In order to fully appreciate ecommerce shopping carts, it’s important to fully understand it, what it is, how it works etc. This article should help to give you a better understanding of ecommerce
What exactly is ecommerce?
Ecommerce, which is also known as ‘electronic commerce’ is the buying and selling of goods and services via electronic platforms.
Most kinds of e-commerce today use the internet at least once during every completed transaction. Many brick and mortar stores also have virtual ecommerce stores online to handle all of their ecommerce operations. Online shopping has exploded in popularity over the last few years and ecommerce has become a necessary part of the retail industry. E-commerce is used to sell everything from digital goods, merchandise, services and other services.
The most important aspect of ecommerce is the ecommerce shopping cart. Without it, customers would not be able to select and purchase the services or items from an online store. There are many companies that offer e-commerce shopping carts and the prices range from $19 to $100 or more per month.
The more business an online store receives, the more they will usually have to spend on their ecommerce shopping cart software. The ecommerce software allows customers to pay for their purchases in various ways, including debit cards, credit cards, Paypal, money orders, checks, and sometimes even cash and money orders. Some ecommerce solutions are provided via a hosted service, where the provider hosts the cart as a service that includes a monthly fee – ( Saas – Software as a service ). Other shopping carts are downloaded and installed on the store’s web server. This type of cart software usually only requires a one-time payment.
Accepting payment in an ecommerce store
A merchant account may need to be purchased separately in order to process payments. This service will also charge either a monthly fee or take a fee out of each transaction it processes.
Other options for taking payments in your ecommerce store includes signing up for already established payment processors such as PayPal or Stripe.
Are such payment processors. The majority of payment processors take a small proportion of each sale in order to process the order.
Deciding on which ecommerce software to use
Deciding which brand of e-commerce shopping cart software to use can be a tough decision for online store owners. There are so many options available that it can seem like an overwhelming choice. Each store has different needs that must be taken into account when browsing for ecommerce software. Owners need to compare and contrast the features of every brand of shopping cart software available. The right software should keep track of customer information, be easy and safe to use, and be difficult to hack into. Some e-commerce shopping cart software can even keep track of inventory and allow the shop owner to perform shop maintenance.
“Every e-commerce store needs to have easy to read product pages with large images of each product. Multiple pictures help customers envision the product and decide if it is right for them since they are unable to view the item in person.” says Justin Davies from Emergination. “Pictures are a vital part of any e-commerce shopping cart software.” he adds.
If your store’s images are too small or unclear, customers will not buy your products. E-commerce stores tend to also have lots of success with including customer reviews for each product. Displaying the reviews of other people who bought products through your site helps give your site validation as a reputable store that sells quality products. It shows that your company and website can be trusted.
Another feature every e-commerce shopping cart should have is easy navigation and user-friendly categories. This makes it easy for customers to find the product they are looking for. Layered and faceted navigation is best for placing products into specific categories that make sense. Lastly, a single page checkout is ideal for most e-commerce sites. It reduces the likelihood that customers will get confused or frustrated during checkout. No one wants to fill out several pages of information just to buy something online, so make sure that your e-commerce shopping cart is straight-forward and has as few checkout pages as possible.
What makes a good ecommerce shopping cart?
A good ecommerce website can be defined as one that fulfils its purpose to all those that intend to make use of the site, it’s facilities and or it’s products. A good ecommerce website caters to visitors needs, solves their problems and makes the whole shopping experience pleasant and easy. It is also easy to use with a good navigational structure.
The website will make customers’ lives as easy as possible and should not be overtly always trying to sell them something. Customers will tend to eventually get annoyed if all you are ever trying to do is to ram products down their throat and constantly pushing “Buy now” buttons in front of them.
Easy on the eye
The internet is absolutely plastered with billions and billions of websites – with this figure growing rapidly every single day. Each of these websites are fighting to attract users and visitors. It can be very hard for your website to stand out in this maze of websites.
One of the best ways to stand out from the rest is to ensure that your website is nice to look at and gives visitors the confidence to stick around and makes them want to shop with you.
Research the colours
Did you know that certain colours subliminally entice people to want to stick around and purchase from you? Things like making the font easy to read by placing it on the right background can also really help. Grey font on a black background for example can be very hard to read. Black font on a white background usually tends to work best.
Fast load times
There is nothing more frustrating than a website that takes ages to load, and a fast store also helps with your ecommerce SEO scores. Most penitential customers just won’t put up with slow loading websites nowadays. They will just be straight off to your competition. So ensure that you do everything you can to get your website to operate slick and fast.
SSL Certificate
SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer and basically enables your website to encrypt any sensitive data that might want to steal and use for their own illegal gain. Give customers the confidence to shop with you by ensuring that any sensitive areas of your website are fully protected by at least 128 bit SSL certificate.
Once you have done this to your ecommerce shopping cart, ensure that you let your customers know that you have taken all the steps you can to ensure that their sensitive data is safe.
