Shopify’s New Add-to-Cart Restrictions: What Store Owners Should Know

New features in Shopify’s checkout and cart have just been introduced and many B2B and high-SKU store owners are noticing them quickly. Often referred to as “Shopify’s New Add-to-Cart Restrictions,” this new thing grants merchants fresh control over the way customers add items to their carts.

Better cart performance and less inventory risk in the backend mean these changes have broad effects. If you’re selling stock to consumers or running a B2B store, strictly following and understanding these Shopify cart rules is necessary.

What Are Shopify’s New Add-to-Cart Restrictions?

Shopify has introduced two major rules that affect how customers can interact with their cart:

Unique Line Item Limit

Shops using Shopify can now add up to 100 different products or variants to a single cart. This is not the variety but quantity of products in the cart.

This is not the variety but quantity of products in the cart.

For example, processing 1 unit for each of 100 products is fine, but mixing in just one more product with a quantity of one is forbidden.

Quantity Per Product Limit

Shopify now permits you to limit how many units one customer can add per one product. This helps merchants limit quantity in Shopify for better inventory control.

• A customer can only put a restricted number of any single kind of product into their cart. The minimum amount needed to meet the threshold will vary and start out based on what you’ve purchased in the past. At any time, merchants are able to edit this setting manually.
• Shopify Admin → Settings → Checkout → Advanced Preferences
• Any store with less than 250 orders will have 50 as the default limit for each product.

These updates are collectively referred to as Shopify’s New Add-to-Cart Restrictions, and they only affect the online store sales channel—not draft orders, POS, or Shopify B2B cart rules.

Why Shopify Introduced These Cart Restrictions

The New Add-to-Cart Restrictions from Shopify were carefully chosen. Here’s why they are important:

• Keep confidential stock level records safe
• Work on making both checkout and cart functions strong on mobile
• Reduce problems in fulfilling and processing orders
• Try not to arrange promotions when you will need extra inventory.
• Stop scraping bots and unauthorized use of your data

These Shopify cart policy updates are part of a broader push to strengthen the platform’s stability while offering merchants more granular control over order flow and inventory exposure.

Shopify’s Unique Line Item Limit Explained

This rule limits the number of distinct products or variants that can be added to a single cart to 100. While it’s an excellent safeguard for most DTC and consumer-facing stores, it can cause friction in B2B or wholesale operations.

If Used in the Right Way

• Makes accessing the cart and completing the transaction very quick on small devices.
• Helps avoid order fulfillment and processing error.
• Best suited for consumer goods retail shops, where clients usually buy only a small number of SKUs.

If Not Used in the Right Way

• Many wholesale clients or B2B customers will get a cart error when trying to add more than 100 items.
• May not meet the needs of clients who want to order large amounts at any time.

For those managing Shopify B2B cart rules, this limitation doesn’t apply to orders placed through draft order workflows or B2B channels, providing a way around the restriction for large-volume clients.

Shopify’s Quantity Per Product Limit Explained

This Shopify quantity limit allows merchants to define the number of units a customer can add per individual product.

If Used Appropriately

• Stops you from selling more of a product than it is available.
• Make sure customers can’t learn about sensitive stock data.
• Enables fair distribution of products during campaigns and debuts.

If Not Used

• Being unaware of limits might make people upset.
• Purchasing from the web store may not appeal to those who need to buy in bulk.
• If you do not control automatic quantity adjustments, your inventory visibility is at risk.

For stores dealing with limited edition drops or promotional campaigns, this feature can disable add to cart in Shopify when inventory thresholds are reached, and prevent stock from vanishing due to a few large-volume buyers.

Quick Hit Points of Shopify’s New Add-to-Cart Restrictions

Let’s summarize the upsides of adopting Shopify’s New Add-to-Cart Restrictions:

• Only 100 products or options can be included in your Shopify cart at a time.
• You can decide how many of the same item a customer is permitted to order.
• Restrictions occur only on online store carts, and not to:
  • Draft orders
  • POS
• Catalogs that each item has a different quantity requirement
• Shopify uses your past orders to set a default max order limit.
• Line item limits can be set or changed in the admin by merchants.

For most merchants, especially DTC brands, these Shopify add-to-cart limitations are beneficial enhancements.

Pros and Cons Analysis

Limit on Unique Line Items

Pros

• Makes checkout procedures faster and the cart responds more efficiently.
• Lowers the chances of getting an error in the cart.
• Supports managing both inventory and the order process.

Cons

• Doesn’t accept orders that require many separate products to be made.
• SKU options are not suitable for companies selling multiple types of products.

Quantity Per Product Cap

Advantages

• Prevents competitors from stealing company inventory data.
• Protect stock of trending or limited products.
• Distributes products evenly during the busiest days of the year.

Disadvantages

• May lead bulk order customers to find it bothersome.
• Explanation should be provided to prevent people from getting confused.
• Some stores, like those geared towards wholesale, are not like this.

Real-World Use Cases

Consumer-Focused Store

A skincare brand often creates products that receive a high demand from customers. Limiting the number of units each customer can purchase keeps the supply fair and gives a larger group a chance to buy on launch day. These Shopify cart rules help ensure smoother sales experiences.

Wholesale Operations

Large orders for an apparel wholesaler are made with a draft quote. Since draft orders are excluded from Shopify’s New Add-to-Cart Restrictions, the current way orders are processed in the backend remains unchanged. This supports more flexible Shopify B2B cart rules.

Such examples explain how to customize Shopify’s quantity limits to fit your selling style.

How to Set and Modify Add-to-Cart Restrictions in Shopify

To apply these Shopify cart policy updates:

• Go to your Shopify Admin
• Navigate to Settings → Checkout
• Scroll to Advanced Preferences
• Find “Add-to-cart limit”
• Enable it and adjust the quantity per product
• Save changes

Need to apply variable limits across collections? Consider using Shopify Scripts, Shopify Plus Script Editor, or Shopify Functions to extend or customize your Shopify add-to-cart limitations.

Output :

Best Practices for Implementation

Make sure to use these tips while using Shopify’s New Add-to-Cart Restrictions:

• Check the most popular SKUs and how buyers act before setting any limits.
• Show product limits next to each drop-down for choosing the amount.
• Add tags with metafields and create custom ways to handle them
• Keep an eye on behavior to see if the improvement is working and improve the approach if needed
• Choose Shopify Plus if you need to modify your scripting or checkout process

Conclusion: Make Smart Limits, Boost Store Control

This new feature from Shopify is a big boost for both customers and managing inventory. If merchants know the new Shopify cart policy rules and use the checkout restrictions wisely, they can:

• Improve backend performance
  
• Protect stock visibility
  
• Reduce cart abandonment due to glitches
  
• Maintain operational clarity across SKUs

If these things are ignored or used without thought, they may annoy your visitors and lower your conversion rate. It’s best to use information about your customers to set up Shopify cart rules that fit your business guidelines.