Trying to prep for a big party this weekend and we're trying to speed run the list. Im logged in on my phone and my wife is on hers using the same login but the cart items arent syncing up live. Ive used the app forever but never tried this. Can two people share a Walmart cart in real-time?
Yeah those guys are right, it really doesnt sync fast enough to rely on for a speed run. Better to be safe so you dont end up with two of everything. I usually do this instead:
Ngl it doesnt sync live very well. I tried once and things got messy... just refresh the app manually every few minutes to stay safe and avoid double orders.
Basically you cant do it in real-time because the backend isn't built on web sockets or any data streaming protocol, so it wont push updates to another device instantly. I remember trying to sync a huge grocery run for a wedding once and the concurrency issues were a nightmare because the app relies on manual GET requests to fetch the latest cart state from the server. Tbh if you both add things at the same millisecond, the database might even throw a conflict error or just overwrite one of the items since it lacks robust optimistic locking for guest sessions.
Honestly, I've tried this exact thing before during a huge holiday blowout and it was a total disaster. You would think a company that big would have real-time syncing, but in my experience, the Walmart app just cant handle two people logged into the same account adding stuff simultaneously. What usually happens is you'll see items disappear from your view even tho they're still technically in the cart, or worse, you'll end up with double the amount of expensive gear because the sync lag is so bad. One time I ended up with two monitors I didn't need because my wife added one and then it didn't show on my screen for like five minutes, so I added it too thinking she forgot. My biggest warning is to watch the final total like a hawk. If the price jumps suddenly right before you hit pay, something went wrong with the session syncing. To be safe, just have one person do the actual clicking while the other person reads off the list... saves a lot of headache with returns later.