In e-commerce, a shopping cart is software on the website that permits shoppers to choose items from various web pages for temporary purchase. The term shopping cart comes from American English, while its British version is shopping basket, shortened to only basket on websites. The software lets online customers collect products for purchase and places them metaphorically in the cart.
If you would like to become an online entrepreneur, it would be a good idea to familiarize yourself with e-commerce. Read through the following tips for a smooth setup:
1. Choose your shopping cart tool
Choose out of available shopping cart options and the online payment solutions that suit you the best.
2. Select an online payment partner
Your online payment partnership depends on your business potential and monthly earnings. Look for payment options in your country of business or discuss this with your bank, since all banks now offer payment gateway services. You can review the options and choose one that commensurate with your business size.
3. Your online legal documents
Prepare your terms and conditions for sales, the return policy and a privacy policy. It would be a good idea to check that your documents meet the specifications of your payment partners. Online templates can be downloaded for most of these documents.
4. Choose a postage method
Various shopping carts offer a number of options for postage methods, which can be based on a fixed price per product and order, or an individual price for each product, based on weight, size and location. Customized solutions are also available at an additional charge.
5. Research competitors' shopping cart sites
Review other sites that offer similar products or services and look for ideas on what kind of functionality you would want in your website's cart options.
6. Organize your products
Put your products and your website in order, with everything organized systematically. Plan out how the products will be displayed and categorize them into categories, catalogs or sub-categories.
7. Take photographs of your products
Shoppers are more likely to buy a product that has a photograph displayed next to the price and description. Take photographs and make sure that they are of good quality. Remember that the more attractive the products look on your site, the more chances there are that they will appeal to prospective customers.
8. Look for any additional expenses
You may need other software to run your business, like accounting or image formatting software. Add these costs to your startup expenses.
9. Provide essential information
The website designer would need to know the design guidelines for your site, so that it meets shopping cart specifications. The shopping cart provider would need information about your choice of payment gateway and product sample data for testing. You would be required to submit this data in a specified format.
10. Build your marketing strategy
Plan your shopping cart marketing strategy to inform customers about your attractive offers to increase your sales.
Source by Max Chohan