Operate > IBM Management Center for WebSphere Commerce > Marketing tool > Work with Web and Dialog activities > Activity building blocks: triggers, targets, and actions > Triggers in marketing activities


Trigger: Customer Abandons Shopping Cart

Use this trigger in a Dialog activity to begin or continue the activity for customers who have abandoned their shopping cart for a specified number of days.

Customers abandon a shopping cart if they add one or more items to the cart but they do not check out during the visit, and then time passes. Use this trigger to identify those customers so that you can offer them incentives to come back to the store and complete their purchase.

Once a day, this trigger checks for customers who have abandoned their cart for the number of days you specify. You can then automate follow-up marketing actions for these customers, such as sending an e-mail or text message, or issuing a coupon. You can set the trigger to run every day or one time only.


Example

Here is an example of a simple Dialog activity that uses this trigger to automatically check every day for abandoned carts and then send the cart owner an e-mail message:

Check daily for customers who have abandoned a shopping cart for 3 days; then send those customers an e-mail message to remind them of their recent shopping visit and the items they were interested in.

The Dialog activity looks like this:

Here is another example. This time, the trigger checks one time only (not daily) for customers with abandoned carts; the activity runs on that day only. Note that the example activity also contains the Shopping Cart target so that only customers with high-value carts receive an e-mail and coupon.

Check for all customers who have abandoned a shopping cart for at least 3 days but not more than 30 days. If the abandoned cart has a total value of at least $200, then:

The Dialog activity looks like this:


Prerequisite for using this trigger

Make sure the site is configured to support the Management Center marketing features.


Guidelines for using this trigger

When setting up this trigger, specify:

  1. The Frequency of check for abandoned carts setting. Options are:

    • Daily: Use this option for an ongoing campaign to follow up with customers who have abandoned their cart. Each day that the activity is active, the server will check for customers with carts abandoned for exactly the number of days you specify. As a result, the activity is triggered daily for any customers whose abandoned carts meet the criteria. Typically, this is a different set of customers each day.

    • One time only: Use this option for a one-time dialog with customers who currently have an abandoned cart. On the first day that the activity is active, the server will check for customers with carts abandoned within a minimum and maximum range of days you specify. As a result, the activity is triggered only one time for any customers whose abandoned carts meet the criteria. The server does not perform the check again.

      By default, the server performs the check at 2:00 a.m., but a Site Administrator can change the time.

  2. The number of days that the customer has abandoned the cart. If you choose the One time only frequency option, specify a range of days.


Considerations if you are using this trigger to send e-mails

If you are using this trigger to send e-mails with the Send Message action, you have two options for specifying when the server sends the e-mails on the days the activity runs. You control these options by selecting or clearing the Send immediately check box in the properties for the Send Message action.


Related concepts

Activity building blocks: triggers, targets, and actions

Triggers in marketing activities


Related tasks

Create a Dialog activity


+

Search Tips   |   Advanced Search