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| PHP Shopping Carts at a glance: Magento and OS Commerce |
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There are many businesses, most, in fact, that have an online presence. The object is to generate traffic and./or make money. If you're selling something online, you have to have a way to collect money from your customers on your web site. The best, safest and easiest way is to use the all too familiar shopping cart, but what is the best way to go about designing and building your cart? E-commerce can be complex, but if you want to make it profitable, you have to make it safe and easy on your customers. The shopping cart is the key to making your customers experience and the likelihood of a sale and repeat business a reality. It's the final step of the sale. A PHP Shopping cart is a virtual shpping cart where customers can transact, online, with a business. It “holds” the items or services that the customers have collected while shoping online, then allows them to check out with a credit or debit card, an e-check or a service like PayPal. The customer pays for the product, the money is wired to the business online, the business ships the actual product to the customer or allows them access to their website or e-book, or whatever the product is. PHP offers a number of various pre-assembled shopping carts and software packages with various features such as billing controls, shipping options and security features, that can be imbued into any website for various prices, and there are free open source carts such as Magento, which offers most features that the licensed carts offer, but can be improved and expanded in an open source format. They key is to find a cart that is easy to use and is secure, and has the right options for your particular website. You don't need a cart that takes care of printing shipping labels as a feature, for instance, if you offer a service or a pay for play website. When designing the website, the cart should be carefully considered and should be designed and picked with ease of use, safety and efficiency in mind. Until next time, This is the Graphics Guru signing off. |