Shopping Cart Software: Backbone Of Online Shopping Portals
Electric commerce, or e-commerce, uses the internet or other specialized networking technologies to facilitate the buying and selling of products. This is accomplished when computer scientists and engineers develop components that facilitate online shopping, including shopping cart software, secure payment gateway software, etc. These components, of which shopping cart software has become the most popular, are collectively referred to as online store software and form the backbone of most shopping portals.
The online shopping cart is mainly used to keep track of items selected by online customers and then totaled at the point of checkout. It is very similar in concept to putting your items in a cart at the supermarket and then presenting your items at checkout to be rung up by the store clerk.
By marking an item and moving it to on online shopping cart icon on the webpage, a visitor can choose an item to purchase, after studying the list and product description on the online shopping portal. The icon can be found at the bottom of each image of a product at a price that is most often below the marked price for that item.
The shopping cart panel displays item selected by the online purchaser , its product code, its price, discount etc. If the customer wants to buy some other products as well he can browse through product listings and add the items he wishes to his shopping cart in addition to the item he has already selected.
The application may looks simple and easy to build. But developing such software demands high technical expertise in various areas such as real time database management, accounts and billing, secure payment gateway etc. It is also important that the team which develops this software does a thorough analysis of the expected customer profile and uses this knowledge to develop "usability" in the software.
Shopping cart software utilizes the concept of cookies in Hypertext Markup Languages (HTML) or else is enabled using query strings. There are two types of shopping cart software available in the market today. The first kind requires a one time payment and unlimited usage upon purchase. The second type of shopping cart software available requires monthly or annual subscription charges and is hosted services.
The online shopping cart is a similar concept to the supermarket cart - it keeps track of items selected by customers, then totals the items at the checkout. If a visitor to a website decides to buy a product, he or she will select that item by clicking the shopping cart item on the webpage. Developing specifically tailored shopping cart software is complicated. Accounts and billing, database management and secure payment gateway must be considered. There are two main types of online store software on the market, one available for a one-time licensing fee, plus another that requires a subscription fee, but also includes hosting.
Published May 25th, 2007
Filed in Home Business, Internet
