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How Carts Are Tracked

Live Carts works quietly in the background. Whenever a visitor adds something to their WooCommerce cart, it creates a cart record and keeps it up to date as the shopper adds, removes or changes items.

What a cart record contains​

  • The products, quantities and total value
  • Who it belongs to: the logged-in user, or a guest
  • When it was created and when the shopper was last seen
  • The shopper's email, if known (Cart emails)
  • The last page they were on and their IP address, if you allow it (Tracking settings)
  • Coupons applied to the cart
  • A short, unique cart ID: eight letters and digits, such as 00A3F9C0

Carts are stored in their own database tables, so they don't clutter your normal WordPress tables.

Cart statuses​

Status filters above the cart list
Status filters above the cart list
StatusWhen a cart gets it
ActiveThe shopper was seen recently.
AbandonedNo activity for 2 hours (default). Configurable Pro
ConvertedThe linked WooCommerce order reached a conversion status (by default Processing, Completed or On hold). You can change which statuses count. See Conversion statuses.
TrashYou moved it to the trash. It can be restored.

A cart is also archived once it has been inactive for 30 days (default, configurable Pro). Archived carts disappear from the list, although some data stays in the database.

Status checks run on a schedule

Once an hour, a WordPress scheduled task (WP-Cron, named phplugins_livecarts_hourly) marks inactive carts as Abandoned, archives old ones and clears out old cart history. It isn't real time. On a quiet site a cart may stay Active a little longer than the abandonment time. See Carts stuck on Active.

When a cart becomes "Converted"​

Live Carts links each new order to the cart it came from. When that order reaches one of the conversion statuses, the cart is marked Converted. By default these are the statuses WooCommerce counts as paid (Processing and Completed, plus any custom paid statuses) and On hold. You can choose your own, for example if you use custom order statuses. See Lifecycle settings.

What is not tracked​

  • Empty carts. A cart record is created when something is in the cart.
  • Guests, if you turn on Guest visitors under Settings → Tracking → Exclude from tracking.
  • Chosen user roles, such as administrators Pro. See Tracking settings.