[dropcap]A[/dropcap] shopping cart is just as vital to an online store as it’s to a physical store. Other than the obvious difference of it being virtual and physical, they both perform the same functions. The main purpose of a shopping cart is to allow the customers to set aside their desired products and bring them to the checkout counter when they’ve finished shopping.
A virtual shopping cart performs the same function but it can also do other crucial tasks for improving business operations. These additional features will also give the customers a pleasant shopping experience.
How An Online Shopping Cart Works
Adding And Removing Products: Customers will be able to conveniently add a product they find on your store to their cart. The easier it is to add a product to the cart, the higher the chances are that it will be bought. All the individual products should have a button that will immediately add it to the customer’s cart.
Another important feature of the shopping cart is that it will display relevant information about the product, its price, and calculate the total cost of all the items in the cart. This is more convenient for the customers because they won’t have to calculate the total cost by themselves. The products added to a cart will also be saved in case the customer wishes to complete the purchase in the next visit.
Reviewing The Products: Customers may want to make specific changes to the products in the cart like altering the size, quantity, material, or color. The cart will give customers convenient tools to make these changes without having to delete items from the cart or adding it again. Without this feature, a customer may get easily frustrated and quit the transaction.
Making Purchases: The shopping cart has a checkout button that will direct the customer to complete the payment. The customers will be asked to submit information like their name, address, contacts, and credit card number. If it’s a returning customer, the cart will automatically suggest their address and name to speed-up this process. The cart will also suggest different payment and shipping options to the buyer.
Sell More: After a customer completes the purchase, you can ensure that they remain on the online store with a ‘continue shopping’ button. This could make them browse or buy more products and increase sales. The cart will also automatically suggest complementary items or similar products after the checkout. The customers can conveniently add or purchase these items without leaving the cart.
Last Minute Changes: Customers may still want to add or remove a product after clicking the checkout button. Instead of quitting the current transaction and starting a new one, the cart will let the customer make these changes at the checkout stage itself. This feature will make it more convenient for the customer to shop on your online store.
Features Of Shopify Cart
Shopify’s cart comes with an SSL certificate that provides the same degree of security used in banks. It will protect all the content, transactions, and credit card information on your online store.
Shopify supports many popular payment gateways so you can give customers around the world a variety of options to complete their transactions.
All the payment gateways supported by Shopify
You can use the shopping cart to provide free shipping to customers and also set a price level for which free shipping can be applied. This could make the customer order more products to meet the price point and will increase your sales.
Shopify will let you translate your checkout page into over 50 languages. This ensures that customers from around the world can clearly understand how to use the cart and complete the checkout process.
The cart will use the customer’s address to automatically calculate the shipping costs from major delivery services like FedEx, USPS, and UPS. This kind of detailed shipping information will make it easier for customers to decide if they want to move ahead with their transaction.
Shopify will let you track abandoned carts and will help encourage the customers to complete the purchase. It will automatically send emails to customers reminding them about the products in their abandoned carts which helps you recover sales.
You can set up a flexible shipping rate based on product weight and customer location. The shipping rates can also be decided based on tiered pricing and a fixed price.
Shopify’s cart will automatically calculate taxes based on different locations and apply them during checkout. It can handle and calculate state-specific and country-specific tax rates.
A user-friendly shopping cart will speed-up your checkout process and make it easier for the customers to complete a transaction.
This post was submitted by Qurban Shah from Reviewsdraw.com.
