We know how it works: You load up a cart, get cold feet, and close the tab, and within hours, sometimes minutes, your inbox fills up with a subject line that feels almost personal. Did you forget something? You didn’t forget, but now it turns out that waiting is worth money.
New research from web data company Decodo, which tracked more than 1,500 products across 120 retailers in over 40 countries throughout 2025, found that cart abandonment discounts follow highly predictable patterns by retail category, and that shoppers who understand those patterns can use them to their advantage.
But the catch is that the same algorithm designed to win you back can also work against you, depending on how you’ve been browsing.
“You can both win and lose,” Decodo Senior Product Marketing Manager Gabriele Vitke told Fortune. “It really depends on the category you’re shopping in.”
If you’re buying fast fashion or beauty, don’t wait long
For fast fashion retailers, the first discount typically lands within four to twelve hours of abandonment. Beauty brands follow within about 24 hours, often bundling a sample with the offer. Both categories peak early—Vitke says the window is roughly 48 hours—after which the discount either disappears or stops deepening. If you’re eyeing a dress or a serum, a brief pause is worth it, but not a long one.
The decision-making process for big home purchases is longer however. Direct-to-consumer brands in the furniture and mattress space tend to escalate their offers gradually, with the deepest discount often arriving in the third or fourth email—sometimes a week or two out. “The offer might come along a bit later,” Vitke says, “since it normally takes someone longer to pick a sofa rather than a t-shirt.” Waiting here isn’t indecision. It’s leverage.
If you’re booking travel, you have about 15 minutes
Travel is the exception to almost every other rule. Decodo’s data found discounts arriving as fast as 15 minutes after abandonment, with most offers expiring within 24 to 72 hours. Perishable inventory—seats, rooms, departure windows—means the algorithm isn’t waiting around.
Luxury retailers almost never discount in response to cart abandonment. The data shows reminder emails, occasionally free shipping, and that’s about it. If you’re holding out for a percentage-off code on a designer bag, the seasonal sale is a better bet than your inbox.
Here’s where it gets counterintuitive. The algorithm isn’t just tracking whether you abandoned your cart, it’s tracking how badly it thinks you want the item. If you’ve searched the same product or category repeatedly, the retailer reads that as urgency, which can actually delay or suppress the discount.
Fighting against dynamic pricing
The workaround is behavioral: browse in incognito, but don’t log in until you’re ready to purchase. And if you’ve been stalking something for weeks on your regular account, consider starting fresh. “Different device, different account,” Vitke says. The reason: logging back in after an incognito session sends all your behavioral data back to the retailer anyway, collapsing the clean slate you thought you’d created.
This dynamic in which your own browsing history becomes a liability is part of a broader shift in how retailers use data to set prices. Device type, scroll behavior, purchase history, even how often you return to a product page all feed into what price you’re shown and when a discount is triggered. It’s the same logic behind what the FTC has called “surveillance pricing,” or the practice of using personal data, including location, browsing history, and device information, to set individualized prices.
The same practice has drawn scrutiny in sports ticketing and ride-hailing, where consumers have found that the data profile attached to their account and not just market demand can meaningfully change what they pay.
“I wouldn’t write off dynamic pricing as just manipulative,” Vitke says. “You can genuinely save money, but you have to know what you’re doing.”
Decodo tracked more than 1,500 products across 120 retailers in over 40 countries throughout 2025 for its Dynamic Pricing Index.
