About Purchase Flow

The purchase flow represents the customer journey from item selection to payment completion in the Wix eCommerce platform. This process transforms browsing customers into buyers by processing catalog items through cart management and checkout processing. Successful completion of the purchase flow creates an order for post-purchase processing and fulfillment.

Cart V2 combines cart management and checkout processing into a single Cart entity that covers the entire purchase flow. Use Cart V2 for new development. The previous Cart and Checkout APIs continue to work but will be removed on February 1, 2027.

This section covers:

• Cart V2: Manage a cart through the entire purchase flow, from adding items to placing an order, with no separate checkout step.
• Cart: Manage customer item selections, quantities, pricing calculations, and cart modifications before continuing to checkout. Replaced by Cart V2.
• Checkout: Handle the payment collection phase, including transaction processing, checkout configuration, template management, and abandoned checkout recovery. Replaced by Cart V2.

Purchase flow patterns

The platform supports 2 fundamental approaches to moving customers through the purchase flow:

• Cart-to-checkout flow: Customers add items to a persistent cart, review and modify selections, then continue to checkout for payment processing. This familiar eCommerce pattern allows customers to browse, compare, and refine their selections before committing to purchase. The cart maintains state across sessions for logged-in users.

• Direct checkout flow: Skip cart management and proceed directly from item selection to checkout. This "buy now" approach reduces friction for single-item purchases, appointment bookings, or scenarios where immediate purchase intent is clear.

Cart V2 supports both patterns without a separate checkout entity: call Create Cart for the cart-to-checkout flow, or call Create Cart followed by Place Order for the direct checkout flow.

Purchase flow customization

The purchase flow provides extensive customization options through service plugins and configuration APIs:

• Purchase flow extensions: Integrate custom logic for additional fees, discounts, shipping rates, tax calculations, and validations through extensions that enhance cart and checkout processing.

• Checkout behavior: Configure policies, terms of service agreements, and user interface elements through the Checkout Settings API to align with business requirements and legal compliance.

• Pre-configured checkouts: Create standardized checkout experiences using Checkout Templates with predefined items, pricing, or promotional offers. Templates enable consistent experiences for flash sales, product bundles, or recurring purchase scenarios while working with either flow pattern.

• Abandoned checkout recovery: Implement customer re-engagement strategies using the Abandoned Checkout API to recover lost sales from incomplete checkout sessions.

See also

• About Catalogs
• About Orders
• Cart V2 Migration Guide
• Architecture and Data Flow