Carts

All About Free E-commerce Shopping Carts

Feb 24th, 2011

All About Free E-commerce Shopping Carts

Choosing an ecommerce shopping cart is a big decision. Unlike a traditional brick and mortar business, your website is your only chance to impress potential customers. It needs to project a professional image to capture the trust of your visitors. The shopping cart is a particularly important part of your website because it deals with people?s personal information and credit card numbers. People are nervous about online purchases and need to be assured that they are giving their credit card numbers to a reputable company.

There are several types of ecommerce shopping carts available. They range from merchant services, which require no programming skills, to fully integrated shopping carts that require custom programming. The three main categories of shopping carts are:

Merchant services such as eBay and 2Checkout

Hosted shopping cart services

Fully integrated shopping carts

Merchant Services

Most shopping carts require you to have your own merchant account and gateway. A merchant account is a bank account that allows a business to conduct credit card transactions and the gateway allows the transaction to be conducted over a secure connection. It?s okay if you don?t have a merchant account or gateway. Merchant service shopping carts allow you to use their merchant account, gateway and shopping cart for a higher cost.

Merchant services are beneficial for very small businesses or those that are just starting and don?t have a lot of orders. Merchant services provide the merchant account, gateway, hosted shopping cart and will maintain your customer?s personal information. They usually require a set-up fee between 50 and 200 dollars, transaction fee between 30 and 75 cents, and 5% to 10% of each transaction. Because you are using their merchant account, your customer?s credit card statement will show the merchant services business name not yours. In some cases, customers will not recognize the charge and may dispute it.

Merchant service shopping carts have an administrative interface, which allows you to login to your account to add products, prices and shipping options. The shopping cart generates the html for the purchase buttons and you simply copy and paste the html into your web pages. When your customer clicks on the purchase button, he is taken to another website to enter the credit card information. This indicates to the customer that you are a small business. Some potential customers will abandon the shopping cart rather than enter their credit card information on a website they know nothing about.

Once your business grows to the point where you are processing over 00 a month, it?s more cost effective to apply for your own merchant account and switch to either a hosted shopping cart (little or no programming) or a fully integrated shopping cart (programming required).

Hosted Shopping Cart

The hosted shopping cart is a great solution for a small business that is processing over 00 a month but does not have the resources to create or customize a fully integrated shopping cart. Hosted shopping carts are similar to the merchant services because they provide an administrative interface for you to enter products, pricing and shipping options. They will generate the html for the purchase buttons, which can be copied and pasted into your html pages.

Hosted shopping carts face some of same problems as merchant service carts because your customers will be transferred to a different website to enter the credit card information. Some hosted shopping carts allow you to customize the shopping cart so that it has the same look and feel as your websites. Customizing your shopping cart may require some programming skills, but it could also prevent customers from abandoning their shopping carts.

Eunis Hilliger is a certified Authorizenet Emulator specialist and assists credit card processing companies.

Article from articlesbase.com

41asvhNZ1JL. SL75 All About Free E commerce Shopping Carts

Honey-Can-Do CRT-01511 Medium Folding Shopping Cart Rolling 4-Wheel Utility Wagon, Black 0 5 All About Free E commerce Shopping Carts

This Shopping Cart Foldable Lightweight Trolley In Black (CRT-01511) by Honey Can Do will let you zip up and down supermarket aisl…

41fmF6 D08L. SL75 All About Free E commerce Shopping Carts

Step2 Little Helper’s Grocery Cart 0 5 All About Free E commerce Shopping Carts

Kids can really shop ‘till they drop with this easy-to-push, super durable grocery cart. Its low and wide cart shape is easy to…

51lvsuB g2L. SL75 All About Free E commerce Shopping Carts

Trimmer Extra Large Shopping Cart, Red 0 5 All About Free E commerce Shopping Carts

This extra large foldable shopping cart is ideal for carrying groceries or laundry. It’s easy to assemble and folds flat for stora…

41tyF04K94L. SL75 All About Free E commerce Shopping Carts

FOLDING SHOPPING CART BLACK WITH MATCHING LINER G8001 Cart Size: 41.75″h x 24″w x 21″d 0 5 All About Free E commerce Shopping Carts

Groceries to go! This high-capacity foldable Jumbo Shopping Cart zips up and down supermarket aisles to speed up your shopping. Al…

41Q18d8sXyL. SL75 All About Free E commerce Shopping Carts

Jumbo Folding Shopping Cart – Black (Black Cart) (41.75″h x 24″w x 21″d (cart size)) 0 5 All About Free E commerce Shopping Carts

Speed up your shopping! This high-capacity foldable Jumbo Shopping Cart will let you zip up and down supermarket aisles. This roll…

41QgtL17e%2BL. SL75 All About Free E commerce Shopping Carts

Folding Shopping Cart – with Liner and Lid (Blue) (37″H x 18″W x 23″D) 0 5 All About Free E commerce Shopping Carts

Do you love to shop till you drop? You’ll never worry about dropping your purchases when you take this super-capacity foldaway gro…

41uH6Yg6YWL. SL75 All About Free E commerce Shopping Carts

Roadrunner Folding Grocery Shopping Cart 2 Wheel Version 0 5 All About Free E commerce Shopping Carts

If you have ever labored to carry heavy bags or packages, you will love these deluxe folding carts.

This wheeled folding shoppin…

Shopping Carts: 5 Usability Problems

Jan 18th, 2011

by admin.

No comments yet

Shopping Carts: 5 Usability Problems

The process leading up to a transaction online is possibly the most critical to a shopping cart’s success. If the buying process causes frustration, confusion or insecurity, the user is likely to abandon the shopping cart, never to return again.

The usability of a shopping cart refers to the efficiency with which a user can achieve their goals on a website. Many of the larger online shopping carts, like Play.com and Amazon.com, are continuously striving to make their buying process as fluent and as effortless as possible. Knowing you can buy a book or film in just 3 or 4 clicks encourages you to return to the same, reliable website.

Having read numerous articles and white papers dedicated to best practice shopping cart design and usability; below I have highlighted five potential design problems in shopping carts that I’m sure many users have encountered.

1. Shopping carts that ask a user to register before knowing if the product is available or not.

It could be quite irritating for a user if they have spent 10 minutes entering their credit card details, home address, telephone number etc etc. only to find out during the checkout process that the product they want to buy is out of stock.

Many shopping carts enable you to present users with live stock availability before the user places their product in the shopping cart.

2. Suggesting the user buys similar products before adding the main product to the shopping cart.

It’s often helpful when a website recommends additional products you may want or need after adding your main product to your shopping cart.

However, I think you’ll agree that it could be slightly confusing if these additional products were offered to you before even adding the main product to your shopping cart? You press “Add to Cart” and suddenly you’re offered batteries, or insoles or travel cases. Many users would be left feeling confused, wondering if their product had been added or not, or if they’d pressed the wrong button.

Best practice guidelines would indicate offering your user the extra products after the user has finished shopping and they’re entering the checkout process.

3. Shopping carts that ask a user to register before they have even added a product to their shopping cart.

Asking for a user’s personal information before they have even added a product to their shopping cart is not a good move.

Customer registration can offer some big advantages to you as a merchant including recovery for abandoned shopping carts, customer loyalty and email contact. However, many users may be browsing a number of websites, adding products to numerous shopping carts for the main purpose of comparing prices and features. If a user has to register personal details before using the shopping carts, a large percentage are likely to abandon the website.

4. Requiring a user to delete and add the same product to shopping carts just so they can change its colour, size or variation.

Editing a shopping cart should be as simple as possible and shouldn’t require the user to delete anything from the shopping cart.

If a product comes in different colours and different sizes don’t make them delete it from their shopping cart if they want it in a different variation. Users should be able to select from within their shopping carts the different options.

5. Websites that do not clearly show the user the contents of the shopping carts.

Have you ever been on a website and added the same product to your shopping cart 3 or 4 times because you’re not sure if it worked the first time?

Many users that can’t see the contents of their shopping cart in the same browser as the one they are shopping on can often feel confused about whether or not their item has been added successfully.

As a merchant it is understandable that you don’t want to take your user away from the page they are shopping on every time they add something to their shopping cart. Best practice guidelines therefore indicate displaying the contents of a users shopping cart in the same browser, in the right hand corner for example.

To summarise, the design of the entire shopping experience is of utmost importance. These 5 potential design problems highlighted are five of many common problems found on shopping carts.

Which one is most likely to make you abandon your shopping cart?

Tell us about additional usability problems you have encountered!

Which, out of those above, do you think is the most irritating and the most likely to cause shopping abandonment?

Viart shopping carts offer scalable and flexible ecommerce shopping cart solutions. To evaluate the Viart shop, the company are currently providing a fully hosted 30-day trial of their PHP shopping cart at: http://www.viart.com/hosting_trial.php

Article from articlesbase.com

41tyF04K94L. SL75 Shopping Carts: 5 Usability Problems

G8001 BLK WITH MATCHING LINER -JUMBO SHOPPING CART /Cart Size: 41.75″h x 24″w x 21″d 0 5 Shopping Carts: 5 Usability Problems

Groceries to go! This high-capacity foldable Jumbo Shopping Cart zips up and down supermarket aisles to speed up your shopping. Al…

51ih4lO Q3L. SL75 Shopping Carts: 5 Usability Problems

Trimmer Small Shopping Cart, Red 0 5 Shopping Carts: 5 Usability Problems

This small size foldable shopping cart is ideal for carrying groceries or laundry. It’s easy to assemble and folds flat for storag…

415vh1a1UlL. SL75 Shopping Carts: 5 Usability Problems

Little Tikes Cozy Shopping Cart Pink/Purple 0 5 Shopping Carts: 5 Usability Problems

Now you can go shopping with Cozy Coupe and your favorite toys! Push them around just like your mom and dad do with you at the gro…

41QgtL17e%2BL. SL75 Shopping Carts: 5 Usability Problems

Folding Shopping Cart – with Liner and Lid (Blue) (37″H x 18″W x 23″D) 0 5 Shopping Carts: 5 Usability Problems

Do you love to shop till you drop? You’ll never worry about dropping your purchases when you take this super-capacity foldaway gro…

41l39ms%2B0iL. SL75 Shopping Carts: 5 Usability Problems

Step2 Little Helper’s Shopping Cart 0 5 Shopping Carts: 5 Usability Problems

Easy to push cart that holds plenty of toys. Great for early walkers. Includes basket and cart bed underneath for storage. The …

41QSUmsEItL. SL75 Shopping Carts: 5 Usability Problems

G8081 BLUE WITH MATCHINGN LINER-FOLDABLE SHOPPING CART WITH small DOUBLE BASKET -Cart Size: 41.75″h x 24″w x 21″d 0 5 Shopping Carts: 5 Usability Problems

Your new Best friend is waiting for you:)
Groceries to go! This high-capacity foldable Jumbo Cart zips up and down supermarket ais…

41iQSAM2kOL. SL75 Shopping Carts: 5 Usability Problems

Little Tikes Cozy Shopping Cart Red/Yellow 0 5 Shopping Carts: 5 Usability Problems

Now you can go shopping with Cozy Coupe and your favorite toys! Push them around just like your mom and dad do with you at the gro…

The shopping carts — driven by fun. www.facebook.com/volkswagen Some carts are pimped with a skateboard. Up for some extra shopping fun? Check out the Fast Lane and the new Polo GTI on facebook.

Shopping Carts Solutions

Dec 25th, 2010

by admin.

No comments yet

Shopping Carts Solutions

Shopping Carts Solutions an integrated shopping solution, a new way that lets your customers to make orders, purchase online, manage shipping…

Today every growing business tries to be customer centric and I am very sure that business entropy will increase if your customer retention rate goes low. In this article I will discuss all about shopping cart and shopping cart software solution. With plethora of internet, staying at the top of your field has become arduous and it takes a lot to remain or reach at the top position. Looking back at the decade of shopping, there were no online store and customers had to walk to the store, spend time there browsing through the catalogue, deciding products, and then the product was passed into the shopping cart (trolley), order was placed and finally checkout and payment processes were carried. Then everything was manual, all entries were made manually and pricing were calculated on hands. In present scenario – With online shopping cart you can shop from your home or your office; just need internet connection and all yours processing finalized in a minute. This online storefront with integrated shopping solution provides a platform for selecting and purchasing your favorite products.

Shopping Carts is selecting products online for purchasing. Ecommerce is complete online store for shopping where from placing orders, tracking orders and managing account all are maintained.

The interface of online stores are designed for users and it is really easy to browse, collect, place orders and make payment but behind the curtain the scene is sophisticated, it needs round the clock maintenance for smooth functioning of your ecommerce store. The current study says that abandonment rate of shopping cart ranges from 25% to 75%. Being a SEO executive and strategist I have analyzed lots of ecommerce websites, studied its web analytics funnel visualization report, it shows that most of the visitors exit at the initial step (after Login or Registration), these visitors drop out at proceeding steps, and very small percentage reach the final checkout. I would say that funnel conversion rate is very low for these ecommerce websites / shopping carts if the funnel steps are not properly set.

I would like to share what all I have inculcated through my experience, reasons for shopping cart abandonment are:

High Shipping Cost: This can be inversely managed by increasing product cost and reducing shipping cost.

Security and Privacy Problem: Providing very transparent privacy statement and high level security for payment gateway.

Lot of essentialities and billing formalities: Non essential information should be not be made mandatory, other formalities can be filled at the after checkout.

Poor Navigation: Your shopping store should respond quickly, check that your site does not take enough loading time. Search should be simple and checkout process should not be very lengthy. Clients should be notified after payment is done and visitors who wish can easily navigate back to make more shopping without time wastage.

Remember, your ecommerce website should be simple so that it entices your customers to come again for shopping. All the shopping cart segments should be integrated and should be streamlined for its smooth running. Elements of consideration are: a ecommerce shopping cart (storefront with shopping cart), a merchant account, a database server (this stores all information about customer and all your storefront products and services), a web server (hosts your website and provides all information about your product at the web browser’s request), a catalogue, legacy system, control inventory, reporting tool and secure payment gateway. Hosting of your online storefront or ecommerce website is of first consideration. Depending on your storefront hosting you choose shopping cart software, all depends on the software and your website hosting compatibility.

There are different shopping cart software available for your storefront from which you can choose. Either you can Buy a shopping cart software product, or join a service (template service build your store).

Choosing shopping cart software is the key business requirement for online shopping business solutions.

Every ecommerce site has its shopping cart and thus needs a merchant account and payment gateway. I believe these two are basic necessities of any online store for allowing credit card payment. Let be brief the main points that you should know before proceeding to shopping carts.

Merchant Account: This allows to process credit card information. Different types of merchant accounts are available to suit your business needs. Most popular merchant accounts include wireless, telecheck, mail order or phone, e-commerce. Ecommerce is the fastest growing transaction segment.

Payment Gateway: payment gateway processes this credit card and shipping information and real time information over a secure network connection.

A company that validates your credit card information in real time is electronic gateway or payment gateway. Few most widely accepted gateways are: Paypal (Globally), Verisign (Globally), 2Checkout (Globally), WorldPay (Gloablly), Authorize.Net (US), CyberSource (US), Moneris (CA), Protx (UK), EWay (AU); some others are Chronopay, Westpac, BluePay, viaKLIX, eMatters, plugnpay, eway, goemerchant.com, skipjack, MiraPay, netaxept, DirectOne, nab, NETBANX, Network Merchants, Nochex, DeltaPAY, eProcessing Network, protx, egateway, SECPay, paymate, Gotmerchant, ANZ, beanstream, Payjunction, TECHNOCASH, MiraPay, GoDaddy.

Payment gateway main motive is to provide secure channel for credit card information transfer. Basically the credit card information is encrypted and sent to respective bank for verification, these are of highest priority, no detail is stored in between.

You may be having now in mind how to create your merchant account and have your payment gateway??? Not mandatory to have one’s own, you may use merchant service providers’ shopping cart solutions for your ecommerce websites.

Type of Gateways:

Currently there are 3 main gateway interfaces available:

COM based gateway interface: Most of the COM based gateway company requires installing the DLL software on your hosting server, and also checks for your SSL certificate.

XML Transport gateway interface: XML Transport gateway companies do not require DLL installation but checks for you SLL certification instead uses Windows server installed facilities.

Form based gateway interface: This is most common gateway as does not require any software installation, very few companies ask for SSL certification.

The main advantage is that COM and XML gateways are integrated with your store and thus no redirection to external server but the drawback also lies that since the transfer is over the internet to payment gateway makes this less reliable.

Types of Shopping Cart

Merchant Service Shopping Carts

Have you set up a new business, do not have merchant account and payment gateway??? Still looking…. There are merchant services shopping carts available for new businesses with very less queries at the initial stage. Once you start your business at the initial stage there are very less orders that increases gradually, so merchant will get you licensed . It proceeds somewhat like this: it collects and stores your client’s information and takes you to its payment gateway and merchant account.

The main problem is the fee that gateway company charges. Apart from the set up fee, transaction cost is also high making the over all gateway an expensive one. Another major drawback is that client’s credit card statements will contain merchant service not your company name. There is admin login section for all sort of updation – add, delete, edit, and manage products and other information. The HTML code generated by the cart is inserted in the respected pages, once the visitor clicks on the link (button), visitor is redirected to merchant site where visitor needs to enter card detail and personal details.

Hosted Shopping Carts

Small and medium sized businesses need not worry!! Yes, they can have hosted shopping cart for those not having enough resource to go with integrated shopping cart solutions for their ecommerce websites. The hosted shopping cart solution has an administration area for entering product information. The generated HTML information code is inserted into the product page. The website visitor is redirected to another site to fill a form with information that is CC to the website. There are certain carts that provide configurable user interface so that it looks as corporate website.

The most important point to be noted is that in hosted shopping cart solutions the website owner uses ones own payment gateway and merchant account; this provides your client with credit card detail with your company title not the title of merchant service. For increasing sale this shopping cart service becomes cheaper, this may be fixed transaction charge for higher sales compared to per transaction.

Fully Integrated Shopping Carts

Fully integrated (Trunkey – a comprehensive shopping cart solution provided by one provider) shopping cart provides completely configurable user interface and other interesting features. This needs some programming knowledge so that you can better manage and handle its modules and use the extra features provided. Provider of On the ecommerce provider server the software data and web pages are hosted. Examples: Yahoo Store, Bigstep, Merchandizer, etc. these include form based built in payment gateway.

Which shopping cart to go with?? Points to ponder – Costing: The investment you put in, hosting

Shopping cart software is the common online storefront business solution. There are myriad e-commerce solutions available with varying features, design, security so that you can customize based on your requirements and specifications. With open source software solutions, osCommerce shopping cart solution there are slew of customizable shopping cart solutions available. The open source ecommerce software products are available that are very easy to setup, configure, administration. So before going with a particular solution Payment gateway or shopping cart just be clear about your requirements. There is another storefront solution, Watson shopping cart system (developed in Switzerland) is a new shopping cart or trolley that has unique database and uses audio advertising system of the internet for online shopping.

Rakhi, is a SEO executive, SEO copywriter, SEO strategist at Open source web design Development Company in India that offers shopping cart solutions, PHP application development, ecommerce shopping cart solution, B2B ecommerce website solutions, shopping cart solution, portal development, open source shopping cart web development.

Article from articlesbase.com

51TirXvCXeL. SL75 Shopping Carts Solutions

American Plastic Toy Shopping Cart with Play Food 0 5 Shopping Carts Solutions

American Plastic Stacking Shopping Cart With Food is great for shopping trips or hauling toys. Included are 13 boxes of play groce…

41l39ms%2B0iL. SL75 Shopping Carts Solutions

Step2 Little Helper’s Shopping Cart 0 5 Shopping Carts Solutions

Easy to push cart that holds plenty of toys. Great for early walkers. Includes basket and cart bed underneath for storage. The …

41uCMxF45oL. SL75 Shopping Carts Solutions

Melissa & Doug Shopping Cart with Wooden Pantry Products and Fridge Food Set 0 5 Shopping Carts Solutions

This realistic Melissa and Doug Grocery Cart is based on the real cart kids see in stores, which takes pretend play to a whole new…

41BUxD0YtZL. SL75 Shopping Carts Solutions

Whitmor 6023-149 Rolling Utility Cart, White 0 5 Shopping Carts Solutions

Whitmor 6023-149 Rolling Utility Cart, WhiteWhitmor 6023-149 Rolling Utility Cart, White Features:; Perfect for groceries, sports …

31z5vejBOvL. SL75 Shopping Carts Solutions

Super Shopper Shopping Cart 0 5 Shopping Carts Solutions

Cart Size 9″ x 16″ 24″ color box….

31I%2Bc513YvL. SL75 Shopping Carts Solutions

Just Like Home – Shopping Cart – Pink and Purple 0 5 Shopping Carts Solutions

Create a supermarket whenever and wherever you want to experience pretent play. Shopping cart features four oversized wheels with …

31dRyxK2LVL. SL75 Shopping Carts Solutions

SHOPPING CART LINER – BRAND NEW – GROCERY – BLACK 0 5 Shopping Carts Solutions

The shopping cart liner is constructed of a waterproof material. They have a square bottom and come with adjustable straps. Attach…

Folding Shopping Carts: Buy with Pleasure

Nov 11th, 2010

by admin.

No comments yet

Folding Shopping Carts: Buy with Pleasure

Purchasing is an activity that each of us indulges into buy some thing that all of us will need in life. Searching easily has become today’s trend. Purchasing Carts are a boon in connection with this as they not just aid buyers to carry their heavy merchandize from 1 point to one more but also give enormous pleasure for the fact they don’t need to take up any strenuous activity while enjoying procuring for their near and dear ones. Given that their advent in 1937, shopping carts are of fantastic utility.

Procuring carts are readily available in a variety of shapes and sizes depending upon their utility. They’re generally created some kind of metal or plastics. They themselves are light weight but can carry substantial amount of load in terms of your merchandize bought by the customer.

With innumerable features, it’s typically confusing for the buyers to select just the appropriate cart for themselves. Foldable Shopping Carts are gaining popularity not only with the seniors and mothers and fathers but additionally with the young adults as these carts give them the freedom of shopping with physical ease. Mother and father typically carry their youngsters with them to the buying malls and the supermarkets. You will find procuring carts which have the facility of carrying infants besides carrying the merchandize, giving the dad and mom the satisfaction of keeping their adorable kids in front of them.

Talking of buying carts essentially the most essential part from the carts is their layout. Most commonly utilized and perhaps essentially the most popular design is the ,Wheelie Design,wherein the rear wheels are made a bit larger than the front ones. Wheels are frequently manufactured of plastic or rubber. The other well-known style and design is The Swiveler,which is usually discovered inside grocery shop.

Grip handles are also another important feature of the purchasing carts. Handles typically come with an ergonomic layout with foam or rubber grip for proper handling of your cart. Local Groceries often come up with carts which have handles with plastic grips, but they are not only cheap but in addition uncomfortable to handle. But since they are meant for individuals who belong to center class or lower middle class families, so store owners typically go for cheaper designs.

Today’s economy is seeing a boom within the retailer market which results into growing range of shopping malls, retail shops and departmental stores. This has given rise to improve from the usage of purchasing carts. Lately usage of substantial number carts is seeing little accidents taking place from the supermarkets. These accidents though not quite serious for the adults but may generally prove fatal for the infants involved.

So to avoid these unfortunate incidents, today’s buying malls are utilizing electronic carts. They may be easy to control and are safer than ever before. They are also quite helpful as they cannot be stolen easily and might be collected from the parking lot very easily. These carts are also a boon to physically challenged individuals who can control them effortlessly. Folding Searching Carts are of wonderful use to today’s buyers.

So to find more information on the Folding Utility Cart, I recommend you visit this Folding Grocery Carts site. It shows what you need to know and it will save you the effort of having to find that yourself.

Article from articlesbase.com