Basic Cart Question

[krittleb]

I am wondering how the cookies work with the shopping cart.

I would like it so that the shopping cart does not ever "flush". I know that customers can log-in to their accounts and then the cart will never flush, but I also would like it to not flush for anonymous shoppers/browers. Is there a way that we can modify the cart settings somewhere so that the cookie session never expires??

[krittleb]

Also, we just had another customer complain today that they never think to log-in when starting their order, and then when they go to check-out they have to log-in and their cart disappears unless they log back out. But, they can't check-out because if they use the same e-mail associated with their account, it says they have to log-in first, which, clears their cart.

I am hoping there is a work-around???

[rpb3]

On my sites, if the customer builds a cart "anonymously" and then logs in the cart is transferred to that user. Then if you log out, the cart is not retained for the anonymous user.

I tried it from the normal login link at the top of the page and from the OnePageCheckout login link. I tested it in 7.0.3 and 7.0.2, both functioned the same way.

Maybe this is just user error?

[jmestep]

On every site I've worked on, the cart gets transferred to the logged in user like rpb3 says. Have you customized things?

[AbleMods]

I would like it so that the shopping cart does not ever "flush". I know that customers can log-in to their accounts and then the cart will never flush, but I also would like it to not flush for anonymous shoppers/browers. Is there a way that we can modify the cart settings somewhere so that the cookie session never expires??

You can accomplish this by changing the anonymous days-to-save value in the Configure/Maintenance menu. Simply set the value to blank.

However this is not recommended. Your users, baskets and basketitems tables will grow uncontrollably. Eventually the site will see certain performance issues. If you're hosting in a shared hosting environment, you could wind up exceeding your alotted SQL storage space. Remember that it's not just visitors hitting your site - there are bots, spiders and other search-engine automation tools constantly scanning your content. These also create user accounts and sometimes basket items.

[roadkill]

We have the SAME problem. Has there been a solution to this...i get emails daily weekly of people putting things in the cart and when they try to log in with their CURRENT log in or if they forget the password and request it again, it clears the cart. It doesn't happen every time but often enough that we get multiple emails a week....

[jmestep]

There is/was a bug where the cart would clear like that if a customer switched to a logged in customer after they had stuff in the basket.
I can't remember if the fix came out in a patch, but the code is here:
viewtopic.php?f=42&t=13498

[roadkill]

Judy,

THANK YOU VERY, VERY MUCH!!!!! I lost a ton of $$$ b/c of this....I would get emails of people saying they spent an hour putting shirts in the cart and when they logged in, they were gone...that was a $75-$100 an email....for the past year and 1/2. it didn't happen all the time...but enough...