Shopping Cart Software Backbone Of Online Shopping Portals
By:Jason Ciment
Buying and selling of products through internet which uses advance networking technologies is called E-commerce. Computer Scientists and engineers have designed "enablers" to which facilitate online shopping, online secure payment gateway and shopping cart software to conduct e-commerce. Almost all online store software have shopping cart software as part of it which act as the backbone for shopping portals. The main function of an online shopping cart is to keep track of the items selected by an online buyer and the total amount to be billed for checkout purpose. In a way, it is similar to the billing software used by supermarkets across the world. It is analogous to the trolleys we are so accustomed to using in supermarkets. By marking an item and moving it to on online shopping cart icon on the webpage, a visitor can choose an item to purchase, after studying the list and product description on the online shopping portal. The icon can be found at the bottom of each image of a product at a price that is most often below the marked price for that item. The shopping cart panel displays item selected by the online purchaser, its product code, its price, discount etc. If the customer wants to buy some other products as well he can browse through product listings and add the items he wishes to his shopping cart in addition to the item he has already selected. Developing such software is not a cakewalk. It requires a mix of deep technical knowledge of database management or DBMS, accounts and billing practices and applications, and network security for secure payment gateway synchronization. Development should begin only after the nuances of the target customers have been thoroughly researched and understood. "Usability" should be a guiding factor is such software development. Shopping cart software utilizes the concept of cookies in Hypertext Markup Languages (HTML) or else is enabled using query strings. There are two types of shopping cart software available in the market today. The first kind requires a one time payment and unlimited usage upon purchase. The online shopping cart is a similar concept to the supermarket cart - it keeps track of items selected by customers, then totals the items at the checkout. If a visitor to a website decides to buy a product, he or she will select that item by clicking the shopping cart item on the webpage. Developing specifically tailored shopping cart software is complicated. Accounts and billing, database management and secure payment gateway must be considered. There are two main types of online store software on the market, one available for a one-time licensing fee, plus another that requires a subscription fee, but also includes hosting.