Storefront builder customer preview and temporary cart

Review the customer journey before you publish

The storefront builder is now a safer place to review the experience beyond the homepage. Choose a customer from the preview picker, or work as a guest, then move through the same storefront routes a shopper would use: product pages, /cart, /checkout, and customer account pages.

Customer options are limited to the active site and are resolved only through a valid builder preview session. The selected identity is clearly labelled in the builder, while the real storefront authentication session remains untouched.

See account details without impersonating production

Customer preview provides read-only identity context for supported account views, including the account overview, orders, returns, reviews, wishlist, downloads, stock alerts, and saved addresses. This makes it practical to check empty states, populated states, customer-specific copy, and account navigation without signing the dashboard user into the storefront as a real customer.

Actions that would change customer data are blocked or marked as unavailable in preview mode. The builder preview banner makes the boundary explicit: it is a review environment, not a second production login.

Build a cart that cannot leak into production

Preview cart state is stored in the browser session under a preview-session- specific key. It starts empty, survives iframe reloads and route changes, and supports the complete review loop:

• Add products from cards, product pages, recommendations, and wishlist views.
• Adjust quantities, remove items, clear the cart, and open the cart sheet.
• Navigate to /cart and continue into checkout with the same temporary items.
• Switch preview customers and automatically clear the cart to avoid mixing customer scenarios.

The preview cart never calls real cart mutations, attaches itself to a customer, or writes a Prisma cart record. It is useful for testing the interface and totals while keeping real shopper activity separate.

Make checkout representative, not risky

Preview checkout uses the storefront's active theme configuration, including surface colors, borders, typography, spacing, checkout layout, delivery summaries, and payment presentation. Split checkout keeps its focused layout without the regular storefront top bar.

The selected customer and temporary cart are visible where they affect the checkout experience, while a clear preview notice explains that no order will be placed. Payment, Stripe, delivery, discount, and order-finalization mutations stay disabled in this mode.

Edit global surfaces where they appear

Header and footer editing now follows the same visual language as section editing. Hover targets receive the builder outline, and clicking anywhere in a header or footer selects that global surface and opens its inspector. Supported text can be edited directly on the canvas, including brand text, footer copy, payment marks, and other editable content.

Newsletter fields are interactive in the preview so their layout, spacing, input treatment, and responsive behavior can be checked without sending a real subscription. The same preview-aware behavior keeps test interactions from creating production newsletter records.

Read the launch story in Preview the entire customer journey before your storefront launch.