What is an online shopping cart? Have you got the slightest idea? An online shopping cart is something we come across every day. And since everyone is now doing their shopping online, the chances that they have made use of it is very high. But it is quite unfortunate that most people who make use of online shopping carts every day still don’t know about it.
Therefore for the benefit of these persons and for those who haven’t even come across it before due to the fact that they haven’t gotten a reason to make use of it, I will be telling you what it is. But in order to get the definition of what an online shopping cart is, you will need to go through this article, from the start to the finish.
Online Shopping CartÂ
What is an online shopping cart? An online shopping cart normally is a feature on online retail shops like amazon, bigcommerce, Shopify, and the rest of it. This is a piece of software that facilitates the purchase of a product online. This piece of software helps accept the payment of customers and organizes the distribution or sends the information of a customer to a merchant, a payment processor, or other third parties involved in the transaction.
For those persons who still don’t know what shopping carts are or what they look like. Shopping carts are those little basket or trolley icons or images we usually find at the top right corner or on the page on online retail shops or marketplaces.
Whenever a person selects or makes a purchase, the said product information is stored on this shopping cart. The software is similar to shopping in physical stores. And of course, when you shop in brick and mortar shops, you put items on a trolley or a basket. And from there you make a payment or you process checkout.
The Importance Of Online Shopping Carts
Online shopping carts are very important in today’s online retail world. This helps shorten the gap between shopping and buying online. This, therefore, means that if you have an online retail store it is very important that you have the best shopping cart software. Normally the main objective of a shopping cart is leading a customer to checkout.
But this software also has other objectives. One of these objectives or roles of an online shopping cart is storing the product information of customers. Online shopping carts are also a gateway for orders, catalogue, and customer management. Lastly, these shopping carts render product data, categories of products, and site information.
There are two types of online shopping carts. Therefore if you are thinking of setting up shop online take note of this. There is a hosted shopping cart where a third party firm helps with the hosting, server backups, maintenance, and upgrades of your shopping cart.
One reason why people love this type of shopping cart is that it is free and it costs absolutely nothing to keep your site functional on the web. The only disadvantage to it is that customers will be directed to another page to process their payments.
The other is the licensed shopping carts where businesses and retailers are allowed to build their very own type of carts. With this, they are able to customize these shopping carts to their specific needs. This option or type offers more flexibility and control. The only drawback is that it is expensive and it also requires technical expertise in maintenance and troubleshooting issues.
The Best Shopping Cart Software In The Market Today
The number of online shopping carts software has increased a lot recently and choosing a specific one can actually be problematic. Below are some of the top shopping cart software’s to check out or consider as an online retailer;
- Ecwid.
- 3dcart.
- Prestashop.
- Paykickstart.
- Abantecart.
- Opencart.
- CS-cart multi-vendor.
- Rejoiner.
- Convertri.
- Plug&paid.
These are some of the best shopping cart software in the market today. There are still other online shopping carts online and you can check them up yourself.
