AbandonedCarts FAQ

How does the module track the AbandonedCarts?

This is one of the most frequently asked question from you guys. Here's how it works: When a customer adds a product to the shopping cart, the module assumes that the given customer will abandon the cart and creates a record for it.

After that, if the customer adds another product or continues browsing your site, the record keeps refreshing the data according to the customer's actions. The record gets removed after he or she places an order or if you remove the record yourself.

This method guarantees that you know exactly how much time the customer has spent on your site, what was the last page that he visited, the products that he or she had on his cart, etc.

Feel free to test that behavior on the demo page, which you can access from here.

How to change the email template?

Changing the template is actually quite straightforward. You do not have to edit files or anything like that. You just have to open the module's administration and click on the Mail template tab. You can change everything. From here you can set if the customers should get a discount or not and how much the discount should be.

You can also set the dimensions for the product images in the email. Last, but not least, you can use the full featured CKEditor (or Summernote in OpenCart 2.0.x) to add your special signature to the template and style it the way you want.

All in all, one of the key points of AbandonedCarts is the versatility it provides - from highly customizable emails to the bulletproof detection mechanism. Add multi-store and multilingual support.

Note: The store owners running OpenCart 1.5.x can use only one email template, however, the ones using OpenCart 2.0.x can benefit from using multiple templates for different occasions.

Is there a way for me to track the coupons that were sent by the module?

In short - yes. AbandonedCarts is using the default OpenCart functionality for coupons so you can track the usage directly from the integrated reports for the coupons. However, we made this easier for you and set up two views in the module admin, called Sent Coupons and Used Coupons.

As you can guess from the names, you can see the sent and the used coupons from the module along with information on who used them and the amount of the discount (if any).

What does (not provided) mean in the abandoned carts records?

Now that you know the mechanism of how one abandoned cart record is created, this question becomes easier to take on. If a customer is logged in and registered in your store, the information about his/hers name, email and phone will appear automatically in the records. However, if the customer is actually a guest, there is no way to get that data and this is why sometimes you may see (not provided) in the fields described above. Fortunately, we have a workaround for this. If the guest customers type their data in the checkout process, the module will save them in the record so you will be able to see their name, email and phone number.

Currently our module works with the default checkout module and with a couple of third-party modules, which are:

My emails are not being delivered. Why is that?

You should be careful with content of emails, because most servers run spam filters that may filter your messages from being delivered. You can find more information about best practices in writing emails here: http://mailchimp.com/resources/guides/email-marketing-field-guide/

What is a CRON?

AbandonedCarts comes with CRON job management functionality. This functionality allows scheduling commands on your server to complete repetitive tasks automatically. The CRON daemon is a long running process that executes commands at specific dates and times.

By clicking on the button "Test CRON support", you can check if your server supports CRON commands. If you have other running CRON jobs and the service is enabled, you should be able to see them in the "Current CRON jobs" list, which is displayed in the newly opened popup.

How to set up a CRON job?

Once you pressed the test CRON button and got the results you will get information for the status of the needed PHP functions and file permissions on the server. You just have to set up the settings below and click on the "Save Changes" button. The page will refresh and you should be able to see the CRON job under the "Current CRON jobs" list, which is displayed in the "Test CRON support" popup.

When you save changes, click again [Test CRON Support] button you will see rows similar to these at the bottom:

22 11 * /usr/local/bin/php /home/abandone/public_html/oc2/vendors/abandonedcarts/sendReminder.php

These rows are your current CRON jobs created by AbandonedCarts.

NOTE: Keep in mind that you should have at least one active mail template in order for the module to be able to send emails to your customers.

I did setup a CRON job, but it did not appear? Why?

If your server does support CRON jobs, but after you set up one it does not show up in the "Current CRON jobs" list, this means that the automatic creation of CRON commands is disabled from your hosting provider. In that case, you can use the following command string:

0 0 * /usr/local/bin/php /home/abandone/public_html/oc2/vendors/abandonedcarts/sendReminder.php (THE ACTUAL COMMAND FOR YOUR SERVER WILL BE AVAILABLE IN THE MODULE IN THE FAQ SECTION IN THE SCHEDULED TASKS TAB)

The script above will be executed every day at 00:00. You can change it depending on your preferences.

What should I do if my server does not support CRON jobs?

If your server does not support CRON jobs, you can try using services such as easycron.com, setcronjob.com or other alternatives.

In order to do that, you have to register in the selected service and use this URL for execution:

You should also enable the Scheduled Tasks feature above and set the Delay option in each template.

How can I setup the CRON to be executed more than once a day?

This means that you have noticed that you can currently set the CRON job to be executed only once a day. This is because in our experience, most of the customers are getting frustrated if they get an email more than once.

As you know, our templates are with a set Delay, which means that when the CRON is executing, it is checking for all orders which are matching the delay in the given template. With that said, if the CRON is executed more than once, that check will be executed also more than once, which will therefore result in sending emails more than once.

Still, if you still want to send emails more than once a day, you get around that quite easily. What you have to do is:

  • 5.1. Set the CRON command manually in your crontab, depending on how often you want it to be executed.

  • 5.2. Set just one email template with delay of 0 days.

  • 5.3. This is it! You are good to go!

As you can see, you can send emails more than once a day with no coding whatsoever. The only limitation would be that you will only have just one template that you can use.

What is message delay and how should I set it up?

You should also have in mind the Delay option. Here is more info about it:

  • OpenCart 1.5.x - The delay option is right under the Scheduled tasks option in the tab Control Panel and it is used to calculate how old are the cart records in the module. For example: If you set the delay to be 3 days and the cron job is running every day at 00:00 AM, the customers who have abandoned cart records will receive a message on the third day of the cron job execution. It is working on the principle "older than X days". This means that on the next day the customer will receive message again if the record is not removed (the customer placed an order or the record was removed by the script).

  • OpenCart 2.0.x. - Here it works a bit differently. The delay is separate for each mail template that you have. For example: If you have two mail templates, the first email with delay set to 3 days and the second email with delay set to 6 days, the customers will receive the first template on the third day after the abandonment and the second template on the sixth day (unless they made a purchase or the record is removed). Here the case is "exactly on X day".

I just finished setting up the abandoned cart extension and for some reason, I don't see any of the missing orders in the extension?

AbandoendCarts module does not track the missing orders, it tracks the abandoned carts. When an order goes in the missing order list, it does not mean that this was an abandoned cart. It means that this was an actual order, however, in the confirmation process, the order did not pass some of your required steps. This is actually where the difference comes from, the missing order functionality is tracking "orders", while Abandoned Carts is tracking abandoned "carts".