Online Shopping 101 – Part: 2 How Shopping Carts Work

If you think a shopping cart is something made of metal and wheels it may have confused you to hear people of needing to put a ‘shopping cart’ on their ‘website’. Of course, they mean a virtual shopping cart. If you’re still not sure how that’s possible, read on.

This 101 online series discusses the elements that make up successful eCommerce web design. Your website shopping cart is one of the top crucial elements when creating an online store. Just as a person in a real store would place a product in a shopping cart while they continue to browse before heading to the cash registers, your online shopping cart is the link between your customer simply looking at a product and deciding to buy it.

Before we get into the best way to design a shopping cart, we’re going to break down how a shopping cart works on an online web store.

Steps to using a Shopping Cart:

• Buy Now
  A website shopping cart will typically involve a call to action button like ‘buy now’. These buttons should be large and easy to click on every product item.
  
• Added To Shopping Cart
  Once the user clicks on buy now, the product is added to their shopping cart. They can continue to browse your website to look for more things they might like to buy.
  
• Register and Review The Order
  A customer can look at their order to confirm if they want everything in their shopping cart. This is the point where they can change quantities or remove items altogether.
  
• Add Details and Select Shipping
  Customer enters their shipping details and chooses which type of shipping they want. Some websites calculate shipping based on weight or dimensions and others by distance. A good shopping cart will quickly and easily calculate shipping based on postcode and the items in the shopping cart and ensure you are covered for your shipping expenses.
  
• Pay & Confirm Order
  Customer inputs their payment details. This is also known as the ‘payment gateway’. Our next article discusses this in more detail. Order is finalised. Your store receives the money and ships the product!

Shopping carts are a vital link in your customer shopping experience. If your shopping cart is difficult to use or confusing, your customers will abandon the process and never buy your product. Coming up, we discuss the best ways to build your shopping cart for maximum participation and sales.

Put your website in our shopping cart and let us build an online store for you, hassle free.

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