Wishlists and baskets
This page is for the owner and the store manager. Baskets and wishlists are where customers show interest before they buy, and a few settings decide how they behave. This page explains what to watch and what to ask your partner; the wishlist itself is described on Discounts and wishlists for businesses, and the checkout steps on Basket and checkout flow.
Baskets on the dashboard
The Store dashboard shows baskets in progress and abandoned baskets, and lists the latest baskets and unconfirmed checkouts under "Work to do" (Store dashboard and order statuses). Use them as signals:
| What you see | What it may mean | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Abandoned baskets rise after a change | Shipping cost, prices or the checkout form put customers off | Look at what changed that week |
| Many unconfirmed checkouts | Customers stop at the confirmation page or the payment step | Place a test order; see Payment gateways |
| Baskets rise but orders do not | Something blocks the checkout | Test the whole checkout today |
How baskets behave
These are settings in settings/site.ini [ShopSettings]; your partner changes them in an override.
| Setting | Shipped | What it means for your customers |
|---|---|---|
ClearBasketOnCheckout | disabled | The basket is emptied only when payment is finished, so a customer who cancels payment still has it |
ClearBasketOnLogout | disabled | Signing out does not empty the basket |
RedirectAfterAddToBasket | basket | After Add to basket, the customer sees the basket; reload keeps them where they were |
The comments in settings/site.ini explain that some payment systems need ClearBasketOnCheckout=enabled; check with
your partner before changing it.
The basket page can be given another name, for example /shop/cart/, with settings/shop.ini [BasketSettings] BasketViewName; /shop/basket/ keeps working for old links
(Shop basket view name).
Basket cleanup
Old baskets are removed by the basket_cleanup.php cron job, which is in the infrequent part of the shipped
settings/cronjob.ini. site.ini [Session] BasketCleanup=cronjob is the shipped setting, so the cleanup only
happens when the cron jobs run (Cron jobs).
- To do: Ask your host whether the infrequent cron part runs, and how often.
- To do: If the dashboard's "Next steps" warns about basket cleanup and baskets kept in sessions, pass it to your partner (Store dashboard and order statuses).
The wishlist
The wishlist (shop/wishlist, policy shop/buy) lets signed-in customers keep products for later. It belongs to
the user account, and adding to it requires a registered, signed-in user
(Discounts and wishlists for businesses). Your site design needs
the Add to wishlist button and a link to the wishlist.
| Owner's question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Can guests use it? | No; it needs an account |
| Can customers share it? | No shared wishlists in the kernel (same page) |
| Can I see what customers wish for? | Not in a shop report; the shop views have no wishlist report (kernel/shop/module.php) |
The wishlist is a good reason to offer accounts if your products are considered purchases (Customer accounts).
Personal data
Baskets are tied to a session and wishlists to a user (ezbasket, ezwishlist), as listed in
Personal data in Exponential. Include them when you
describe your store's data in your privacy notice.
Related pages
- Basket and checkout flow
- Discounts and wishlists for businesses
- Store reports
- Basket, checkout and orders
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
Become an Exponential Partner
Partners share their information, provide funding, contribute back and develop the products with us, and that is how Exponential grows. A partner website and dashboard are planned for mid-2027: please become a partner today to speed up our growth rate and land new features faster.