Cart-abandonment discounts vary sharply by what shoppers buy

Online shoppers who leave items in a digital cart may be triggering a pricing system that decides whether to send a discount, how soon to send it and how large the offer should be. New research from web data company Decodo suggests those offers follow patterns by retail category, giving consumers a way to time some purchases more carefully.

Decodo said it tracked more than 1,500 products across 120 retailers in more than 40 countries during 2025 for its Dynamic Pricing Index. The company found that cart-abandonment discounts are not random and that the timing differs widely across fast fashion, beauty, furniture, travel and luxury retail.

Fast fashion and beauty offers tend to come early

In fast fashion, Decodo found that the first discount often arrives within four to 12 hours after a shopper leaves a cart. Beauty brands tend to follow within about 24 hours, sometimes adding a sample to the offer, according to the research.

Gabriele Vitke, Decodo’s senior product marketing manager, told Fortune that both categories tend to peak within about 48 hours. After that, discounts may vanish or stop improving, meaning a short delay can help shoppers, while waiting too long may not.

Furniture and mattress sellers showed a slower pattern, according to Decodo. Direct-to-consumer brands in those categories tend to increase offers over a longer period, with the strongest discount often appearing in a third or fourth email, sometimes one or two weeks after the cart is abandoned.

Vitke told Fortune that larger home purchases usually involve a longer decision process than apparel. That gives retailers more reason to keep pursuing the shopper over time with escalating offers.

Travel moves faster, luxury often does not discount

Travel was an outlier in Decodo’s findings. The company found that discounts can appear as soon as 15 minutes after a shopper abandons a booking, and most of those offers expire within 24 to 72 hours.

The timing reflects the nature of travel inventory, according to Decodo’s analysis. Seats, hotel rooms and departure windows are perishable, so the pricing system has less incentive to wait before trying to convert a possible buyer.

Luxury retailers behaved differently. Decodo found that they rarely respond to abandoned carts with percentage discounts, instead sending reminders or occasional free-shipping offers. For shoppers waiting on a designer item, the research suggests seasonal sales are more likely to produce a price cut than cart-abandonment emails.

Browsing history can affect the deal

Decodo’s research also found that the same systems that send discounts can work against shoppers. Retailers may use repeat searches, return visits to product pages, device information, purchase history and other behavioral signals to judge how eager a customer is, according to Fortune’s report on the findings.

If a shopper repeatedly searches for the same product or category, Decodo said a retailer may interpret that behavior as urgency. Vitke told Fortune that can delay or reduce a discount rather than improve it.

Vitke said shoppers trying to limit that data trail can browse without logging in and wait to sign in until they are ready to buy. She also told Fortune that shoppers who have tracked an item for weeks on a regular account may need a different device or account to avoid linking the old behavior to the new session.

The practice fits into a broader debate over dynamic pricing and what the Federal Trade Commission has called “surveillance pricing,” according to Fortune. That term refers to the use of personal data, including location, browsing history and device information, to set individualized prices.

Vitke told Fortune she would not dismiss dynamic pricing as only manipulative, because shoppers can save money if they understand how the systems behave. Decodo’s findings point to a practical limit: the best tactic depends heavily on the category being purchased.

This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.