Good summary in the opening post — those basics genuinely cover most of it. A few things I'd add from the analytics side:
1. Check your mobile checkout first. Most UK small-business sites now see the majority of traffic on phones, and a checkout that feels fine on desktop can be miserable on a small screen. If you do one thing, add express payment buttons (Apple Pay / Google Pay) at the top of the checkout — they skip form-filling entirely and can make a noticeable dent on their own.
2. Timing matters more than discounts for recovery emails. The first reminder should go out within the hour, while purchase intent is still warm, then a second around 24 hours later. Save any discount for the last email in the sequence, if you use one at all — leading with a discount trains customers to abandon on purpose. And one compliance note: marketing texts and emails need proper consent under UK GDPR/PECR rules, so make sure opt-ins are in place before you automate these.
3. Don't treat every abandoned basket equally. A high-value basket might justify a personal follow-up or a small incentive; discounting low-margin baskets can cost more than the sale is worth. Segmenting by basket value keeps recovery profitable.
4. Add trust signals right at the checkout step: clear returns policy, delivery timeframes, and a couple of genuine reviews near the payment button. A surprising amount of abandonment is just last-minute anxiety.
One metric to watch: the percentage of abandoned baskets you actually recover. If that number isn't moving after your changes, something else is the bottleneck — usually worth watching a few session recordings of real checkouts to see exactly where people stall.
