Managing recent carts on Shopify POS

If a customer needs to leave before completing their purchase but wants to come back, then you can save their cart on Shopify POS and complete the sale later. Saving a cart lets you continue with other orders without losing the details of the current cart. You can also share a recent cart with staff members on different POS devices in the same store, so anyone can retrieve it when the customer returns.

You can save and share carts for orders, returns, and exchanges.

Considerations for managing recent carts on Shopify POS

Before you save and share carts on Shopify POS, review the following considerations for viewing, saving, and checking out recent carts.

Viewing and saving carts

Review the following considerations for viewing and saving carts on Shopify POS:

• You can't view a recent cart in the following situations:
  • The cart was checked out on another device.
  • The cart was deleted on another device.
  • The cart was saved as a draft order on another device.
  • The POS device is offline.
• You can't save a cart when the POS device is offline.
• If you open a draft order while items are in the Shopify POS cart, then the current cart is saved and can be resumed later.

Checking out carts

Review the following considerations for what happens when you check out a recent cart:

• When a cart is checked out, the final staff and location attribution apply to the cart. Previously saved line-item staff attribution is preserved. The creator and last updater are tracked separately.
• A recent cart is automatically deleted after a successful checkout.

Limitations for managing recent carts on Shopify POS

Review the following limitations for managing recent carts on Shopify POS:

• Recent carts don't reserve inventory. Only draft orders reserve inventory.
• Real-time collaborative editing of the same cart isn't supported.
• Cross-location sharing isn't supported.

Move a cart to the recent cart list on Shopify POS

Shopify POS automatically saves the current cart in the background. To start a new cart and keep the current cart available in the recent cart list, clear the current cart.

Steps:

1. From Shopify POS, add items to the cart.
2. Tap the icon.

The current cart is moved to the recent cart list under the Cart header and can be viewed on other POS devices.

Example of cart sharing workflow on Shopify POS

Staff can share saved Shopify POS carts across POS devices in the same store.

For example, Ryan starts helping Pamela on Device 1 and adds items to the cart. Ryan needs to step away, so he saves Pamela's cart and asks Helen to continue helping her.

Helen opens the recent cart on Device 2 and adds a pair of socks. Pamela wants to keep browsing, so Helen leaves the cart open on Device 2 and helps another customer.

When Pamela is ready to check out, she returns to Ryan at Device 1. Ryan opens the latest saved version of Pamela's cart. Pamela decides not to buy the socks, so Ryan removes them from the cart.

Because Ryan still has the cart open on Device 1, Helen’s changes create a separate copy of Ryan’s open cart on Device 2. Helen can then complete the checkout without changing Ryan’s open cart.

View recent carts on Shopify POS

You can view recent carts on Shopify POS. You can also filter recent carts by the staff member who created them.

Steps:

1. From Shopify POS, tap Cart.
2. Tap the staff dropdown menu, and then take one of the following actions:

• To view recent carts for a specific staff member, tap the staff member's name.
• To view a list of recent carts for all staff in the store, tap All staff.

Rename recent carts on Shopify POS

By default, a recent cart is named by the customer name. If the customer name isn't available, then the recent cart is named by the products in the cart. You can manually rename recent carts.

Steps:

1. From Shopify POS, tap Cart.
2. Tap the staff dropdown menu, and then take one of the following actions:

• To view recent carts for a specific staff member, tap the staff member's name.
• To view a list of recent carts for all staff in the store, tap All staff.

3. Tap the recent cart that you want to rename, and then tap Rename.
4. Enter the new name.

Delete a recent cart on Shopify POS

You can delete a recent cart that you no longer need.

Steps:

1. From Shopify POS, tap Cart.
2. Tap the staff dropdown menu, and then take one of the following actions:

• To view recent carts for a specific staff member, tap the staff member's name.
• To view a list of recent carts for all staff in the store, tap All staff.

3. Take one of the following steps:
   • Swipe the recent cart to the left.
   • Tap the recent cart, and then tap Delete.

Change the timeframe a recent cart remains available in Shopify POS

By default, a recent cart automatically deletes after 24 hours. You can change the amount of time that a recent cart remains available on Shopify POS.

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Point of Sale > Settings.

2. In the Register section, click Recent carts.

3. Click the Delete after dropdown menu, and then select how long you want recent carts to remain before they're automatically deleted.