subject: Shopping Carts Software: Is Shopping Cart Software Useful? [print this page] The term shopping cart refers to the cart which is used to place the products that a customer wants to buy. In the area of ecommerce, this term is used for the same meaning but for online purchasing. Shopping carts software allows customers to generate a list of products for purchase, commonly termed as adding items to shopping cart or add to cart. Not only this, the software also calculates the total payment to be made including shipping charges and other additional taxes. This calculation is made upon checkout.
Shopping carts software is consist of two major components- storefront and administration. Storefront is accessed by the customers and the administration part is accessed by the online shop owner. The shop owner has the power to change the look and feel of the storefront. The administration area can again be divided into two parts- web based administration and desktop based administration. The web based administration is accessed via a web browser whereas in a desktop based administration a local application runs on the users computer and the changes are reflected in the storefront computer.
The setup of this software is divided into two parts. It is installed partly in the website and the web server. For the website, the setup is done in HTML code and the shopping cart software is installed on the host server. Other than the host server, the software can also be installed on the secure server which deals with sensitive data, like, dealing with payment issues or checking credit card validity.
These online shopping cart solutions are implemented with the help of HTTP cookies and query strings. In most applications, all information regarding the shopping cart is stored in the Session object. The information is manipulated when customers select their desired products from the shopping cart. After the customers finish their selection of products, a list is generated to keep the records of the products. After that, the shopping cart gets cleared.
The features of your online store depend on the shopping cart software you choose. The software should have the common features as well as the advanced features. Some of the software features are- unlimited number of categories and subcategories to group products, highlighting new products, searching catalogs, review of each product, list of best selling products, select currency to clear the payments, adding unlimited products to shopping carts, product updating, password management, managing inventory efficiently and producing periodical reports about inventory, user friendly web interface, uploading products pictures, calculating tax and shipping charges, creating coupons, applying discount rates, gift certificates, database backup, applying security measures and many more. So, you must consider the features while selecting Shopping carts software.
Since the online stores are making a huge success now, web hosting with shopping cart is a great idea to expand your online business. The main advantage of this is the important tasks are carried out by the hosting providers. You have to only manage the store with the features and options provided by the hosting provider.
