| Do you want to sell your products online? Are | | | | |
| you not really sure where to start? It is | | | | Once the customer has decided that they want |
| more than likely that you'll need to get | | | | to purchase the products in their shopping |
| yourself some shopping cart software, or | | | | cart then they must make a payment and hand |
| develop your own. This software is the | | | | over shipping details. This is where the |
| backbone of any online store. It allows you | | | | checkout process comes in. This process allow |
| to display your products online and let | | | | you to integrate with your chosen billing |
| potential customers make purchases from you. | | | | gateway or provider and collect the payment |
| | | | detail from the customer. Most eCommerce |
| Most shopping cart solutions comprise of 4 | | | | solutions provide you with a number of |
| parts; the actually shopping cart, a product | | | | options when it comes to billing integration |
| catalogue, the checkout process and an | | | | allowing you to choose a billing solution |
| administration panel of some form. | | | | that fits your business model. |
| | | | |
| The Product Catalogue is, as you would | | | | The final part of the software is the |
| expect, the part of the store that displays | | | | administration panel, the panel allows store |
| your products. This can range from a single | | | | owners and selected staff to manage the |
| hand coded HTML page displaying a few | | | | running of the store and perform |
| products up to a massive multi-category store | | | | administrative actions when required. It can |
| containing thousands of products. Store with | | | | perform a multitude of actions but a number |
| a large number of products normally use a | | | | of common activities are: |
| dynamic solution driven by a database, this | | | | |
| allow information about the products to be | | | | - Setup The Store (payment solutions, |
| changed with simple database updates rather | | | | shopping costs, etc) |
| than making changes to every page. These are | | | | |
| commonly written in web scripting languages | | | | - Add/Update Products Process Orders |
| such as PHP or Active Server Pages. | | | | |
| | | | - View Store Statistics and Reports |
| Without the shopping cart component of your | | | | |
| store your customers will not be able to make | | | | - Manage Customers |
| a purchase and hand over the cash. This part | | | | |
| of the solution allows your customer to add | | | | Most online store solutions available today |
| products to a virtual basket then checkout | | | | incorporate all of the above features |
| and pay at a later point. Conceptually it's | | | | (product catalogue, shopping cart, admin |
| the software works in exactly the same way as | | | | panel and checkout process) into one easily |
| a shopping basket in a supermarket, the | | | | installable and manageable package. More |
| customer browses through the products on the | | | | advanced solutions include facilities to |
| shelves placing products they want into their | | | | integrate with numerous payment gateways, |
| basket. When they are ready to finalize the | | | | manager customer, customer self management |
| purchase they take the basket to the | | | | options and much more. |
| checkout. | | | | |