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The cart timer limits how long a Supercycle item can sit in a customer’s cart. When the time runs out, Supercycle removes its items from the cart and leaves other products alone. This reduces the chance of two customers reaching checkout for the last available unit at the same time. Turn it on under Online store on Channels. Use it if you’ve seen cycles fail to reserve because of abandoned carts, or if you want fewer overlapping bookings.
The cart timer is off by default, so nothing changes on your store until you turn it on.

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How it works

  • The timer starts when a customer adds a Supercycle item to their cart.
  • It only counts Supercycle cycle line items. Regular Shopify products are ignored.
  • When the time runs out, Supercycle items are removed and the cart drawer, count, and cart page refresh in place without a reload.
  • The timer resets each time the cart’s cycle items change.

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Set up the cart timer

1

Open Online store settings

Go to Channels and open Online store.
2

Turn on Limit time in cart

Turn on Limit time in cart. The field defaults to 20 minutes, which suits most stores.
3

Set the timeout

Enter how many minutes Supercycle items stay in the cart before they’re removed.
4

Choose what happens when time runs out

Under Action after time expired, pick one of the options in the table below.
5

Save

Select Save.
To turn the timer off, turn off Limit time in cart and save. The value resets to 0.

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Action after time expires

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Show a countdown to customers

Show customers how long they have left by adding a custom element to your theme, for example in the header, cart drawer, or cart page:
Cart countdown
<x-cart-timer> shows the remaining time as MM:SS and updates every second. The .sc-cart-timer wrapper is hidden when there are no Supercycle items in the cart or the timer isn’t running, so customers only see it when it matters. Style the wrapper with your own CSS to match your theme.
Wrap the timer in your own copy so it reads naturally, for example “Reserved for 14:32” or “Your items expire in 14:32”.

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Considerations

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Timeout length

A shorter timeout narrows the window in which two customers could reach checkout at once, but gives customers less time to finish. A longer timeout is friendlier to customers but widens that window. 20 minutes is a good starting point for most stores.