There are several common practices online retailers use to grow their email lists. Offering  first time visitors a coupon is probably the most effective one and it can also create a nice conversion lift for this particular segment.

Yesterday, I came across a less common practice which could be also very effective.  The merchant added an “email cart” button on the shopping cart page.

email my shopping cart

Most shoppers who abandon the shopping cart do not even start the checkout process and by using the “email my cart” value proposition, you can grow your email list, but even more importantly you get a chance to remarket to these shoppers .