Carts

Carts hold the products a customer intends to purchase. The platform supports both authenticated carts (linked to a user account) and guest carts (for visitors who have not signed in). From the admin panel you can browse all active carts, inspect their contents, and even modify items on behalf of a customer.

Browsing carts

Open Carts in the admin sidebar to see all active carts. The table displays the associated user (or "Guest" for anonymous carts), item count, and creation date.

Column	Description
User	Customer name and email, or Guest for anonymous carts
Items	Number of distinct products in the cart
Created At	Date the cart was first created

You can sort by clicking column headers and search by customer name or email using the search bar. Use the User filter to show all carts, only carts with a registered user, or only guest carts.

Tip: Guest carts cannot be searched by name or email since they have no associated user. Use the "Guest Only" filter to view them.

Viewing a cart

Click any row in the cart list to open the cart detail page. The page shows the cart information and a full item manager.

Cart information

Field	Description
User	Customer name and email, or "Guest" for anonymous carts
Created At	When the cart was first created
Updated At	When the cart was last modified

Cart items

The items section displays a table with each product's thumbnail, title (links to the product editor), unit price, quantity, and subtotal. A total is shown at the bottom.

Managing cart items

As an admin, you can modify a customer's cart directly from the detail page:

• Add a product — click the add button and search for a product to add to the cart
• Update quantity — use the quantity controls (+ / −) or type a number directly
• Remove an item — click the delete button on any item row

Click Save to persist your changes. Quantity must be at least 1 for every item.

How customers use the cart

Adding products

Customers add products to their cart from product pages using the Add to Basket button. Each click adds one unit. If the product is out of stock, the button changes to Out of Stock and is disabled.

When an item is added, a brief success indicator appears. If the customer tries to add more than the available stock, an error message is shown.

The cart page

Customers access their cart by clicking the cart icon in the navigation bar or by navigating to /cart.

The cart page displays all items with the following information:

Element	Description
Product image	Thumbnail of the product
Product title	Clickable link to the product page
Stock badge	Green "In Stock", amber "Only X left", or red "Unavailable"
Unit price	Price per item
Line total	Unit price multiplied by quantity
Quantity controls	Minus / Plus buttons to adjust quantity
Remove button	Removes the item from the cart

Stock badges:

• In Stock (green) — the item is available and the quantity is within stock limits
• Only X left (amber) — the customer has more units in the cart than are currently in stock
• Unavailable (red) — the product has been deactivated or is completely out of stock

Important: The plus button is disabled when the quantity reaches the available stock, preventing customers from adding more than what is available.

Order summary sidebar

The right side of the cart page shows a summary with:

• Item count
• Subtotal
• Shipping notice ("Calculated at checkout")
• Total
• Proceed to Checkout button
• A note about taxes and shipping being calculated at checkout
• A secure checkout trust badge

Empty cart

When the cart is empty, a friendly message is displayed with a Continue Shopping button that links back to the home page.

Guest carts

Visitors who are not signed in can still add products to a cart. The system creates a guest cart and stores its ID in the browser's local storage.

When a guest later signs in or creates an account, the guest cart is automatically merged into their authenticated cart:

• Products that exist in both carts have their quantities combined (up to the stock limit)
• Products only in the guest cart are added to the authenticated cart
• The guest cart is then deleted

If the merge has to clamp a combined quantity down to the available stock, the customer sees a notice explaining which line was adjusted, so they're never surprised by a silent change. Customers never lose items they added before signing in.

Stock validation

Stock is validated at multiple points to prevent overselling:

Point	Validation
Adding to cart	Product must be active and have stock > 0
Updating quantity	New quantity cannot exceed available stock
Entering checkout	Stock is reserved (decremented from product inventory)
Checkout expiry	If the checkout session expires (15 minutes), reserved stock is restored. The customer sees a warning toast two minutes before expiry, giving them a chance to finish or extend the session.
Order completion	Stock stays decremented; the checkout snapshot is deleted

Cart lifecycle

Each cart goes through a simple two-status lifecycle:

Status	Meaning
Active	The cart is in use — items can be added, updated, or removed
Completed	The customer completed checkout and an order was created

When a customer clicks Proceed to Checkout, a checkout snapshot is created from the cart. The cart remains active during checkout. Once the order is successfully placed, the cart is marked as completed and a new active cart can be started.

Tip: The admin cart list only shows active carts. Completed carts are no longer displayed since they have been converted into orders.