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less than a minute read • Updated 9 minutes ago

Set an expiration time for products in the cart

How to use the expires product attribute to automatically remove products from a customer's cart after a set time, and require it store-wide.

Use the expires product attribute to automatically remove a product from a customer’s cart if they don’t complete checkout before a set time — useful for making sure your quantity_max limits and inventory records stay accurate.

How to set it up

  1. 1

    Add the expires attribute to your product’s add-to-cart link or form.

  2. 2

    Set its value to either:

    • A number of minutes from when the product is added to the cart (e.g. expires=15 expires the product in 15 minutes), or

    • A future date/time as an epoch timestamp in seconds (e.g. expires=1593583199).

  3. 3

    If the customer hasn’t completed their transaction by the time the expires value passes, the product is automatically removed from their cart.

  4. 4

    Optionally, go to the Advanced settings page in the Foxy admin and turn on the setting requiring all products to include an expires value. This prevents a product from accidentally being added to a cart without an expiration, which could otherwise sit in a customer’s cart indefinitely.

Notes

  • expires is stripped from a product once it’s part of a subscription. Once a product with an expires value has been successfully paid for as part of a subscription, it persists on that subscription indefinitely.

  • If you’re also using inventory locks (see Set up advanced inventory tracking with inventory locks), set your expires value to pass slightly before the corresponding lock expires in your own system. This avoids a gap where the product has left the cart but the lock hasn’t cleared yet, which could otherwise delay that stock becoming available again.

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