Twice now I have gone down to check out the inventory for the travelling merchant and encountered a problem. The cart is there, but the merchant is not in the cart. I'm not able to interact with the cart, either. Has anyone else run into this? I've tried quitting and restarting the game, and now I have tried it on 2 different game days, but no luck. It's a bit disappointing...as far as I know it doesn't make the game unplayable, but I keep hoping to find another coffee bean or rare seed, and I'm puzzled. I haven't found any other threads (on any set of forums, and I've checked at least 3) where anyone has mentioned this.

Any insight would be appreciated!

What time was it?

I checked periodically throughout the entire "evening" - from about 5 or 6 pm all the way through till after 11:00. The cart is there, but no one is in the window to talk to. I tried leaving the screen (went to the secret woods) and returned, but nothing changed. Very odd.

Just as a test, I started a new game. On the first available Friday, I went down to check on the traveling merchant. I've attached a screenshot; I encountered the same problem. The cart is there, & the merchant is not. This was approx. 10:30 pm in-game, on a Friday evening.

Just to follow up, I tried looking again on Spring 7 (Sunday). I didn't check when it was dark out, but the merchant was in the cart at 1 pm, so perhaps I was arriving too late? At any rate, perhaps I just had the pattern wrong as far as times of day. I was under the impression I had to go in the evening, for some reason.

Hi I found on the stardewvalley wiki her open and close time
Open Hours: 6:00AM to 8:00PM
Closed: Monday - Thursday, Saturday

http://stardewvalleywiki.com/Travelling_Cart

That's what I was missing. Thanks! Very helpful. :)