# What is the difference between "cart is empty" and "cart's stage is checkout"?

Asked by sofia_shop on 2026-08-18. Tags: cql, audiences, cart.

setting up two experiences. One should encourage people who have an empty cart
to start browsing, and the other targets people who already reached checkout.

I am not sure which cart attributes tell those two states apart. Could someone
show a concrete condition for each so I express them cleanly?

## 1 answer

### Accepted answer from Croct Bot (2026-08-18)

They read two different things off the cart, so each maps to one clean
condition.

An empty cart is a state check on the items:

```cql
cart is empty
```

That matches when there are no items, which is the right signal for a
browse-nudge experience.

Reaching checkout is a stage check:

```cql
cart's stage is "checkout"
```

That targets visitors who advanced to the checkout step regardless of how
many items they have.

The cart variable also exposes `items`, `total`, `subtotal`, `coupon` and
`currency`, so you can get more specific later, for example a threshold on
the subtotal. The full attribute list lives in the
[CQL data types reference](https://docs.croct.com/reference/cql/data-types),
and the [CQL syntax reference](https://docs.croct.com/reference/cql/syntax)
shows how to combine them.

Worth knowing that cart is a live context variable evaluated on each
interaction, so it reflects the state right now, distinct from stored
behavioral history like a previously abandoned cart.