In online marketing, a shopping cart is a piece of e-commerce software on a web server
that allows visitors to an Internet site to select items for eventual purchase, analogous
to the American English term "shopping cart."
In British English, it is generally known as a shopping basket, almost exclusively shortened
on websites to "basket."
The software allows online shopping customers to accumulate a list of items for purchase,
described metaphorically as “placing items in the shopping cart” or “add to cart.”
Upon checkout, the software typically calculates a total for the order, including shipping
and handling charges and the associated taxes, as applicable.
History The development of web shop systems took place
right after the Internet became a mass medium.
This was a result of the launch of the browser Mosaic in 1993 and Netscape in 1994.
It created an environment in which web shops were possible.
The Internet therefore acted as the key infrastructure developments that contributed to the rapid
diffusion of the e-commerce, a subset of e-business that describes all computer-aided business
transactions.
In 1998 a total of 11 e-business models were observed, one of which was the e-shop business
model for a B2C business—also called the “online shop” The two terms “online
shop” and “electronic” or “e-shop” are used interchangeably.
The term “online shopping” was invented much earlier in 1984; for example TV shopping
often used the term before the popularity of the online method.
Today the term primarily refers to the B2C transactional business model.
In order to enable “online shopping” a software system is needed.
Since “online shopping”, in the context of the B2C business model, became broadly
available to the end consumer, internet-based “online shops” evolved.
For online shopping systems in this context the narrower term “web shop” is used.
No term has become solidly established for a B2C e-commerce software system.
Whereas in the German-speaking region terms such as “web shop software” or “online
shop software” are used, the term “shopping cart software” has become established in
the United States.
Technical definition These applications typically provide a means
of capturing a client's payment information, but in the case of a credit card they rely
on the software module of the secure gateway provider, in conjunction with the secure payment
gateway, in order to conduct secure credit card transactions online.
Some setup must be done in the HTML code of the website, and the shopping cart software
must be installed on the server which hosts the site, or on the secure server which accepts
sensitive ordering information.
E-shopping carts are usually implemented using HTTP cookies or query strings.
In most server based implementations however, data related to the shopping cart is kept
in the session object and is accessed and manipulated on the fly, as the user selects
different items from the cart.
Later at the process of finalizing the transaction, the information is accessed and an order is
generated against the selected item thus clearing the shopping cart.
Although the most simple shopping carts strictly allow for an item to be added to a basket
to start a checkout process, most shopping cart software provides additional features
that an Internet merchant uses to fully manage an online store.
Data is normally stored in a database and accessed in real time by the software.
Shopping Cart Software is also known as e-commerce software, e-store software, online store software
or storefront software and online shop.
Components Storefront: the area of the Web store that
is accessed by visitors to the online shop.
Category, product, and other pages are dynamically generated by the software based on the information
saved in the store database.
The look of the storefront can normally be changed by the store owner so that it merges
with the rest of the web site.
Administration: the area of the Web store that is accessed by the merchant to manage
the online shop.
The amount of store management features changes depending on the sophistication of the shopping
cart software chosen by the merchant, but in general a store manager is able to add
and edit products, categories, discounts, shipping and payment settings, etc.
Order management features are also included in many shopping cart programs.
The administration area can be: Web-based
Desktop-based.
Types Shopping cart software can be generally categorized
into three types of E-commerce software: Open source software: The software is released
under an open source licence and is very often free of charge.
The merchant has to host the software with a Web hosting service.
It allows users to access and modify the source code of the entire online store.
Licensed software: The software is downloaded and then installed on a Webserver.
This is most often associated with a one-time fee, the main advantages of this option are
that the merchant owns a license and therefore can host it on any web server that meets the
server requirements.
Hosted service: The software is never downloaded, but rather is provided by a hosted service
provider and is generally paid for on a monthly or annual basis; also known as the application
service provider software model.
Some of these services also charge a percentage of sales in addition to the monthly fee.
This model often has predefined templates that a user can choose from to customize their
look and feel.
Predefined templates limit how much users can modify or customize the software with
the advantage of having the vendor continuously keep the software up to date for security
patches as well as adding new features.
PCI Compliance
The PCI security standards are a blanket of regulations set in place to safeguard payment
account data security.
The council that develops and monitors these regulations is composed of the leading providers
in the payment industry: American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International,
MasterCard Worldwide, and Visa Inc.
Essentially, they define the best practices for storing, transmitting, and handling of
sensitive information over the internet.
Visa Inc.can hold shopping cart software providers responsible for liability that may occur as
a result of non-compliance to Visa's regulations.
For this reason, Visa Inc. may require that online merchants use shopping cart software
providers from their list of PCI DSS-validated service providers.
See also Comparison of shopping cart software
Comparison of free software e-commerce web application frameworks
Shopping cart Credit card
Online shopping References