Lecture 4Title: Shopping Cart

By: Mr Hashem AlaidarosMIS 326

Main Points• Shopping Cart• Evaluating shopping cart• Shopping Cart Options

Shopping Cart• Shopping carts are computer programs built into a web

site that mimic the shopping experience in a brick-and-mortar store.

• Allowing shoppers to place item in a virtual “cart” and accepting payment at the “checkout”.

• It is an essential tools for every serous e-business

Shopping Cart Evaluation• When evaluating shopping cart, e-business owners

should consider the features in four different categories:1.Back-end management2.Customer-service3.Integration and maintenance4.Promotion and marketing

Cont.1. Back-End management features:

• This tool give an e-business owner control of their shopping carto Customizationo Administration functionso Inventoryo Importing o Exporting

Cont.2. Customer-look features:

• Save settings• Store data (account)• View orders• Product views (details)

Cont.3. Integration and Maintenance features:

• Access to support (24 hours technical support)• Communication with shipping and handling• Accommodation of other customer accountso Flexibility to handle all types of orders

• Integration with your accounting softwareo Otherwise manually

Cont.4. Promotion and marketing features

• Product reviews and ratings• Free-shipping options• Discounto Set up different types of customer groups (such as wholesaler

or frequent buyer) to give discount based on buying behavior.o Limited-time

• Cross sellingo Suggest similar product

• Upsellingo Buy two and get one free

Cont.• Survey toolso Find out how customers are thinking

• On-site search capabilityo By category, brand name or product name

• Search engine friendlinesso Use shopping cart built-in features to better market

products in the major search engines

Shopping Cart Options• A more important decision is how the cart is delivered

and set up for use• Three primary options for shopping cart software:

1. Buying off-the-shelf software2. Hiring a programmer to create a custom-built shopping cart

package3. Using a hosted solution, where the e-business pays a fee to

access the host server

Cont.1. Off-the-shelf software : It Allows an e-business to add the

software to its own server.

Advantages:• Quick• Inexpensive (from 399$)• Is not tied to a specific web host• Freedom of offering an unlimited number of product

Disadvantages:• Sometimes it is more or less than needs• Make sure payment gateway compatibility

Cont.2. Custom-Design shopping cart:

• Hire someone to program a shopping cart that is unique to your needs

Advantages:• Meet your specifications in every way• Security

• Disadvantages:• Cost (minimum 15000$)• Limitation on support and maintainance• Make sure payment gateway compatibility

Cont.3. Hosted shopping carts

• It maintains the shopping cart on a remote server (third party) by a company specialization in the service.

Advantages:• Reasonable cost (10$ monthly)• Simplicity – they integrate easily into existing web site and

easy to implement • Support (24 hours)• Flexibility – you can test the service for a relatively short

time to see if desired results are delivered