This article consolidates Pulse Commerce shopping cart behavior, cart display options, and key storefront workflows that impact checkout. Use this guide to understand how cart widgets work, how carts synchronize to product changes, how long carts persist, and which settings enable customer cart edits and multi-add-to-cart behavior.
Pulse Commerce supports two cart display patterns that keep cart visibility persistent while customers browse your storefront: Floating Shopping Cart and Always-On Shopping Cart.
Key Differences
- Interaction model: Floating Shopping Cart “hovers” and reveals cart contents on mouse-over; Always-On is static in the right panel.
- Items shown: Floating Shopping Cart shows the last 3 items added; Always-On shows all items in the cart.
- Placement: Floating Shopping Cart appears as a small frame on each page; Always-On is available on the right side across pages.
Shared Benefits
- Displays cart contents on every page while browsing.
- Reduces reliance on a dedicated “View Cart” action just to confirm contents.
- Shows item awareness (name, option selections, image) and totals (quantity and price/subtotal, depending on configuration).
- Customers can proceed to checkout from the cart widget experience.
Enable Floating Shopping Cart
Navigate to Settings > General Settings > Display Settings and set Floating Shopping Cart Options:
- Hide the Floating Cart: Floating cart is not displayed.
- Show Floating Cart with price: Displays item pricing and subtotal.
- Show Floating Cart without price: Displays product information only (no item pricing/subtotal).
Click Update to save.
Optional UI Styling: Floating cart background color can be controlled via Settings > Colors and Fonts > Floating Cart Background Color.
Enable Always-On Shopping Cart
Navigate to Content > Widget Manager > Right Panel, then locate Always ON Static Widget and click Edit. Choose one of the following:
- Shopping cart items with price: Displays item pricing and subtotal.
- Shopping cart items without price: Displays product information only (no item pricing/subtotal).
Pulse Commerce automatically synchronizes product updates with items already present in customer carts. This synchronization occurs when customers return to or refresh their cart, and also at key validation moments (for example, login and proceeding to checkout).
Prices, Discounts, and Surcharges Update Automatically
When you change pricing in the admin, carts update to reflect current pricing rules, including:
- Base product price
- Surcharges and surcharge calculation method (e.g., per item vs once per basket)
- Quantity discounts
- Customer group pricing (applied when a customer logs in)
- Customer-specific discount percentages (applied when a customer logs in)
- Membership pricing
- Variant/option surcharge updates (including cases where a group is recreated with the same name but different surcharges)
Inventory/Availability: Out-of-Stock Items Move to Wish List
If an item becomes unavailable, Pulse Commerce moves it from the cart to the customer’s Wish List (rather than failing checkout).
Typical triggers:
- Product goes out of stock
- Specific product option/variant goes out of stock
- Hide products if not In Stock is enabled (validation moves unavailable items)
Structural Changes: Items May Be Removed from Carts
Items can be removed from carts when the configuration becomes fundamentally incompatible with what the customer selected. Common causes:
- Option groups are deleted or materially changed
- Product questions are removed/changed after a customer answered them
- Products are deleted from Inventory Manager
- Bundle sub-items are deleted (entire bundle is removed)
Non-Disruptive Attribute Updates: Items Remain but Details Update
- Renaming option values updates the displayed option names in cart
- Variant surcharge changes may update in cart (depending on how the group is recreated and named)
Changes That Do Not Affect Existing Carts
The following changes do not trigger removal/validation impacts for items already in carts:
- Making products invisible (items already in carts remain purchasable)
- Changing a product question from optional to mandatory (does not remove existing cart items)
- Changing answer field sizes (character limits) for product question answers
- Modifying bundle composition by removing one sub-item and adding another (unless a component is fully deleted)
Technical Note: Client-Side vs Server-Side Validation
- Client-side validation: JavaScript/browser checks for immediate feedback (inputs, basic rules).
- Server-side validation: Pulse Commerce enforces synchronization rules on cart load/refresh and cannot be bypassed.
Common validation moments: cart load/refresh, customer login, proceed to checkout, move Wish List item to cart.
Pulse Commerce uses cookies to store cart/order information on the customer’s device. If the customer has cookies enabled, items in the cart will remain for the customer’s next visit.
Where to View Abandoned Carts (Admin)
- Marketing > Abandoned Shopping Carts
- Customers > View Customers > Abandoned Shopping Cart (per-customer view)
Pulse Commerce can display an Edit action in the cart so customers can update product options before checkout. When enabled, customers click Edit in the cart and are routed to the product detail page to change options and select Update Item.
Enable “Edit” Button in Shopping Cart
- Navigate to Site Settings > General Settings > Display Settings.
- Set Display Edit Button in Shopping Cart to Yes.
- Click Update to save changes.
The Product Group page supports adding multiple items to the cart with a single click when configured to use Display Format 2. In Format 2, an Add button appears at the bottom of the Product Group page and adds the group’s items together.
Enable Multi-Add via Product Group Display Format 2
- Configure or select the relevant Product Group.
- Set the Product Group Display Format to 2.
- Confirm that the Product Group page displays the bottom Add button.
| Admin Change | Customer Cart Outcome |
| Price / discounts / surcharges | Cart updates to current pricing when viewed/refreshed |
| Product or option goes out of stock | Item moved from cart to Wish List |
| Delete product, delete required options, delete bundle component | Item removed from cart (bundle may be removed entirely) |
| Make product invisible | No impact to items already in carts |
| Enable Edit button in cart | Customers can edit options via PDP and “Update Item” |
| Product Group Display Format 2 | Bottom “Add” button adds multiple items together (with limitations) |