The WooCommerce Empty Cart feature is an often-overlooked yet powerful tool for optimizing the user experience in your online store. It refers to the ability of a store to clear out the shopping cart of customers who abandon it or leave the site. Implementing this feature can help streamline your checkout process, improve inventory management, and even recover abandoned carts.
In this blog, we will explore the significance of the WooCommerce Empty Cart feature, how to set it up, the benefits it offers, and strategies to reduce cart abandonment in your online store.
What Is the WooCommerce Empty Cart Feature?
WooCommerce Empty Cart is a feature that automatically clears the cart when a customer leaves the site or after a set period of inactivity. This feature can be applied in different scenarios, such as:
- Session-based Cart Reset: Automatically clearing carts after a certain time of inactivity.
- Cart Abandonment: Automatically emptying the cart when customers leave the store without checking out.
- Logout-based Cart Reset: Clearing the cart when a user logs out from the site.
This tool helps online store owners manage carts more effectively and reduce the chances of holding out-of-stock products that customers are no longer interested in.
Why is Emptying the Cart Important?
While many store owners focus on adding items to the cart, it’s equally crucial to ensure that abandoned or inactive carts are managed. Here are some key reasons why emptying the cart can be beneficial:
- Prevent Stock Issues
Customers often add products to their carts but may not always complete the purchase. If these items remain in the cart for extended periods, they may be falsely marked as unavailable, leading to stock mismanagement. Automatically emptying the cart ensures accurate inventory management. - Clear Unused Carts
By clearing out inactive carts, you ensure that customers don’t return to an abandoned cart filled with outdated products or ones no longer available. This helps them restart their shopping journey with a fresh slate. - Reduce Cart Abandonment
Cart abandonment is a common challenge for eCommerce stores. Customers may abandon carts for various reasons, such as changing their mind, price shock, or distractions. Clearing carts after abandonment can prevent customers from coming back to the same cart and abandoning it again. - Improve Conversion Rates
When carts are cleared, it can push customers to either make a purchase quickly or restart their shopping experience, which could potentially lead to higher conversion rates.
How to Implement the WooCommerce Empty Cart Feature
There are several ways you can implement the empty cart feature in your WooCommerce store. The process can be done either manually through code or by using a plugin.
1. Using Plugins to Enable WooCommerce Empty Cart
There are a number of plugins designed to manage abandoned carts and automate the cart clearing process:
- WooCommerce Cart Abandonment Recovery: This plugin offers automatic cart clearing after a set time, allowing you to configure how long an abandoned cart should remain before it is emptied.
- WooCommerce Session Expiry: This plugin clears the cart after a set period of customer inactivity.
- Abandoned Cart Pro for WooCommerce: This plugin can track abandoned carts, send reminders, and empty carts after a specified inactivity period.
2. Customizing Cart Clearing via Code
If you prefer a more manual approach or want to fine-tune the feature according to your needs, adding custom code can also be a solution. For instance, you can hook into WooCommerce’s session to check the inactivity time and then clear the cart.
Here is an example of a code snippet that clears the WooCommerce cart after a certain period of inactivity (e.g., 15 minutes):
phpCopy codefunction empty_cart_after_inactivity() {
if ( is_admin() ) return;
$cart_lifetime = 15 * 60; // 15 minutes in seconds
$last_activity = WC()->session->get( 'last_activity_time' );
if ( time() - $last_activity > $cart_lifetime ) {
WC()->cart->empty_cart();
}
WC()->session->set( 'last_activity_time', time() );
}
add_action( 'template_redirect', 'empty_cart_after_inactivity' );
This code snippet will check the time of last activity and clear the cart if the session has been idle for more than 15 minutes.
Strategies to Reduce Cart Abandonment and Improve Sales
Cart abandonment is a persistent challenge for online stores, but the WooCommerce Empty Cart feature can be paired with other strategies to help improve conversions and customer engagement:
- Offer Abandoned Cart Recovery Emails
Abandoned cart emails are a powerful tool to bring customers back to their carts. Send reminders to customers who abandon their carts with a link to recover their items and continue shopping. Include incentives like discount codes or limited-time offers to motivate them to complete their purchase. - Simplify the Checkout Process
A complicated checkout process is a major reason for cart abandonment. Simplify your checkout by reducing the number of steps, offering guest checkout options, and displaying trust signals like security badges. - Offer Free Shipping or Discounts
Unexpected shipping costs or high prices can drive customers away. Offering free shipping or discounts on certain items can push customers to complete their purchase. This strategy is effective when combined with the empty cart feature—customers are more likely to make quick decisions when they see limited-time offers. - Use Exit-Intent Popups
Exit-intent popups can detect when customers are about to leave your site and trigger a popup offering discounts, reminders, or other incentives to keep them engaged. - Display Cart Progress
Show customers the total cost and progress of their cart as they shop. This can help eliminate any surprises during checkout and reduce cart abandonment rates.
Key Benefits of Emptying the Cart
- Better Inventory Management
By ensuring that abandoned carts are emptied, you prevent stock errors and make sure customers only see products that are truly available. - Cleaner Shopping Experience
A fresh cart provides a more organized and streamlined shopping experience for returning customers, allowing them to re-evaluate their choices without being distracted by previously abandoned items. - Reduced Cart Recovery Costs
Managing abandoned carts can be expensive, especially when offering discounts or sending multiple reminders. By automating cart clearing, you can minimize the need for these additional efforts. - More Accurate Customer Insights
Emptying carts promptly also leads to more accurate customer behavior data, enabling better decision-making for marketing and sales strategies.
Conclusion
The WooCommerce Empty Cart feature is an often-underutilized tool that can greatly enhance the user experience and streamline store management. By automatically clearing inactive or abandoned carts, store owners can maintain better control over inventory, reduce stock errors, and potentially improve conversion rates.
When combined with effective strategies like abandoned cart recovery, simplified checkout, and customer incentives, the empty cart feature can significantly reduce cart abandonment and boost your store’s sales.