How online shopping cart works

By Joseph Maina

E-commerce involves online trade where goods and service are exchanged using a range of resources over the Internet.

The shopping cart is one of the most integral components of an e-commerce website.

This virtual cart is basically a web-based software that is used to make a website’s product catalogue available for online ordering, enabling visitors to select, view, add or delete merchandise.

Small websites

With it, visitors can ‘carry’ an item or set of items from one page to the next.

For small e-commerce websites it may not be necessary, but it would be unimaginable to have multiple products on sale in a big website without a mechanism enabling your online customers to browse from one page to the next, buying as they navigate.

A graphic illustration is often placed next to every item on sale.

The cart then increments the number of items from page to page and displays the final sum when the client prompts it to.

At this point, the client makes the choice to either buy all, some or discard all the items selected.

A typical shopping cart displays not just the item selected by the customer, but other details as well such as the price of the item and number of items selected.

On the web owner’s side, the cart computes the new number of items remaining in the online store, taking into account the latest transaction and the total revenue accrued.

Further, it can take compile statistics showing the slowest moving and the most fluid items.

Online shopping carts possess two faces, the storefront and the administration segments.

Typically, visitors can only access the storefront where they view the products along with their respective price tags and directions on how to order.

Admin sections are secure pages reserved for the web administrators only.

Here the web owner manages the online shop by adding and editing products, and oversees the shipping and payment settings.

The carts can be developed in house by a web programmer or bought as complete packages.

Commercial software exists for sale online and can be added to any website with slight adjustments. There exist two broad categories of this software.

Licensed software requires that the web owner pays a fee, usually upfront, and proceeds to download the software with no more future payments are made to the seller.

The package includes a license of use, conferring on the web owner not just the right to exclusive use but that of hosting on any web server.

Additionally, the web owner can access the program’s core and further customise it towards the particular needs of his business.

Monthly fee

Under the hosted services option, the software is not downloaded, but rather is hosted by a service provider and is paid for on a monthly or annual basis.

In some arrangements, the hosting provider gets a percentage of the sales made, either to cater for the monthly fee or in addition to the same.