What is a shopping cart?

It is a funny question since everyone uses a shopping cart when they go shopping. On the web, it is very much the same, however you cannot actually pick up items and put them in your cart.

A shopping cart for your webste allows you to sell items. More importnatly it allows customers to shop thousands of items, add them to a virtual shopping cart and check out when done shopping. The cart stores all the items they want to buy and charges them for an itemized list of products.

The term shopping cart is taken from the real world stores and the idea is one that everyone can understand.

Of course some carts are better than others. The best cart is one that is simple and easy to understand. Since your customer wants to buy something they will not want to read instructions on how to use your webstore.

A shopping cart online needs to be simple, it needs to function the same on all browsers and operating systems, so it should be HTML only and no flash or required plugins.

A shopping cart should not require the user to register for an account, most people will never take the time. They want to spend time shopping, not learning how to shop.

A good cart will have full size images with detailed descriptions of items but not so much that it is confusing.

A shopping cart is an essential component of any e-commerce website. Without a way to add items to a virtual basket, the buyer would have no way to buy multiple items easily. The merchant needs to make the shopping experience as easy and fun as possible. And by doing so, the customer can buy multiple products and larger purchases.