the page:
   • how many notifications should be sent and when,
   • coupon parameters,
   • when to consider an abandoned cart expired.
3. Save the changes.
4. Make sure that periodical tasks are correctly set up in your store according to the following article: X-Cart:Cron.php - Script for Periodic Tasks

Abandoned Cart Reminder will add two more jobs to existing periodic tasks in your store:

1. Sending notifications to abandoned carts.
2. Deleting expired abandoned carts.

Customizing the email notification messages sent by the module

By default the messages sent to your customers look as follows:

Notification without a coupon:

Notification with a coupon:

You can change the way these messages appear to your customers by adjusting the following Smarty templates:

• skin/common_files/mail/abandoned_cart_notification.tpl (plain version of the notification)
• skin/common_files/mail/abandoned_cart_notification_subj.tpl (header of the notification)
• skin/common_files/mail/html/abandoned_cart_notification.tpl (HTML version of the notification)

In addition to that you may want to change the following language variables:

• eml_abcr_notification_message
• eml_abcr_notification_without_coupon_message
• eml_abcr_visit_us

Viewing your shopping cart recovery statistics

Information on the number of orders that have been recovered using the Abandoned Cart Reminder module is available via the Cart recovery statistics page (Orders->Cart recovery statistics):