The Developer's Guide to GDPR-Compliant Cart Recovery

Cart Recovery & GDPR: A Survival Guide

Recovering lost revenue is great, but not if it costs you millions in GDPR fines. This guide covers how to implement abandoned cart recovery safely for EU customers.

The Core Principle: Consent

Under GDPR, you cannot send marketing emails without explicit consent. However, "transactional" emails have more leeway. Where does cart recovery fall?

The Grey Area

Cart recovery is often considered "Legitimate Interest" (Recital 47 GDPR) if:

1. There is an existing customer relationship
2. The user has inputted their email
3. The email is relevant to their action (leaving the cart)

Best Practices for Compliance

1. Explicit Opt-In at Checkout Add a checkbox: "Send me updates about my order and cart."

2. Double Opt-In For new users, send a confirmation email before the recovery sequence.

3. Easy Unsubscribe Every recovery email MUST have a one-click unsubscribe link.

4. Data Retention Policies Don't keep abandoned cart data forever. Retake automatically deletes PII after 30 days unless converted.

Technical Implementation

Using Retake's Privacy Features:

await retake.track({
  type: "checkout",
  email: "...",
  // Only recover if they accepted marketing
  marketingConsent: form.marketing_opt_in.checked 
});

Retake's Automatic Compliance

Retake handles the heavy lifting:

• Auto-suppression: We check your existing unsubscribes.
• Data Expiry: PII is scrubbed automatically.
• Right to be Forgotten: API endpoints to delete absolute user data.

sleep easy knowing your recovery is compliant. Read the Docs.