Lecture 4 Title: Shopping Cart By: Mr Hashem Alaidaros MIS 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 management 2.Customer-service 3.Integration and maintenance 4.Promotion and marketing

Cont. 1. Back-End management features: This tool give an e-business owner control of their shopping cart o Customization o Administration functions o Inventory o 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 accounts o Flexibility to handle all types of orders Integration with your accounting software o Otherwise manually

Cont. 4. Promotion and marketing features Product reviews and ratings Free-shipping options Discount o Set up different types of customer groups (such as wholesaler or frequent buyer) to give discount based on buying behavior. o Limited-time Cross selling o Suggest similar product Upselling o Buy two and get one free

Cont. Survey tools o Find out how customers are thinking On-site search capability o By category, brand name or product name Search engine friendliness o 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 software 2.Hiring a programmer to create a custom-built shopping cart package 3.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