If you are selling products through your website you will need a shopping cart to make it easy for your customers to do business with you.

What is a shopping cart?

An online shopping cart will be used by your customers to purchase products from your site. As they choose the products they wish to buy they can drop them in the cart; the items in the basket are then paid for at the “checkout” where you will also collect the customer’s contact and delivery details.

Why is it important to choose a good shopping cart?

It doesn’t matter how good your website is, or how competitive your prices are; if your shopping cart is cumbersome and hard to use you are in danger of losing customers in the middle of a transaction.

Do I really need a shopping cart?

The number of products you sell online will be an indicator of whether or not you should invest in shopping cart technology. If you have one or two products then an online form will do the job just as effectively and will be mush easier to manage.

Should I use a service provider or build one myself?

The easiest way to set up a shopping cart on your site is to use a third party provider; you won’t need to have any programming skills to get the cart up and running, and many providers will sell you a package including a payment gateway and a merchant account so you won’t need to set these up separately.

The downside of a third party shopping cart is that you have less control over the way it looks and feels. If you want to customise your cart then you should look for a software solution instead, although you will need some programming skills to integrate the shopping cart into your website.

What should I consider when choosing a provider?

Before you sign up for a service or buy shopping cart software you should consider the following:

• How easy is it to set up and use the cart?
• How easy is it for customers to buy products?
• Can you sell products in foreign currencies?
• Does the cart allow you to run special offers or promotions?
• Can you track advertising campaigns?
• Does it provide comprehensive sales reports?
• Is there a handbook or help function?
• What happens if you have a problem? What are the response times for support?

Visit other sites that use the shopping cart you are considering and test it out to see how easy it is to use from a customer’s perspective.

How do I tell the customer that their order has been accepted?

Your shopping cart service should allow you to set up a range of automatic email responses; these could include order acknowledgements, dispatch notifications and a follow up thank you.

You could also use your shopping cart to send out a regular newsletter to all of the customers who have registered to use the service. This will act as a regular reminder to your customers and encourage them to buy from your site again.

How do I receive the payment?

In order to accept credit or debit card payments through your website you will need to have a merchant account. Merchant banks will usually charge a percentage of the transaction cost and in some cases a set-up and/or monthly fee for providing the service. You can use a provider like WorldPay or PayPal, or alternatively you can approach a bank.

What is a payment gateway?

A payment gateway provides the secure link between your website and your merchant provider and ensures that the customer’s card details are kept secure during the transaction process.

What happens after the payment is collected?

Once the payment details have been collected from the customer the payment will be transferred to you. The length of time it takes for the funds to reach you will depend on the merchant service you have chosen to use.

You must state in your terms and conditions whether you will dispatch the goods straight away, or wait for the payment to reach you.

If you are selling an electronic product such as software or an eBook you may be able to use your shopping cart software to dispatch this to the customer automatically.

What happens if the customer asks for a refund?

Your terms and conditions should clearly state any refund/returns policy that you have. Refunds can be made to the customer’s card through your merchant service.

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