Use this article to schedule a Smart Cart to go live and turn off on its own for a sale or promotion, choose the fallback cart that takes over when the schedule ends, and understand what shoppers see when your store switches from one Smart Cart to another. You set a schedule in the cart's Global Settings, and the cart list on the Smart Cart page in your Rebuy admin, under Cart & Merchandising, shows which cart is live, which is scheduled, and which is the fallback.
The Smart Cart Scheduler works on the latest Smart Cart version only. A Legacy cart cannot be scheduled and cannot be set as a fallback cart.
Building a Smart Cart is covered in Smart Cart: Set Up and Publish Your Cart, and configuring what is inside one is covered in Smart Cart: Build Your Cart in the Cart Editor. Managing the cart list itself, including renaming, duplicating, and deleting carts, is covered at the end of this article.
Only one Smart Cart can be live at a time
Your store can have one enabled Smart Cart, and Rebuy enforces that when the change is saved rather than when the page loads.
Publishing a cart disables whichever cart was live before it, including a Legacy cart. That means there is no way to run one Smart Cart for one group of shoppers and a different Smart Cart for another, and no way to run a Legacy cart and a current cart side by side.
If you need shoppers to see different carts, the mechanisms Rebuy provides are scheduling, which switches carts on a clock, and A/B testing, which splits traffic between carts for the length of an experiment. A/B testing is covered in Smart Cart: Run an A/B Test on Your Cart.
Schedule a Smart Cart to go live and turn off automatically
Scheduling a cart tells Rebuy to publish it at a start time and unpublish it at an end time, which is what you want for a sale, a seasonal promotion, or a limited-time offer.
Go to Smart Cart in your Rebuy admin under Cart & Merchandising and open the cart you want to schedule.
Click the Global Settings gear in the editor sidebar.
Open the Schedule group and turn Schedule Cart on.
Set the Start Date and Start Time, then the End Date and End Time. The end fields stay greyed out until you pick a start date, and the start time picker moves in 30-minute steps.
Set the Global Fallback Cart if you want a cart to take over when this one ends. See the section on setting a fallback cart, and read it before you skip this step.
Click Save.
The cart now shows a Scheduled badge in the cart list, with the window in its tooltip and in the Schedule column.
Note: Schedules run on the time zone set in your Rebuy admin, not on your browser's time zone. The Time Zone line at the top of the Schedule group shows that time zone and the current time in it, and its link takes you to where you change it, under Settings, then App Settings.
What the scheduler will not let you save
Rebuy validates a schedule when you save it and refuses the ones below. The table lists the message you see and what to change.
Message | What to change |
Both start and end dates are required when scheduling is enabled. | Set a start date and an end date. A schedule with only a start is not saved |
Start time must be at least 5 minutes in the future. | Push the start out. Rebuy needs a five-minute buffer to register the task |
End time must be at least 5 minutes in the future. | Push the end out, or clear the schedule if the promotion is over |
End date cannot be in the past. | Pick an end date later than now |
Start date must be before end date. | Swap the dates |
Start and end times cannot be the same. | Give the window some length |
Start date must be within 30 days from now. | Rebuy schedules 30 days ahead at most. Set a nearer start and come back for the rest |
End date must be within 30 days of the start date. | Shorten the window. For a schedule that has not started yet, the 30 days is measured from the start date rather than from today |
This schedule overlaps with | Move this window so it does not overlap the named cart's window |
What happens when a scheduled cart's window ends
When a scheduled cart reaches its end time, Rebuy disables it and clears its schedule, then enables your global fallback cart if you have one and nothing else has already become active.
If no fallback cart is set, your store is left with no Smart Cart at all and shoppers get Shopify's default cart until you enable one yourself. Rebuy does not re-enable whichever cart was live before the schedule started. This is the single most common surprise with scheduling, and setting a fallback is how you avoid it.
Rebuy tells you the same thing in the admin when you disable a scheduled cart by hand. The confirmation reads Disabling this scheduled cart will remove it from your online store during its scheduled time. No fallback cart is configured, so your store will revert to Shopify's default cart. Proceed?
Note: Set a fallback cart on any schedule that ends outside your working hours. A promotion that ends at midnight with no fallback leaves your store on Shopify's native default cart until someone notices.
Set a fallback cart
The fallback cart is the cart Rebuy enables when a scheduled cart's window ends, so your store keeps a Smart Cart instead of dropping back to Shopify's default cart.
The fallback is a single setting for the whole store, not a setting per schedule. Whichever cart carries the Fallback badge is the fallback for every scheduled window you have, and setting a different cart as the fallback unsets the previous one.
You can set it from either place:
On the Smart Cart overview page, open the actions menu at the end of the cart's row and choose Set as Fallback.
In any cart's Global Settings, open the Schedule group and pick a cart from Global Fallback Cart. The field appears as soon as Schedule Cart is turned on, before any dates are set. The list includes a No Fallback Cart option, and the cart you are editing appears at the top prefixed This Cart.
Either route sets the same store-wide fallback. If your store already has other scheduled carts, Rebuy shows a Scheduled Carts Present alert reminding you that the change applies to all of them.
A Legacy cart cannot be a fallback cart and does not appear in the Global Fallback Cart list.
Turning a scheduled cart on or off by hand
Enabling or disabling a scheduled cart by hand changes the schedule, and Rebuy shows you a different confirmation for each situation so you can see what you are about to change.
What you are doing | What Rebuy asks | What happens if you confirm |
Enabling a cart whose start time has not arrived yet | Cancel Pending Schedule? | The cart goes live immediately, its schedule is cancelled, and it stays live until you change it |
Enabling a different cart while a scheduled cart is running | Replace Active Scheduled Cart? | The new cart goes live, the running schedule is cancelled, and the fallback cart will not go live at the original end time |
Disabling a scheduled cart while it is running | Cancel Active Scheduled Cart? | The cart comes off your storefront. If a fallback cart exists you get a checkbox to enable it at the same time, and if you leave it unchecked your store reverts to Shopify's default cart |
Disabling a cart with no schedule | Disable Smart Cart on Online Store? | The cart comes off your storefront and your store reverts to Shopify's default cart |
Because enabling a pending scheduled cart cancels its schedule, use Preview rather than the Live toggle when you want to look at a scheduled cart before its window opens.
Preview a scheduled cart without touching its schedule
Preview shows you a cart on your own storefront without publishing it, so it is safe to use on a cart that has a schedule waiting.
Go to Smart Cart in your Rebuy admin under Cart & Merchandising.
Find the scheduled cart in the list.
Click the preview icon at the end of its row, or open the cart and click Preview in the editor's top bar.
Your storefront opens in a new tab with the scheduled cart rendered on it. Nothing about the schedule changes, and shoppers keep seeing whatever cart is currently live. More about preview is in Using Rebuy Preview Mode.
Why a shopper may still see the old cart right after you switch
Switching carts changes what new page loads get, and it does not change the page a shopper already has open.
Which Smart Cart a shopper gets is decided once, when their page loads. A shopper who is already browsing keeps the cart they started with, including its Tiered Progress Bar, free gifts, and Buy More Save More discounts, until they load another page, so a cart you disable during a busy hour finishes out the sessions already in flight. Plan a switch for a quiet window if the difference between the carts is significant.
When your scheduled cart did not go live
A schedule that did not fire is worth checking against the list below before you assume the scheduler failed.
The cart was enabled by hand before its start time. That cancels the schedule. Open the cart's Global Settings and check whether Schedule Cart is still on and still has dates.
A/B testing is running. While a Smart Cart A/B test is active, Rebuy refuses every enable and disable, so a schedule cannot take effect. End the experiment first.
The time zone is not the one you assumed. Schedules run on the time zone in your Rebuy admin under Settings, then App Settings. Compare that to the time you intended.
The window has already passed. Check the Schedule column in the cart list against today's date.
What happens to a shopper's cart items when my store switches to a different Smart Cart?
A shopper's cart items stay in their cart when your store switches to a different Smart Cart, whether a scheduled Smart Cart ends and your fallback cart takes over or you publish a different Smart Cart yourself. Switching Smart Carts changes which Smart Cart design and settings your store shows. It does not change the shopper's Shopify cart, so the products the shopper added and their quantities carry over.
Free gifts and Buy More Save More discounts from the previous Smart Cart do not carry over, even though the shopper's cart items do. Each Tiered Progress Bar free gift is a real line item in the shopper's cart, and the next time the shopper loads a page after the switch, the new Smart Cart removes every free gift that its own Tiered Progress Bar does not award to that shopper. If the new Smart Cart has a Tiered Progress Bar, the shopper receives the free gifts that bar awards instead, and if it has no Tiered Progress Bar, every Tiered Progress Bar free gift is removed.
Buy More Save More discounts from the previous Smart Cart, meaning the tiered discount set in that cart's Cart Items settings, stop applying after the switch.
Note: If a scheduled Smart Cart awards free gifts through its Tiered Progress Bar or offers Buy More Save More discounts, expect them to drop when the scheduled cart ends. Show the promotion's end date on your storefront so shoppers are not surprised when it does.
Find your carts on the Smart Cart overview page
The Smart Cart overview page lists every cart on your store in a card headed Your Carts, under an intro headed Manage Your Smart Carts.
Use the Search for Smart Cart field above the list to filter by cart name or by cart ID. If nothing matches, the list shows No records match your search.
Clicking anywhere on a cart's row opens it in the Cart Editor. Clicking the open-in-new icon at the end of the row previews that cart on your storefront without publishing it.
Read the columns in the cart list
The cart list has a column for the cart's name and status, its ID, its version, when it was created, when it was last viewed and last edited, which widgets it uses, and its schedule. The table below explains what each one holds.
Column | What it holds |
NAME | The cart's name, plus the status badges described in the next section. Clicking the name opens the cart in the editor |
ID | The cart's numeric ID. This is the number that appears in a preview URL, and it is what Support will ask for |
VERSION | Empty for a current cart, and a pink Legacy badge for a cart built on Rebuy's older Smart Cart |
CREATED | How long ago the cart was created. Legacy carts show |
LAST VIEWED | How long ago the cart was last opened. A cart nobody has opened shows |
LAST EDITED/BY | How long ago the cart was last changed and who changed it. A cart nobody has edited shows |
WIDGETS | The widgets attached to the cart. A cart with none shows |
SCHEDULE | The scheduled start and end date, and the start and end time in your store's time zone. Empty for a cart with no schedule |
Read the badges on a cart
Badges sit under a cart's name in the list and tell you what state that cart is in. The table below lists each badge, what it means, and what you can do about it.
Badge | What it means | What you can do |
Live | This cart is active and is what shoppers see on your storefront | Disable it, or publish a different cart, which disables this one |
Scheduled | This cart has a schedule set. Hovering the badge shows the window in your store's time zone | Change the dates in the cart's Global Settings, or clear the schedule by turning Schedule Cart off |
Fallback | This cart is the global fallback and takes over when a scheduled cart's window ends with no other cart active. It appears only when your store has at least one scheduled cart | Remove it from the cart's actions menu, or set a different cart as the fallback, which unsets this one |
A/B | This cart is part of a running Smart Cart A/B test and cannot be edited | End the experiment from the A/B Testing page, then edit the cart |
View Only | This cart has been locked by Rebuy and cannot be edited or renamed | Duplicate it, and edit the copy |
A cart on Rebuy's older Smart Cart shows a pink Legacy badge in the Version column instead. Legacy carts still run, and they no longer receive new features or full support.
Rename, duplicate, or delete a cart
Every cart in the list has an actions menu at the end of its row, marked with three dots, and that menu is where you rename, duplicate, delete, enable, or disable that cart.
Enable or Disable publishes or unpublishes the cart. Rebuy asks you to confirm.
Edit opens the cart in the Cart Editor. Clicking the row does the same thing.
Rename opens Rename Smart Cart, where you type a New Cart Name.
Duplicate creates a copy of the cart carrying all of its settings. Use this to try a change without touching a cart that is live.
Set as Fallback or Remove as Fallback appears only when your store has at least one scheduled cart. See the section on setting a fallback cart.
Delete removes the cart.
Note: Deleting a Smart Cart is permanent. A deleted cart cannot be recovered, so duplicate a cart before you experiment with it rather than deleting the original afterwards.
A cart showing the View Only badge, which means Rebuy has locked it, or the A/B badge, which means it is part of a running Smart Cart A/B test, has its Edit, Rename, and Delete actions hidden from the actions menu. You can still preview and duplicate a View Only or A/B cart, and editing the duplicate is the way to make changes. A View Only cart can also still be enabled and disabled, while an A/B cart cannot be enabled or disabled until the experiment ends.
Create a cart, and what happens at the limit
You create a cart with the New Smart Cart button above the list, and the steps are in Smart Cart: Set Up and Publish Your Cart.
Your store can hold 45 Smart Carts, counting current and Legacy carts together. At 45 the New Smart Cart button is disabled and its text changes to Max Reached, and an alert headed Max Carts Reached appears above the list reading You have reached the maximum number of Smart Carts. You must delete a cart before creating a new one. Delete a cart you no longer need to get back under the limit.
Frequently asked questions
Can I run one Smart Cart for retail shoppers and another for B2B or wholesale?
No, you cannot run one Smart Cart for retail shoppers and a different one for B2B or wholesale, because only one Smart Cart can be live on your store at a time. A Smart Cart can be shown or hidden, and it cannot be varied by customer group. To change messaging for different shoppers inside the one live cart, use customer tag targeting on the components that support it.
What happens if I try to set several Smart Carts live at once?
Setting a Smart Cart live disables every other Smart Cart on the store, so several Smart Carts can never be live together. The Smart Cart you set live most recently is the one your shoppers see, and the one it replaced is disabled.
Do Recently Viewed recommendations reset when my store switches to a different Smart Cart?
No, Recently Viewed recommendations and other data sources do not reset when your store switches to a different Smart Cart, such as when a scheduled Smart Cart ends and your fallback cart takes over. Rebuy stores the shopper data that data sources such as Recently Viewed rely on against the shopper, not against a Smart Cart, so it carries over from one Smart Cart to the next. A logged-in shopper's views are stored against their Shopify customer ID, and a guest's views are stored against the Rebuy visitor ID saved in their browser.
The new Smart Cart shows that viewing history only where one of its widgets uses a Recently Viewed data source, since each widget in a Smart Cart runs the data source it is set up with. To keep showing viewed products after a scheduled promotion ends, use a Recently Viewed data source in a widget inside your fallback cart.