“Your item is successfully added to the cart”
You might have come across this sentence quite often as an online shopper. However, if you have planned to start with your new ecommerce business, you must know everything about a shopping cart as well. Shopping carts are often not considered as an important factor while creating an online store. In this blog, we will be discussing everything about a shopping cart, you must be aware of, as an online seller.
What is a shopping cart in an online store?
A shopping cart is a part of a software that maintains a record of the products that a shopper has chosen from the online store. It does the job of a store catalogue helping online shoppers with selecting the products they wish to purchase, reviewing their selected products, modifying their selections, adding or removing products, and purchasing the products.
What are the types of shopping carts?
There are mainly two kinds of shopping carts viz. self-hosted shopping carts and hosted shopping carts. The self-hosted shopping carts are a completely customizable shopping solution that can be hosted on your own server. Which means all you need to do is download the software and run it, all by yourself. The hosted shopping carts, on the other hand, are prefabricated solutions managed by the company that introduced them. Which means all you need to do is register with your chosen host and set up your online store. Hosted shopping carts offer pre-designed templates, ready-to-use purchase buttons, and other such facilities that lets you start selling online immediately. The best example of hosted shopping cart is Builderfly; it is one of the fastest-growing ecommerce platforms that let you create your online store, build your mobile apps, as well as customize them as per your choice. All you need to do is sign up for a suitable subscription plan and you are good to go. Moreover, there is a 14-days free trial offer wherein you can explore the exclusive features without any trouble. However, in order to start selling online, you must subscribe to a suitable plan and connect your domain to your online store.
What are the benefits of a shopping cart in an online store?
Online ecommerce stores are designed using to display a wide range of products to online shoppers in order to simplify their buying decisions. It helps the users to easily find the products and select the ones that they intend to purchase based on the product specifications and description. No ecommerce store has so far been able to successfully sell online without including the shopping cart facility. Shopping carts not only establish and boost the credibility of an online store but also promises higher customer satisfaction and brings more traffic as well as revenue to the company. Below are a few benefits of including shopping cart in an online store:
- It simplifies the payment process by becoming the mediator of the payment gateways and the website.
- It aids the customers in making informed purchase decisions.
- It helps in ranking in the Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
- It boosts the efficiency of an online store.
- It caters to provide the best user experience to the customers.
- It helps in maintaining a solid record of the transactions made by the customers.
- It helps in managing multiple customers efficiently.
- It improves the functionality of the ecommerce store.
- It aids in managing backend tracking, coupons, wish lists, and inventory tracking.
- It enhances the online store’s flexibility.
- It increases the store’s visibility and brings more customers.
- It lets the customer track their orders easily.
How important is a shopping cart for an online store?
Shopping carts act as the bridge between shopping online and purchasing. The importance of a shopping cart in an online store is not even a debatable topic. There are never-ending reasons for it. The ease of use in the online shopping facilities act as a double-headed sword; with easy processes, the customers can quickly purchase products as well as abandon them. Therefore it becomes essential to add a shopping cart to your online store to bridge the gap between shopping and purchasing. Below are a few vital reasons that will convince you to add a shopping cart to your online ecommerce store:
Adding Products to the Cart
Every online seller was once an online buyer. Imagine that you are surfing through a website and you like a particular product. If you directly get an ‘Add to Cart’ button, you can surf ahead to find similar products to compare the products and choose the one that best first your requirements. However, on the contrary, if you do not get an option to add a product to cart, there is no further option of comparing the products with other similar products and make an informed choice. This itself is the major turnoff for online shoppers. Therefore, introducing the shopping cart is essential right from the first step to shopping online.
Guarantee Safety
Many online shoppers are sceptical about entering their personal data including the payment details with the continuous increase in online frauds. Shopping carts here can help you comfort your customers with the assurance of the security of their data. As an online seller, it comes without saying that your customers need to trust your company and that is your duty. You must guarantee the customers with utmost security for the information they share with you and the payment exchange you mediate.
Processing
If your online store is user-friendly, it will let your customers make informed decisions with the option to choose whether to purchase the selected products or not. Your customers get a convenient choice to manage their shopping interests using the shopping cart. They can get options to add more products, delete products, use coupons, apply discount offers, increase or decrease the product quantity, and most importantly, customize their purchase decisions. This gives the power of shopping the right and suitable products to your customers; enhancing customer satisfaction. With simple steps and a few clicks, your customers can complete their online shopping with better results. Moreover, they can get the details of the product pricing, taxes applied and all the additional costs that are charged on the purchase (if any). Shopping carts do the job of calculating the pricing as well as categorizing the prices to keep the customers informed.
Quick Single-Page Checkout
Customers who wish to purchase online look for the easiest and convenient way (Obviously, why else would they shop online?). Once your customers have reviewed the products to be purchased, complex payment procedure would be the last thing they want. Your customer is looking forward to completing the procedure as soon as possible and you as an online merchant can help them, using shopping carts. It can be used to create quick single-page checkout procedure and avoid multiple pages to complete a single order. Many ecommerce giants have experienced that using shopping carts have helped them boost their sales twice as much as not using one.
Prompt with Special Offers
Shopping cart is the best place where you can prompt your customers with lucrative offers, discounts, and coupons to motivate them to complete the purchase. It is a place where your customers examine closely to check all the payment details, delivery details, charges incurred, and so on. Who doesn’t like to purchase products in a lower amount than displayed? If you use shopping carts to prompt your customers with special offers, the chances of them complete the purchase increases significantly.
Easy integration of Third-Party Shopping Solutions
As an online ecommerce store, you might know that you get customers from all over the world. Therefore, every individual would look for the payment and shipping options that suit them the best. If your online store is not providing suitable options, using the shopping cart facility, you can ease the process for your customers by offering them quick integration of third-party ecommerce solutions. As said before, the more convenient your customers find to shop with your store, the higher the chances of them returning to your store and with the shopping cart facility, the lower will be the chances of them leaving abandoned carts in your online store.
Showcase Products
Shopping cart is a solution where you can showcase your products to your customers. This is when you get to use your customer data. Based on the search pattern, shopping pattern, interests, and demographics of customers, you can showcase them with the products they might be interested to purchase along with the ones they have already chosen. When the customer scrolls through their shopping cart page, they will be still interested in getting lucrative offers for the products of their choice. As an online seller, if you are showing them with products that can be a better deal for them, you are winning your customers’ interest. Shopping carts help your customers to get instant access to the similar products they are interested to purchase. You are offering flexible choices for your customers that can greatly impact their shopping decisions with the right use of shopping carts.
