Adding a shopping cart to your e-commerce website design announces your intentions and credibility to the internet. It says, “I’m here to do business, with a site you can trust.” As mobile browsing continues to grow, so do online sales. Shoppers are flocking to websites such as Amazon, Etsy, or their favorite online store to take care of everyday purchases and seasonal gifts. Making this experience secure, easy, and profitable has become the number one goal for entrepreneurs selling their goods online.
A shopping cart is more than just a centralized place for a user’s potential purchases. It helps them calculate total costs, keep track of their order (or make edits to it), and makes the payment process painless. When a shopping cart is installed, it can offer the business owner just as much, if not more.
Here are five reasons to suit up with a shopping cart if you want to be taken seriously in the e-commerce arena.
You want your website to be an e-commerce site
You absolutely need an online shopping cart if you’re trying to become an e-commerce website. A shopping cart is a crucial component to a successful e-commerce store as it allows you to fluidly process payments, take orders, and encourages users to continue shopping after they’ve made an initial selection. This multifaceted component acts as the customer user interface, an online product catalog, back-end inventory infrastructure, and even the payment gateway. Responsible for so many invaluable aspects of an e-commerce site, shopping cart software will really end up doing most of the work for you.
Convenience = customer satisfaction
From allowing multiple payment options to keeping tabs on everything a customer wants to purchase, shopping cart software makes the buying process easy. Without a cart, users would be forced to make multiple purchases, checking out several times in the process; or worse yet, call you to confirm your order. This creates an uncertainty in the shopper: every time they type in their sensitive information, they run the risk of having that data skimmed, hacked, or stolen.
Customers are also able to remove or add items in their cart without having to start all over again. And the biggest convenience factor: users can shop and purchase on any device with an internet connection.
A shopping cart builds trust with customers
Convenience aside, having a shopping cart for your online store signals that your website is secure. Shopping cart software is designed to make handling payments a breeze—letting users know how to pay (and then letting them do it) and making the transaction secure through the software’s built-in security features. In an age where identity theft is becoming more and more common, online shoppers are cautious about where and to whom they give their personal information and credit card number to.
Installing a shopping cart offers users payment assurance and establishes you as a credible online business.
Better product management
As e-commerce websites grow their catalogues inevitably change as well, which requires proactive product management. Many shopping carts and their software provide business owners product management tools to
adapt to trends in growth (or the lack thereof). Any software that can make running your business less time consuming is one entrepreneurs shouldn’t miss out on.
Shopping cart software provides backend data for business growth
With the right software, you can use shopping carts to track what products or services people are coming to your business for (and which ones they might be neglecting). This data can be used to positively impact SEO or marketing strategies. Depending on your software, you may also be able to analyze sales trends and visitor patterns. Carts aren’t good for just collecting products for purchase—they also collect data,
Taking into account the various shopping carts— Magento, WooCommerce Marketing, Zencart, Prestashop, etc.—business owners have plenty of options for how their online cart will look and function. E-commerce software benefits webmasters because it takes the basic needs of a customer (and business owner) and provides a solution to meet those needs. In fact, there’s so much more to having an online cart than customer satisfaction.
The amount of data shopping cart software can collect on the backend is instrumental to running a good business. Carts build credibility by establishing trust between you and your clientele, but it also tells you about those same clients—their patterns and behavior while browsing or making a final purchase.
Adding a shopping cart to your online business turns into this magical gateway for customer data that can be used to grow your business, run ad campaigns, or even save yourself from the red. It’s part of being a proactive entrepreneur: you build, adapt, and grow. If you are interested in learning more, contact us today. We're a website designer and SEO company in nearby Lancaster, PA.
