A familiar online-shopping frustration: two people add the last item to their basket, both reach checkout, and one of them is disappointed. If your A3 iFrame store sells physical stock, the cart hold prevents that.
What it does
When a shopper adds an item whose stock is down to its last unit, that unit is held for them for a short time. While the hold is active another shopper can't claim the same unit — they see it as unavailable rather than being allowed to buy something that isn't there.
How long the hold lasts
The default is 5 minutes, which is usually enough time to check out without locking stock away from other buyers. You can change it in your store settings to anything from 1 minute to 1 hour.
The duration is a trade-off:
- Shorter — stock returns to sale quickly when a basket is abandoned, but a slow checkout may lose its hold.
- Longer — more comfortable for shoppers, but an abandoned basket keeps your last unit off sale for longer.
Five minutes suits most stores. If your checkout asks for a lot of detail, consider ten.
What the shopper sees
The shopper holding the item can see how long they have, so it's clear they should finish. When a hold expires without an order, the unit goes back on sale automatically — there's nothing for you to do.
When it applies
Holds exist to solve the last-unit race, so they come into play when stock is scarce. With plenty of stock there's no contention to resolve and shopping behaves normally. Holds follow your inventory, so keeping stock counts accurate matters — see managing products and orders and running your store.
If stock behaves unexpectedly during checkout, open a ticket from support with the product and roughly when it happened.