Leaving items in an online basket often produces an emailed discount within a day. The message is automated, and the size of the offer is calculated rather than standard.
What the retailer already has
An abandoned basket is a rare combination of identified customer, specific products and demonstrated intent, all captured before any purchase was made.
The identification comes from being signed in, from an email entered at checkout, or from a previous session linked to the same browser.
Because the products are known, the retailer can calculate the exact margin available on that basket and decide how much of it to give away.
Why the timing is what it is
The first message typically arrives within hours, while the intention is still current and before the customer has bought elsewhere.
A second follows a day or two later, and where a discount is offered it usually appears in this message rather than the first.
Sending the discount immediately would reward customers who were going to return anyway, so the delay separates them from those who genuinely left.
How the discount size is decided
Higher-margin baskets can support deeper reductions, so the offer varies by what was left rather than being a fixed proportion of the total.
Customer history matters as well, since a first-time visitor is worth acquiring while a regular buyer may need no incentive at all.
Some retailers deliberately send no discount to frequent abandoners, because a pattern of leaving baskets to trigger offers is straightforward to detect.
Why abandonment is so common
Many baskets are used as a shortlist rather than an intention to buy, particularly on mobile where saving items is easier than bookmarking them.
Genuine abandonment concentrates around delivery charges appearing late, forced account creation, and payment methods that are not offered.
Retailers address those causes directly, because fixing a checkout problem is cheaper than discounting every basket that the problem produced.
What the customer gives up
The email address entered before checkout is retained whether or not the order completes, and it becomes the basis for later marketing.
Consent rules governing that use vary by jurisdiction, and the distinction between a transactional message and a marketing one is where the rules usually turn.
The practical trade is a modest discount in exchange for a record that connects a person to a set of products and a demonstrated willingness to buy them.