Understanding Abandoned Cart Emails in the UK: Three Options and the Rules Behind Them

Abandoned cart emails are one of the most effective ways to recover revenue, yet they sit in a surprisingly nuanced regulatory space in the UK. Under UK privacy laws (specifically PECR), the rules you must follow depend heavily on why you are sending the email and what it contains.

Broadly, there are three categories of abandoned cart emails:

1. Pure Reminder (Service Message)
2. Promotional Reminder (Marketing, relying on soft opt in)
3. Marketing With No Soft Opt In (Consent required)

Understanding the differences helps ensure your customer experience remains smooth and compliant, while still making the most of a powerful conversion lever.

1. Pure Reminder

When it’s allowed

A pure reminder email is the cleanest and least risky option. This type of email simply notifies the customer that they left something behind.

Examples:

• “It looks like you didn’t finish your order.”
• “Your basket is still waiting.”

There is no promotional content:

• No discount
• No upsell
• No cross sell
• No marketing messaging

Why it’s allowed

Pure reminders are considered service messages, not marketing. They are part of helping a customer complete a transaction they initiated, which falls outside UK marketing rules.

Key advantage

✔ Can be sent without consent
✔ Always safe
✔ Permitted even if the customer opted out of marketing

This is your low friction default.

2. Promotional Abandoned Cart Email (Using the Soft Opt In)

This is the most commercially powerful option, but it’s also the most misunderstood.

A promotional abandoned cart email includes an incentive or marketing message relating to the item left in the cart.

Examples:

• “Complete your purchase and enjoy ten percent off.”
• “Here’s a limited time offer on the item you were looking at.”

Because this involves encouraging the sale rather than simply facilitating it, it is treated as direct marketing.

When you can send this without explicit marketing consent

Only if you qualify for the soft opt in, a UK specific provision under PECR.

To rely on soft opt in, all of the following must be true:

1. The customer provided their email during checkout, in the course of a sale or negotiation.
   This point is essential. It is not enough to collect an email during account creation or website registration.
   Soft opt in requires the email to be collected during the checkout process, when the customer is actually negotiating a sale.
2. You offered them a clear chance to opt out at the point of email collection.
   This must be visible during checkout.
3. They did not opt out.
4. Every email includes an unsubscribe link.
5. The message relates only to similar or identical products.
   An abandoned cart discount clearly qualifies.

Why registration doesn’t qualify

Many companies will authenticate a user before checkout and collect email and marketing preferences there. However, that means you won't be able to rely on soft opt in.

Soft opt in only applies when the email is collected while engaging in the buying process. If you collect marketing preference in the account creation step, then the customer will have de facto either opted-in or opted-out. Consider pushing back the opt-in into your checkout to avoid this scenario.

Key advantages

✔ Allows you to send a discount on the cart without explicit consent
✔ Legally recognised mechanism under UK PECR

Key risk

✘ If you haven’t collected the email during checkout with an opt out, you cannot use soft opt in.
✘ If the customer opts out at any time, you must stop all promotional messages.

3. Promotional Abandoned Cart Email Without Soft Opt In

If you want to send promotional abandoned cart emails but you didn’t collect the email during checkout with an opt out option, or the customer opted out previously, then soft opt in no longer applies.

In this case, promotional abandoned cart emails require:

Explicit marketing consent

This means the customer must have positively opted in to receive marketing communications.

If consent is not present, you cannot send:

• Discounts
• Offers
• Product recommendations
• Any promotional content

You can, however, still send the pure reminder from Option 1 because it is a service message rather than marketing.

Putting It All Together

Here’s the simplest way to think about the three options:

Option 1: Pure Reminder

No consent required
You can always send this.

Option 2: Promotional Reminder (Soft Opt In)

Allowed only if email was collected during checkout, opt out was offered, and the customer did not opt out.
Registration based opt in does not qualify.

Option 3: Promotional Reminder (No Soft Opt In)

Requires explicit marketing consent.
If you don’t have it, you cannot send promotional content.

How Limio Helps You Stay Compliant

Limio doesn’t send abandoned basket emails and it doesn’t decide whether soft opt in or marketing consent applies. Instead, Limio provides accurate, well timed basket and customer data so your marketing platform — such as Salesforce Marketing Cloud or Braze — can apply the rules correctly.

For subscriptions, the key moment is when the customer enters the checkout and provides their email as part of starting a subscription order. At that point, Limio attaches the customer’s details to the basket and updates the basket’s status depending on whether the subscription is completed or abandoned. This gives you everything you need to run the right type of abandoned basket campaign.

The compliance distinction then depends on where the email and consent were collected:

• If the customer entered their email during checkout, your marketing platform has the data needed to determine if soft opt in applies for promotional abandoned basket messages.
• If the email was collected earlier, for example during authentication or account creation, you will need to ensure your marketing tool excludes those baskets from promotional sends, because soft opt in does not apply in that scenario.

Limio’s Abandoned Basket API simply surfaces the baskets, subscription details and customer emails once the user reaches checkout. You control the downstream logic:
• who receives a pure reminder
• who qualifies for a promotional incentive
• who must be excluded based on consent

With the right segmentation in your marketing platform, you can run compliant abandoned basket journeys for subscription checkouts while relying on Limio for clean, structured data. Learn more how to run abandon basket campaigns with Limio here or contact us for a demo.

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