In simple terms, shopping cart software is a software package that runs on the back-end of your website, but provides both front-end and back-end functionality.
On the back-end, shopping cart software enables you to track orders, update orders (such as inputting shipping information), contact customers, and maintain accurate logs of inventory.
More advanced features of shopping cart software will allow you to create coupons, free shipping offers, and other special promotions. And on the front-end, shopping cart software will, to put it quite simply, make your website look nice.
Shopping carts provide categories, tags, labels, pictures, descriptions, and other information and search filters that make it easy for even the most novice of internet users to browse or search your website for the products they’re interested in.
Today’s ecommerce shopping cart packages can accept just about any form of electronic payment, including all major credit cards, electronic checks, gift cards issued from that particular online store front, and even PayPal and Google Checkout.
Most carts offer merchants the option to tweak prices for sales, holiday promotions, end-of-season clearances, and other promotional periods, but you’ll want to check to be sure.
Additionally, if issuing coupons, free shipping, and other offers is of an interest to you, you’ll want to make sure that the cart software you have your eye on can also provide you with these features.
Today’s options for shopping carts are fairly extensive, with a wide variety of price ranges and features. Generally, you’ll want to look for cart software that offers the following:
- acceptance of all major credit cards; acceptance of online payment methods such as PayPal and Google Checkout if you would like to offer these additional options
- generation, acceptance, and automatic calculation and price adjustment for sales and coupons
- stock management
- customer account creation and management (learn more here about why customers should be able to create their own accounts for order management)
Finally, you’ll need to decide if you’ll be hosting your cart software on your own server, or if you’ll purchase licensed cart software that is hosted elsewhere. Both offer advantages and disadvantages; consider your server’s capabilities and your own needs and preferences when deciding which option to choose.
Dana Davis
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Shopping cart software is very important for an ecommerce website I am really glad that you share this information with us. Thanks a lot to share this.
I think that best shopping cart is the one with as-little-info-you-need-to-type, the better. Customers like that, especially with recurring orders when its faster to them to buy and fill in two columns then to log in.
Hi Stampaci,
I agree. The less obstacles to quickly checking out, the more completed orders a business will get and the fewer abandoned shopping carts.
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I am really glad that you share this information with us. Shopping cart software is very important for eCommerce websites like our online shopping site Surface180.
shopping cart software is very important for eCommerce websites. i must recommend shopify as it has the necessary things.
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Great article very informative, Shopping Cart is really easy platform for eCommerce that is really easy to use and one can do anything in it, from shopping cart to setting up the products..Thanks for sharing such awesome article.
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Hello Davis,
Such a great article, i would like to share one thing that is i also deal in eCommerce website development and i found that if you build shopping cart software yourself then it will be good for you, when i started website development then i use software like zen cart and others but it is not good for big brands like flipkart and jabong that’s i decide to build my own.
Hello Gaurav,
I strongly recommend that small businesses not build their own shopping carts unless what they sell needs a very customized checkout process. It is far too easy for the developer to create a checkout process that prevents sales. For example, I’ve been unable to check out on a site because my street address did not fit in the field. To use a credit card, the exact name and address must match. If the fields are too short the buyer can’t check out because their credit card will never to approved. Even if they could, without an accurate address their purchase might not get delivered. This issue is greatly compounded if a site ships internationally. Many do not realize that formats for addresses and phone numbers can be different in other countries.
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One option for those looking to build their own cart from scratch, look for a developer that has already done one, and ask to look at his previous work. Attempt to checkout even, see if there are any issues. That’s what we are doing now.
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Hi Dan,
See my other replies to comments in this post about the risks of building a shopping cart from scratch. Why would you want to do that when there are so many already available whose bugs have been resolved over the years?
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Quite Easy to read.I have bookmarked it.Thanks for sharing A Guide to Choosing Shopping Cart Software.This is very helpful for my eCommerce site.Continue this job giving us more info about like this.
Of being an entrepreneur it’s a must to have a knowledge about the shopping cart software. Obviously Dana a very detailed informative post regarding the selection. Thanks a lot for posting such an article.
I am happy after reading this article.I have a website based on E commerce and this shopping cart software is very much important for me. Thanks For this useful guide.
this is very usefull info !!!Its been very happy to see this article,as it is more helpful for me and provides me lots of informations about the shopping cart.Thanks for sharing this. Keep doing ~~
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Its been very happy to see this article,as it is more helpful for me and provides me lots of informations about the shopping cart.Thanks for sharing this. Keep doing ~~
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I found that if you have a good programmer you can build your own shopping cart easy. But finding a good and cheap programmer isn’t! :).
Its been very happy to see this article,as it is more helpful for me and provides me lots of informations about the shopping cart.Thanks for sharing this.Keep doing.
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Shopping Cart and Zen Cart really easy platform for eCommerce. I am using shopping cart for my ecommerce site. It will be helpful for any ecommerce website. If can check Shopprice Australia
I found that if you have a good programmer you can build your own shopping cart easy. But finding a good and cheap programmer isn’t! 🙂
Hi Toneri,
I strongly advise against building your own shopping cart because there are many pitfalls that cause qualified buyers to be unable to complete the buying process. For example, international addresses are quite different as is the format for phone numbers. Most programmers will not know that so buyers outside the countries they know won’t be able to complete their purchase.
Another mistake I’ve seen is that the fields are too short so the name they use on their credit card or their correct address won’t fit. No one can order if their name or address doesn’t fit into the field as the credit card processors will reject the sale if these are not exactly what is on the credit card account.
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Shopping cart software is very important if one is having an ecommerce website. I am using Ezeebiz platform that is really easy to use and one can do anything in it, from shopping cart to setting up the products.
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