Shopping cart expirations enforce how long a shopper can keep unpurchased products in their online shopping carts. Once a cart reaches its expiration, all products contained in the cart are returned to a retailer's available inventory.

With CommentSold, retailers can customize their shopping cart expiration. For example, a retailer can choose to expire a cart X hours after a shopper added a product to their cart, or the retailer can choose to have all active shopping carts expire on a specific day and time of the week. 

  Note: Cart expirations work differently when First Paid First Served is enabled. Please check out our First Paid First Served article to learn more about shopping cart expirations. 

How Shopping Cart Expirations Benefit Your Business


  • Create a sense of urgency by letting shoppers know their products will only be held for them for a specific amount of time.
  • Automatically return unsold products to your inventory so other shoppers can browse and make purchases.
  • Configure daily, weekly, or special one-time cart expirations to match the needs of your business.

Standard Shopping Cart Expirations


Your standard Shopping Cart Expiration setting controls when shoppers' carts expire and the products contained therein return to your inventory.

  1. Select Setup in the side menu of your CommentSold dashboard.
  2. Select Shop from the options listed at the top of the page.
  3. Locate the Shopping Cart section on the bottom-right corner of the page.
  4. Select Edit to the right of Shopping Cart Expiration.
  5. Choose your Expiration Preference:
    • Expire items in carts based on how long ago they were added. Use the Hours and Minutes field to specify how long after a shopper adds a product to their cart that the cart expires.
    • Expire items in carts on a weekly schedule. Use the Day and Time fields to set a weekly day and time at which all active shopping carts will expire.
  6. Select Exclude current/active carts if you wish for your changes to not impact any currently active shopping carts.
  7. Select Save.

One-Time Special Cart Expiration


If you set a one-time special cart expiration, it'll override your standard shopping cart expiration. Once the date and time of the special cart expiration passes, your standard shopping cart expiration will take effect.

  1. Select Setup in the side menu of your CommentSold dashboard.
  2. Select Shop from the options listed at the top of the page.
  3. Locate the Shopping Cart section on the bottom-right corner of the page.
  4. Select Edit to the right of One-time Special Cart Expiration.
  5. Select Select an expiration date?, then select the day and time of the one-time expiration.
  6. Select Exclude current/active carts if you wish for your changes not to impact any currently active shopping carts.
  7. Select Save.

Night-Time Expire


The Night-Time Expire expiration controls whether shopping carts can expire between 11 PM and 7 AM. This time is based on the time zone you defined on the Shop tab of your Setup page.

  1. Select Setup in the side menu of your CommentSold dashboard.
  2. Select Shop from the options listed at the top of the page.
  3. Locate the Shopping Cart section on the bottom-right corner of the page.
  4. Locate the Night-Time Expire and enable or disable based on your preference.
    • If enabled, then shopper carts can expire overnight. For example, if a shopper adds a product to their cart at 6 PM and your standard shopping cart expiration is 6 hours, then their cart will expire at midnight.
    • If disabled, then shopper carts will not expire overnight. For example, if a shopper adds a product to their cart at 6 PM, then their shopping cart will not expire at midnight (overnight) even though the shopping cart expiration is 6 hours

Learn More


  • Shopping Cart
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