Your customer added something to their cart, got distracted, and left. Two days later they come back and the cart is empty. Maybe they cleared their cookies. Maybe they switched from phone to laptop. Either way, the products they chose are gone and they have to start from scratch.
Most stores treat an empty cart as the end of the journey. It’s actually the start of a second one.
The empty cart page is one of the most underused real estate on your entire site. Instead of showing a blank “your cart is empty” message and hoping the customer finds their way back, you can turn it into a recovery touchpoint that pulls them toward a second purchase. Here are 4 tweaks that do exactly that.
1. Replace the Generic Message With a Personalised Greeting
The default empty cart message on most platforms is “Your cart is currently empty.” That’s a statement of fact, not an invitation. Replace it with something that acknowledges the customer and gives them a direction:
“Looks like your cart got cleared. No worries, your recently viewed items are right below. Pick up where you left off.”
If you have access to the customer’s browsing history (most e-commerce platforms do this natively), show 3 to 5 products they looked at in the last 30 days right below the message. This is the single most effective tweak on this list because it removes the friction of finding those products again.
If you can’t track browsing history, show your best sellers or most viewed products instead. The goal is to give them something to click immediately, not make them navigate back to your catalogue.
2. Add a “Continue Shopping” Button That Goes Somewhere Specific
Most empty cart pages have a “Continue Shopping” button that links to the homepage. The homepage is the least useful page on your site for someone who was already in a buying mood. They were ready to check out. Sending them back to square one kills that momentum.
Instead, link that button to your best-selling collection or the category they were browsing. If you can detect the last category they visited, link there. If not, link to your top sellers or new arrivals.
The button text matters too. “Continue Shopping” is generic. Try:
- “Browse Our Best Sellers”
- “See What’s New This Week”
- “Back to [Category Name]”
Specific beats generic every time.
3. Show a Subtle Restock or New Arrival Alert
If a customer’s cart was cleared because an item went out of stock, the empty cart page should acknowledge that. A small banner above the empty cart message that says something like:
“One of your items sold out while you were shopping. Here are similar products that are in stock right now.”
Followed by 2 or 3 alternative products. This turns a negative moment (the item they wanted is gone) into a recovery moment (here’s something else you might like).
If nothing went out of stock and the cart just expired, use the space for a new arrival alert: “3 new products dropped this week. See what’s fresh.” This gives returning customers a reason to browse even if they weren’t planning to.
4. Add a One-Line Discount Code Field With a Time Limit
This one is controversial but effective. Add a small discount code field on the empty cart page with a message like:
“Use code COMEBACK10 for 10% off your next order. Expires in 24 hours.”
This only works if:
- The discount is small (5 to 10%, not 30%)
- The code is shown only on the empty cart page, not sitewide
- The expiry is real (the code actually stops working after 24 hours)
The goal isn’t to train customers to abandon their cart for a discount. It’s to give someone who was already coming back a small nudge to complete the purchase. If they were going to buy anyway, the discount seals it. If they weren’t, 10% off won’t change their mind and you haven’t lost much.
Track how many people use the code. If more than 15% of your orders start using COMEBACK10, you’ve overexposed it. Reduce the discount or shorten the window.
How to Implement These Tweaks
On Shopify, you can edit the cart template directly in your theme files. Look for cart-template.liquid or cart.liquid in the Sections folder. The empty cart state is usually wrapped in a conditional that checks cart.item_count == 0.
On WooCommerce, the empty cart template is in cart/cart-empty.php within your theme’s WooCommerce folder. You can override this in a child theme without touching core files.
For the recently viewed products section, most modern themes have this built in. If yours doesn’t, apps like Recently Viewed Products (Shopify) or YITH Recently Viewed Products (WooCommerce) add it with zero code.
For the discount code field, you don’t need a plugin. Just add the text and code to your empty cart template and set up the discount in your platform’s native discount engine with a usage limit and expiry date.
What Not to Do
Don’t show a popup. The customer is already on your site. They don’t need a popup to tell them their cart is empty. That’s annoying, not helpful.
Don’t show a giant “Your cart is empty!” graphic. It feels like the site is mocking them. A calm, helpful message works better than a loud one.
Don’t redirect them to the homepage automatically. Let them land on the empty cart page, see your helpful content, and choose where to go next. Auto-redirecting feels like you’re taking control away from them.
Don’t show 50 products. Three to five is enough. More than that and it becomes a catalogue page, not a recovery page. The goal is to make it easy to pick one thing and get back to checkout.
The Results You Should Expect
These tweaks won’t fix your entire abandoned cart problem. That needs email recovery sequences, SMS follow-ups, and retargeting. But they will improve the experience for customers who come back on their own, which is roughly 30 to 40% of all cart abandoners.
Stores that implement the recently viewed section alone see a 5 to 8% lift in recovery rate from returning visitors. Add the specific “Continue Shopping” link and the restock alert, and you’re looking at 10 to 15% more recovered carts from the same traffic.
The empty cart page is free real estate. Use it.
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