The technology behind online shopping carts have gone through several evolutions and are currently at a point that it is very hard for an online merchant to live without one. An online shopping cart allows a customer to select items in the online store and place them in their virtual shopping cart. This allows customers to track which items are in the online shopping cart, and their respective quantities, in real time. An online shopping cart can allow customers to see their running total, and even add shipping and taxes.
Shopping carts give the customers a very easy way to keep track of what they want, and what their current total is. These virtual shopping carts are even better than real shopping carts because they are more flexible and do all of the math for you. Shopping carts help merchants as well. A shopping cart can allow a merchant to process payments automatically, dispatch order confirmation Emails automatically, and keep track of inventory and quantities automatically. Just as an online shopping cart does the work for a customer, it does a lot of the work for the merchant as well.
Online shopping carts are so common today that websites without them often look unprofessional and can drive away potential customers. For the merchant, an online shopping cart can even provide data collecting and market research. For example, a shopping cart can tell you how many abandoned sales were attempted, and also track how much traffic you get and which websites the traffic comes from. If you are getting a lot of abandoned sales you can make changes to help customers commit, and you can track what positive or negative effects your changes make of the rate of abandoned sales.
A shopping cart can also help make customers want to come back. Customers like a secure, easy, and worry-free shopping experience, and online shopping can make some people nervous. A professional online shopping cart and order confirmation Emails can help put the buyer at ease and let them know that their order is being processed. A lot of buyers think "Now they have my money, but will they really process my order?" Even if they eventually get their order in the mail, by making the wait time more bearable and worry-free you will make their experience with your online store more pleasurable.
You can host a shopping cart on your own site, or have it hosted by a third party. By hosting a shopping cart yourself you are able to control the features and elements better. This allows your shopping cart to be better tailored to your products. Having a shopping cart hosted on another server offers you less flexibility, but shortens your set up time and is generally easier for merchants that are busy or not very good with online set ups. Whichever method you choose, a shopping cart is almost a requirement for any online merchant.
Nick Hurd is the developer of eCOMpal.com an online shopping cart that has many options to make selling online more effective. You can find more information at www.ecompal.com - an online shopping cart. You'll be glad you did.
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