With the rising popularity of online shopping, shoppers have come to expect that products they've added to their cart will be remembered when they log in using another device. Persistent Cart makes shopping convenient by automatically associating a shopper's cart to their customer account, allowing shoppers to retrieve their cart from any device.

Persistent Cart not only improves the customer experience by combining guest and customer carts and allowing customers to start or finish check out from multiple devices, but it also increases conversion rates by reducing cart abandonment.

 

How It Works

When a customer adds products to their cart, by default, it is saved in their browser’s cache for 7 days. This cart is only accessible from the same device and browser during that span.

By enabling Persistent Cart, customers logged into their storefront account can instead access their cart from any device and browser for 30 days. Carts created before logging in automatically convert to a Persistent Cart once logged in. If they had an existing Persistent Cart, the carts are merged, combining into a single saved cart. However, carts will not be merged when customers log into their account from the checkout page as cart updates are limited to cart and storefront pages.

The Abandoned Cart Saver works with Persistent Cart and, if enabled, will send customers email reminders of products left in their cart.

 

Requirements

 

Enabling Persistent Cart

Go to Settings › Checkout and enable the checkbox next to Persistent carts to allow customers to access items in their shopping cart across multiple devices.

Checkbox to enable Persistent cart setting

Save your changes to activate Persistent Cart on your storefront.

 

FAQ

How long will customer carts be saved when using Persistent Cart?

Persistent Carts expire after 30 days.

Will this feature work on a store using a Blueprint theme?

Yes. Persistent Cart will work with Stencil and Blueprint themes.

Will this feature work when a control panel user is logged in as a customer?

No, Persistent Cart only works when the customer is logged into their account through the storefront. It does not work when a store owner or user logs into a customer account from the control panel.

Will carts be combined when a shopper signs into their account during checkout?

No. In this particular scenario, previously saved items are not combined with the the current cart. This prevents the shopper from unknowingly purchasing more items than expected.

Do we present a message to shoppers when a cart has been combined?

Yes, we will automatically present a banner message, letting the shopper know that the cart has been updated.

Can I disable Persistent Cart?

You can disable Persistent Cart by navigating to Settings › Checkout, then disabling the checkbox next to Persistent carts. Make sure to save your changes.

I'm using the Abandoned Cart Saver feature on my store. Will customers receive an abandoned cart notification if they leave their cart on one device, but complete checkout on another?

Yes, if the customer does not check out before the abandoned cart email is triggered. See Using the Abandoned Cart Saver to learn how to adjust the frequency of these emails.

If more items are added to the cart after an email is generated, the cart link in the email will combine all the contents into a single cart.

The Abandoned Cart Saver will stop sending additional notifications after the shopper has checked out — no matter the device.

Does Persistent Cart work with Single Sign-on (SSO) providers that allow shoppers to log in through social identity (such as Google or Facebook) and enterprise identity providers?

SSO is currently not supported.

Does Persistent Cart work with the BigCommerce for WordPress plugin?

No, the BigCommerce for WordPress (BC4WP) plugin does not support Persistent Cart at this time.

Does Persistent Cart work with Customer Login APIs?

Customer Login APIs, such as SSO, JWT, and GraphQL are not supported.