RE: [PHP] how to determine if shopping cart has been abandoned?

[snip] ...ton's o thoughts [/snip] I am making an assumption that you are using sessions for your shoppers. If this is the case then the cart would be abandoned if/when the session expires. If you are not using sessions then I think 24 hours would be on the longish side of acceptable. In another thread on another list I pointed out to another person designing a cart that the items in the cart are removed from inventory while they are in the cart even though no check-out has occured. If the cart is abandoned I want to return those items to the shelf as quickly as possible, making them available for other shoppers. A lot of folks get this wrong IMHO...they do not remove the item from inventory when it is placed in the cart, they do it at check-out. This could cause concerns if the items in question are popular.