The Complete Guide to Abandoned Cart Recovery with Cash on Delivery (COD) Orders

Recovering abandoned carts is one of the highest-leverage opportunities in e-commerce. When customers start filling out a checkout form but leave before completing their order, they have already shown strong purchase intent. A well-timed follow-up can convert a significant share of those lost sessions into completed sales.

With Cash on Delivery (COD), the abandoned cart process works differently from standard Shopify checkouts. This guide covers how abandoned orders are managed within the Releasit COD Form & Upsells app, where to find them in Shopify, and the most effective strategies for recovering them.

What Is an Abandoned Cart?

An abandoned cart happens when a customer starts the checkout process but leaves before finalizing their purchase. Common reasons for abandonment include:

• Hesitation about price or shipping costs.
• Distractions such as closing the browser or getting interrupted mid-process.
• A checkout process that feels complicated or unclear.
• Concerns about the payment method or delivery process.

Tracking abandoned carts is important because customers who start a checkout process have already shown strong purchase intent. A timely, well-structured follow-up can convert many of them into completed sales.

How Abandoned Orders Work with the Releasit COD Form

Draft Orders Instead of Standard Abandoned Checkouts

When customers abandon a COD form, Shopify does not allow third-party apps like Releasit to create official abandoned checkouts. Instead, the app saves these abandoned orders as Draft Orders in your Shopify Admin.

Each draft order created by Releasit includes a specific tag:

Tag: abandoned_checkout_releasit_cod_form

This tag makes it easy to identify and manage COD-related abandoned orders separately from other draft orders in your admin.

Requirements for Abandoned Order Creation

A draft order is only created if the customer has entered either a valid email address or a valid phone number. This ensures you have contact information available for follow-up before a draft order is saved.

Where to Find Abandoned Draft Orders

To locate abandoned COD orders in Shopify:

• Open your Shopify Admin.
• Go to the Orders section.
• Click on Draft Orders.
• Look for orders tagged with abandoned_checkout_releasit_cod_form.

You will see any customers who started filling out the COD form but did not complete their order.

Enabling Abandoned Order Tracking in the App

Enabling tracking is straightforward:

• Open the Releasit app.
• Navigate to Sales Booster > Abandoned Cart.
• Enable the Abandoned Orders option.

Once enabled, the app will automatically create draft orders whenever a customer abandons a form, provided they left valid contact information.

How to Recover Abandoned COD Orders

1. Call the Customer (Most Effective Method)

• Go to Shopify Admin > Orders > Draft Orders.
• Locate the abandoned order and retrieve the customer's phone number.
• Call to confirm their interest in completing the order.
• If they agree, convert the draft order into a completed Shopify order manually.

Why it works: A personal phone call builds trust and directly addresses any concerns or hesitation the customer may have had at checkout.

2. Automated SMS Reminders

If phone calls aren't practical at scale, Releasit allows you to send automated SMS reminders:

• Open the Releasit app > Sales Booster > Abandoned Cart.
• Enable the SMS Automation feature.
• Customize your SMS message and set the send timing.

Why it works: SMS messages have high open and response rates, giving you a fast, scalable channel to recover sales without requiring a manual call for every abandoned order.

3. Email Recovery Automation (Using Klaviyo or Omnisend)

You can integrate email marketing platforms to automate abandoned cart recovery emails:

• Klaviyo Integration: Connect Klaviyo using your API key. Create an automated "Abandoned Order" email flow triggered by Releasit abandoned events.
• Omnisend Integration: Similarly, Omnisend can be connected to trigger abandoned order recovery workflows automatically.

In both cases, you set up emails that automatically include a recovery link ({{ event.recovery_url }}) that brings the customer back to complete their checkout.

Why it works: Email marketing is effective for brand reinforcement and nurturing customers who need more time before making a decision.

Best Practices for Abandoned Order Recovery

Pro Tip: Using a combination of phone, SMS, and email can significantly increase your recovery rate. Each channel reaches a different segment of your abandoned customers, and the combination covers buyers at different stages of decision-making.

How Long It Takes for an Abandoned Order to Be Created

When a customer abandons a COD form, the system waits 15 minutes after the customer leaves the checkout. If they entered valid contact information, a Draft Order is created automatically at that point.

Common ways customers abandon checkout:

• Closing the browser tab.
• Navigating away to another app or website.
• Locking or turning off their device.

Want to Automate Recovery Even Further?

Releasit's integrations make it straightforward to build stronger recovery workflows:

• Klaviyo: Automate abandoned cart emails with full customization of content, timing, and segmentation.
• Omnisend: Set up sophisticated email marketing automation with recovery links and multi-step sequences.
• SMS Reminders: Enable fast, high-response reminders directly from the Releasit app without any third-party integration required.

Watch a 60-second tutorial on setting up SMS recovery

Conclusion

Recovering abandoned carts is one of the easiest ways to boost your sales without acquiring new customers. By understanding how Releasit handles abandoned COD orders and implementing a follow-up strategy with calls, SMS, or email, you can recover more orders and grow your business with minimal incremental effort.

If you need help setting up abandoned cart recovery, don't hesitate to contact Releasit support. We're here to help.

Related Reading

• 5 Cash on Delivery Mistakes That Are Costing Your Shopify Store Sales - common COD errors that increase returns and reduce delivery rates, with practical fixes.
• Cut COD RTO: Address Validation, Reminders & Courier Rules That Work - practical tactics to reduce returns-to-origin and refusals at the door when scaling COD.
• Partial Payments for Cash on Delivery - how to use partial prepayments to reduce abandonment risk and filter low-intent COD orders at the source.
• Reduce Your COD Costs: How Shopify Sellers Save on Hidden Fees in 2025 - how top Shopify merchants control RTO charges, fake orders, and fulfillment overhead.
• What 100K Merchants Taught Us About Selling Cash on Delivery - operational lessons from 100,000 merchants across different markets, industries, and order volumes.
• Cash on Delivery on Shopify: All You Need to Know - foundational guide to how COD works on Shopify before building out your recovery workflows.

FAQs

1. Why doesn't Shopify create a standard abandoned checkout for COD orders?
Shopify's native abandoned checkout feature is only available for its own checkout flow. Since Releasit replaces the standard Shopify checkout with a custom COD form, the app saves abandoned orders as Draft Orders instead, tagged for easy identification and follow-up.

2. What information does a customer need to provide for an abandoned draft order to be created?
The customer must have entered either a valid email address or a valid phone number before abandoning the form. Without contact information, there is no way to follow up and no draft order is created.

3. How quickly should I follow up with an abandoned COD order?
The draft order is created 15 minutes after the customer leaves. For best results, follow up within 1 to 2 hours. The sooner the outreach, the higher the likelihood the customer still remembers the product and is open to completing the order.

4. Which recovery method has the highest success rate for COD orders?
Phone calls consistently show the highest conversion rate because they address concerns directly and build trust in real time. For stores with high order volumes, automated SMS combined with email follow-up provides strong results at scale without requiring a manual call for every abandoned order.