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If you’re going to sell
products online then you’re going to need a
shopping cart system on your website. And a
shopping cart system is nothing more than a data
base driven program that allows your customers
to add products to the shopping cart and
complete their order online.
A basic shopping cart program normally runs on
the server computer where your website is hosted
or on the server of the company which provided
the shopping cart, and integrates with the rest
of your website from the “Buy now” or “Add to
cart” button on your product page.
And with some shopping cart systems, the entire
website is the shopping cart and catalog
combined. |
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In a website where each product has it’s own
product page, such as in the case with a static
HTML website, it’s the “Add to Cart” button that
links your website to the shopping cart data
base system.
When the customer clicks on the “Add to Cart”
button, they’re directed to the shopping cart
program where they will enter in their customer
information such as their credit card number,
billing address and shipping address as well.
And the entire transaction takes place on a
secured sever.
Once the customer clicks on that final option to
complete the order, their credit card and
billing information is processed and authorized
within seconds by the gateway provider.
The gateway provider authorizes and approves the
transaction. Then a confirmation “email merchant
receipt” or a “payment notification” email is
sent to you, the seller, and to the buyer as
well.
This confirmation email will include the
customers name, phone number, and shipping
address. It also confirms that the customers’
credit card has been approved for the
transaction and the process of transferring the
funds of the sale from the customers’ credit
card into your bank account is taking place.
If however, the customer paid via PayPal then
those credit card funds are transferred from the
customers’ credit card into your PayPal account
instantly. And those funds are now available to
either purchase the product with a PayPal
business debit card or to transfer into your own
personal or business bank account.
How a shopping cart works
Most shopping carts are database driven programs
that store information such as product,
customer, and order information in the database
files. And the storefront interface displays
this information to the customer.
The administration area of the shopping cart
allows you to manage your store, add products,
set up shipping & payment options and more.
However, most of the information is stored
within a database, and not on actual web pages.
But the shopping cart will retrieve the data
from the database to dynamically generate the
web page in real time and display that page to
the customer when the customer clicks on that
page link.
In other words, a web store with 100 products
that is maintained by a data base driven
shopping cart does not actually have 100 product
pages on the web server. Instead, the pages are
created on the fly when a customer clicks on the
link to see that actual product page. The
information is retrieved from a database and
displayed to the customer in a graphical,
user-friendly webpage.
Customer registration or not
Over the years, statistics have shown that when
shopping online, most shoppers prefer to add
their products to the shopping cart and check
out as quickly and as easily as possible without
having to go through the hassle of registering
and establishing an account with the internet
retail company. |
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If the
customer is forced to register before completing
their purchase then there’s a good chance that
he or she will abandon the shopping cart and
move on to the next online store. Furthermore, the best
visitor-to-sales conversions come from shopping
cart programs which do not force the customers
to register in order to buy the product and
complete their purchase online.
However, the customer
should be able to add the product to the
shopping cart, enter their billing and shipping
information and then check out and complete the
order as quickly and as easily as possible
without being forced to register and open an
account. And internet storefronts that provide a
quick and easy checkout will always do better
than those who make their customers register
before they’re able to complete the purchase.
Fortunately, more shopping
cart systems have found this to be true and as a
result most shopping carts give the customer the
option of either registering now or completing
the purchase as a guess shopper, without having
to register, and as a result, more sales are
made and completed as well. |
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Basic shopping carts vs. Complete
shopping cart solutions
There are two types of shopping carts; a basic
shopping cart such as what payment solution
providers like PayPal and Google Checkout have
to offer. And then there are more comprehensive
shopping cart systems which allow you to manage
your product catalog, sales, discounts etc…
Basic shopping carts
With a basic shopping cart, there are many good,
free options to choose from such as PayPal and
Google Checkout shopping cart. And there are
others as well, but PayPal just happens to be
one of the more popular payment and shopping
cart solutions on the internet.
A basic shopping cart system allows you to place
a link on your website, specifically on your
“Add to cart” button, so that your customers can
click on that button and add that product to the
shopping cart, and then check out and complete
the order online.
However, functions such as managing discounts,
sales, specials and promotions are usually not
available with basic shopping cart systems. Yet
for certain types of products such features are
not needed. And a simple basic shopping cart
solution may do just fine.
Complete shopping cart solutions
A complete shopping cart solution can make a
huge difference in the customers buying
experience and can handle everything from the
storefront catalog to sophisticated store
management tools.
And with a full featured shopping cart, you can
run sales, promotions and discounts on specific
products and give several shipping and payment
options as well.
Hosted shopping cart vs. licensed
shopping cart
You can own and possibly customize your own
shopping cart software or you can pay for your
shopping cart services on a monthly basis with
your web hosting services. The choice is yours. |
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Hosted shopping cart
Complete ecommerce
providers such as Volusion and
Shopify offer storefront solutions along with
hosted shopping cart systems as part of the
ecommerce package. And these complete packages
are paid for on a monthly basis and can start
from $19 per month.
When using these options,
your initial start-up costs are much lower and
start-up time is much faster as well. However,
if you’re not happy with their services, you
can’t take the shopping cart with you. Yet most
ecommerce providers offer 30 day free trials
which give you plenty of time to test drive the
shopping cart and the administration area as
well.
Licensed shopping cart
A licensed shopping cart
software is a program that you purchase and is
typically hosted by your web host provider where
your website is being hosted. With a licensed shopping
cart you would normally pay for the software
license fee which may also include support and
updates as well. However, if for whatever reason
you’re not satisfied with your web hosting
company then you can always take your shopping
cart software with you and move it to another
web host provider. Furthermore, with many
licensed shopping cart software programs you can
edit and customize the software's source code,
if you ever needed to do so.
Storefront and shopping
cart administration
Shopping cart systems
consist of two interfaces: the storefront area
which is visible to your customers and includes
the store catalog, the product pages etc, and
the administration area, which is not visible to
your customers, but only to you, and is where
you’ll manage the storefront, add products,
change prices etc. |
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Storefront features:
A storefront shopping cart provides a store
catalog which makes it easy for customers to
browse your store and shop online.
A shopping cart also includes a “search” feature
that helps customers to find specific products
just by typing in the name of the products in
the search box.
The search feature can also search the shopping
cart data base based upon other search criteria
such as popularity, price low to high, high to
low etc.
The storefront will also provide a customer
service area where customers can view or edit
account information, see and track previous
orders and more. Storefronts can also include
pages for featured products, products on sale,
and products by brand as well. |
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Administration features:
The administration area of
the shopping cart is where you’ll actually add
the products to your storefront. And adding
products is as simple as “insert image” and
“insert product text” and then click “save”.
You can set store settings
such as how products are displayed, how many
products are displayed per page etc…The administration area
also provides a module to create, edit and
manage product pages and product categories as
well. You can also change settings across
multiple pages with one just modification.
Within the administration
area you can add and change other features on
your storefront according to which products you
sell. For example, if you’re selling clothing
items then you can add size and color options
and change prices per size as well.
You can offer multiple
shipping options such as UPS or FedEx Ground
Shipping, 2 Day Shipping, Next Day Shipping, or
Free Shipping on orders over $50. And you can
also offer multiple payment options such as
credit cards, checks, eChecks, COD, money
orders, and PayPal.
The administration area is
where you’ll set all your storefront settings to
make your customers’ shopping experience as easy
and as pleasant as possible. And most shopping
carts allow you to make such changes and many
more with ease. Yet even the most basic shopping
carts are sufficient to sell a variety of
products as well. What matters most, is that
your shopping cart helps the customer to easily
add their product to the shopping cart and
complete the check out process as quickly and as
easily as possible. |
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