Recover abandoned Shopify checkouts with personalized Zvid videos

What this workflow does

This workflow turns one eligible abandoned Shopify checkout into a private, personalized vertical product video and recovery email. It is designed to recover revenue without messaging shoppers who already purchased or duplicating Shopify's own recovery messages.

End-to-end flow

1. Trigger: Run it manually for testing or every 15 minutes on schedule.
2. Find and lock one checkout: Use a safe fixture or query Shopify Admin GraphQL, then lock one eligible checkout so overlapping executions cannot process it twice.
3. Wait before outreach: Pause for the configured recovery delay (60 minutes by default; two seconds in fixture mode).
4. Recheck eligibility: Confirm there is no completed order or draft order, the abandonment is still current, inventory remains available, and Shopify has not already sent a recovery email.
5. Build the video: Map the shopper's first name, up to three product titles, images, prices, and cart total into a privacy-safe 1080x1920 Zvid project.
6. Validate before spending: Zvid validates the project for free. With dryRun: true, the workflow saves an editor draft and returns the exact credit quote without rendering an MP4.
7. Render: With dryRun: false, submit the official Zvid render, poll until it finishes, and collect the video URL.
8. Send the first recovery email: If sendEmail: true, send the Shopify recovery link and video URL through the configured SMTP credential.
9. Stop after conversion: If follow-up is enabled, wait again and query Shopify once more. A completed order ends the branch; otherwise one follow-up email is sent.
10. Record the result: Mark the checkout as handled and return an audit summary while excluding email, phone, and the private recovery URL.

Business benefit

Personalized video makes a recovery message more relevant by showing the exact products left behind. The conversion and duplicate guards reduce wasted renders, duplicate outreach, and poor customer experiences, while the dry-run path gives the team a review and credit-approval checkpoint before going live.

1. Install the official Zvid nodes

In n8n, open Settings → Community nodes and install @zvid/n8n-nodes-zvid. A workspace owner or admin may need to install it.

2. Connect Shopify

Create or update a Shopify Dev Dashboard app with read_orders, read_customers, and read_products. The installing user must also have Manage abandoned checkouts permission.

Copy the canonical *.myshopify.com domain from Shopify Admin → Settings → Domains. In Config.shopDomain, enter only its subdomain; do not use the /store/... Admin URL handle.

Exchange the app's Client ID and Client secret for an access token, then create an n8n Header Auth credential:

• Name: X-Shopify-Access-Token
• Value: the returned access_token

Assign it to Find open abandoned checkouts, Confirm no purchase and inventory, and Confirm before follow-up. The Client ID and Client secret are not the access token. Dev Dashboard access tokens expire after 24 hours, so refresh the n8n credential before later scheduled runs or use a secure token-refresh service.

3. Connect Zvid

Create a Zvid API key at app.zvid.io/api-keys. In n8n, create a Zvid API credential with the key and the default Base URL https://api.zvid.io. Assign it to all four official Zvid nodes: Validate project (free), Save draft to editor, Submit render, and Get render status.

4. Run the safe fixture test

Leave these Config values enabled for the first run:

{
  "manualFixture": true,
  "dryRun": true,
  "sendEmail": false,
  "testFixtureRecoveredBeforeFollowUp": true
}

The fixture uses fake contact data and the real example product Clay Pocket Oversized Tee, variant M, quantity 1, total $35. It creates an editor draft and credit quote but sends no email and renders no paid MP4.

5. Switch to live data carefully

1. Set manualFixture: false while keeping dryRun: true and sendEmail: false.
2. Run manually. No eligible checkout is a successful no-op.
3. Review the draft in editor.zvid.io and approve the quoted credits.
4. Set dryRun: false to enable paid rendering.
5. Add an n8n SMTP credential to both email nodes, set emailFrom to a verified sender, privately test delivery, and only then set sendEmail: true.

Configure SPF, DKIM, consent, quiet hours, and local recovery-message rules before activation. The Shopify reads use built-in HTTP Request nodes because n8n's Shopify node does not expose the abandoned-checkout objects and conversion/inventory fields required by this workflow; all supported Zvid operations use the official Zvid nodes.