Rebuy Preview Mode lets you view and test products that are not yet live. When a Rebuy product is in preview mode, it is invisible to customers and can only be seen by someone viewing the store in preview mode.

This is useful any time you want to test changes internally before releasing them to shoppers.

There are two main methods to avoid testing on a live store:

Note: Preview Mode works for Smart Cart and Widgets. It is not available for Checkout Extensions (use the Shopify Checkout Editor preview) or Post-Purchase offers.

Widget preview mode lets you view unpublished Rebuy widgets on your storefront without showing them to customers.

From Rebuy Admin > Dashboard, click ONLINE STORE. This opens your store's live theme in a new tab and automatically places you in Rebuy's Widget Preview Mode (if Rebuy is installed on that theme).

When a widget is created, it is automatically in live mode. To place a widget in preview mode, open that widget's editor settings and toggle off Live Mode. Then click the "PREVIEW" link at the top right.

Add ?preview=true to the end of your store URL in the browser.

Example: If your store URL is https://your-store.myshopify.com/, the preview URL looks like:

Smart Cart preview mode lets you test an inactive Smart Cart on your live theme before making it live to customers

Append the following to your store URL, replacing XXXX with your Smart Cart ID (found in the URL bar when viewing that cart's settings in Rebuy Admin):

For Smart Cart V2:

Example:

Important: The correct value for the latest cart_version parameter is 2 (the number).

Smart Cart Preview Mode and Widget Preview Mode are separate by default. You can combine Smart Cart and widget preview mode to test both simultaneously on your storefront.

Append the following to your store URL, replacing XXXX with your Smart Cart ID:

Example:

Toggle Highlight places a colored border around every Rebuy product on the page. This makes it easy to identify which elements are powered by Rebuy versus your theme or other apps.

To use Toggle Highlight:

To customize the highlight color and border thickness, go to Rebuy Admin > Settings > Themes and scroll to Rebuy Element Highlight.

The Datasource Previewer is a testing tool that lets you simulate different customer scenarios and see what products your datasource rules would return — before anything goes live.

Where to find it: Rebuy Admin → Data Sources → [select your datasource] → Preview Ruleset (within the datasource settings)

What you can simulate:

This lets you verify your rules are working as expected and fine-tune recommendations without affecting real customers.

For a full walkthrough, check out the Help Center guide: Previewing Data Sources

Cause: The cart_version parameter is missing or set to an invalid value.

Fix: Make sure your URL includes &cart_version=2 (the number 2, not v2). A valid V2 preview URL looks like:

Replace XXXX with your Smart Cart ID from the URL bar in your cart's settings.

Caching can occasionally prevent a preview link from loading immediately. If preview mode doesn't activate on the first try, click the link a second time.

You must be logged in to your Shopify store before using a preview link on a draft or password-protected theme. Log in first, then append the preview parameters to your URL.

The widget must be installed on your theme to appear in preview mode. Attempting to view a widget in preview mode without it being installed on the theme will not display it.

Preview Mode does not work for Widgets on Checkout Extensions. Use the Shopify Checkout Editor preview tool for those widgets instead.

Smart Cart Preview Mode does not currently work for Post-Purchase offers. Preview tools for Post-Purchase are coming in a future update.

Yes. Make sure Rebuy is installed on the draft theme and that you are logged in to your Shopify store before using the preview link.

Your Smart Cart ID appears in the URL bar when you are viewing that cart's settings in Rebuy Admin. For example, if the URL shows /smartcart/edit/5848, your ID is 5848.

Smart Cart Legacy preview mode works the same way as V2, but uses a different URL parameter set. To preview a Legacy cart manually, append the following to your store URL:

To preview a Legacy Smart Cart and Widgets at the same time:

Replace XXXX with your Smart Cart ID. Note that cart_version=2 is not required for Legacy carts and should be omitted.

Yes. The PREVIEW button in the Smart Cart editor works for both Smart Cart V2 and Legacy. The correct URL parameters are applied automatically when you use the PREVIEW button in the Smart Cart editor, so you don't need to construct the URL manually.