If you sell or buy products online, you’re probably already familiar with the concept of a shopping cart. When you’re ready to add one to your website, this guide will help walk you through the process. Here, we discuss the different types of shopping carts, the pros and cons of some of the most popular options, and how to add them to your site once you’ve decided. Keep reading to learn more.
What is a Shopping Cart?
Shopping Carts Table of Contents
In e-commerce, a shopping cart is a software application that allows customers to select and purchase products or services from an online store. It is a virtual representation of a physical shopping cart, where customers can add products they want to buy and keep track of their order before checkout.
When customers select a product they want to buy, they can add it to their shopping cart. The shopping cart stores the selected products and keeps a running total of the cost of the items, including any taxes or shipping fees. Customers can view their shopping cart at any time during the shopping process to review the items they’ve selected and make changes as necessary, such as adjusting quantities or removing items.
Once the customer is ready to check out, they can proceed to the checkout page to complete their order. At this point, they will typically be asked to provide their shipping and billing information and select a payment method to complete the purchase.
The shopping cart is an essential component of an e-commerce website, as it allows customers to select and purchase products online easily, and helps ensure a smooth and seamless shopping experience. Many shopping cart applications offer additional features, such as saving items for later, creating wish lists, or tracking order history, to further enhance the customer experience.
Types of Shopping Carts
There are a few types of shopping carts to be aware of as you learn about this software. Different ones will fit merchants for a variety of reasons.
Licensed Shopping Cart
This type of cart is built and hosted by you, the merchant. This means all data that goes through the cart is stored on your server, rather than using a third party. It also means you have much artistic freedom when building the cart. You can customize the colors, graphics, layout, and more.
Since your business hosts this cart type, you will be responsible for all security measures and compliance issues. If you’re not a professional web builder or cybersecurity guru, be sure to have someone on your team who is!
Hosted Shopping Cart
A hosted shopping cart is the opposite of a licensed cart. This is typically an excellent choice for new merchants or shop owners without technical skills. In this instance, you would sign up for software that offers the shopping cart and it’s hosting all-in-one package. This will generally include a monthly or annual fee for using the software.
eCommerce Shopping Cart Providers
As with most vendors and other business decisions you make daily, there are pros and cons to many of the most popular shopping carts. Let’s dive in a little deeper to give you an idea of what you want.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is an extremely popular shopping cart option, and for good reason. It is highly customizable and has a ton of WordPress plugins for almost anything imaginable. It can accommodate a variety of products and services, including physical products, digital products, and webinars or coaching services. It’s also highly secure, and comes with a full community of support professionals and other entrepreneurs to help you along the way.
The key disadvantage of using WooCommerce is that it is WordPress specific. It can only be used with sites that are hosted by WordPress because it is a WP plugin. It also can be a bit more expensive than some other options.
Shopify
Shopify is another popular option for e-commerce shopping carts, mainly due to the ease of registration and setup, and its high level of flexibility. It is mobile-responsive and can be integrated with hundreds of other software systems to simplify your workflow. It is a highly secure option and features 24/7 customer service to help when you get stuck.
On the flip side, Shopify is not super customizable. Their design options are limited. It can also be more expensive than other options because you pay a monthly fee and then upgrade fees for the premium features you want to use.
Magento
Magento touts itself as an SEO-friendly and mobile-responsive platform. This helps business owners drive organic traffic to their websites. It’s also customizable and easy to integrate, which allows merchants to convert that organic traffic into sales.
On the contrary, Magento is not user-friendly during the setup process. If you don’t have tech skills, you may need a developer to set it up and that can be costly.
Shift4Shop (formerly 3dcart)
3dcart has over 90 free themes and 40 premium these to choose from. The premium themes range from $149-$189, but can add some great design to the look and feel of your cart. Additionally, these themes can be customized using CSS and HTML protocols if you have the technical knowledge to do so.
The main disadvantage to 3dcart is that when shoppers go to their cart to checkout, it takes them to a different page that is not part of your website. This can be confusing and even scary for some consumers.
Ecwid
Ecwid is perhaps one of the easiest and most affordable solutions on the market today. It’s great for new merchants and can be used on an existing website. Ecwid offers roughly 50 different options for payment providers, which is a huge selection compared to some other carts. They also offer 24-hour customer support to make sure you get your questions answered in a timely manner and never miss a sale.
Be careful when choosing your plan with Ecwid. Some of their plans don’t allow you to list your products on Amazon or eBay. If this is a major part of your business, Ecwid might not be the right choice for you.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a mobile-friendly platform that fully supports major payment gateways including PayPal and Apple Pay. It also has a dedicated support team that is available 24 hours per day. They tout shorter wait times compared to their competitors, likely because they have not grown to the size of other cart providers just yet.
If you really want design choices and features, BigCommerce might not be the option for you. Their fonts and themes are limited, and it cannot support custom options.
Volusion
Volusion has some extremely robust features for managing your business. This includes reporting, inventory tracking, shipping, and more. Their analytics are excellent and can help you truly understand your business’s profitability.
However, Volusion is priced much higher than many of their competitors. Their lack of customization and limited integration options, combined with higher pricing, makes this a difficult choice to make.
XCart
XCart offers high customization, excellent user experience, and two hosting options. It allows you to host your own cart, or allow them to host it for a fee. It also offers a high level of security to protect your data. Their support team is available to assist with security, integration, and more.
Disadvantages of using XCart include higher prices and costly customization features. Although you can customize ‘til the cows come home, it will come at a price!
How to Add a Shopping Cart to Your Website
When you’re ready to add a shopping cart to your site, most providers will have information on how to do so listed on their website. Here’s a brief synapsis for some of the most popular ones.
How to Add a PayPal Shopping Cart
If you want to add a PayPal shopping cart, you must first choose which buttons you want. If you need subscription options and/or automatic billing, you must ensure you have a verified business account. You also need to sign up for enhanced recurring payments.
Some of the other buttons from which you can choose include add to cart, buy now, donate, gift certificate, subscribe, and automatic billing. Once you select the buttons you want to add, navigate to the “Make a PayPal Button” page and follow the instructions.
How to Add a Shopping Cart to a WordPress Site
Contrary to popular belief, this can be a straightforward process. Start by navigating to the WordPress admin area, go to settings, shop, and add new shop. This will take you to a page asking a series of questions, including the shop’s name and URL. When you enter this info and click go to URL button, it will prompt you to enter the rest of your shop’s information.
If you’re uncomfortable with this process, seek the help of an experienced coder who can do the work for you. Additionally, it’s a good idea to save a backup version of your current site in case you make a mistake and can’t figure out how to fix it.
How to Add WooCommerce to WordPress
WooCommerce has a 5-step guide on how to add their shopping cart to a WordPress site. In a nutshell, the steps are:
- Choose your host (options include Bluehost, Siteground, and wordpress.com to name a few)
- Install WordPress if you haven’t already
- Activate your WooCommerce account and download the plugin
- Choose and customize your theme
- Add extensions to your store such as subscriptions, shipping, and more
How to Add a Shopify Shopping Cart
You have two choices when adding a Shopify cart to your website. You need first to decide if you want to build a new site inside Shopify, or if you want customers to continue going to your existing site and then being routed to Shopify when they are ready to purchase.
If you want shoppers to continue visiting your current site, you can create products in your Shopify account, copy their “button code” and paste it into the code for your website. Do this on the pages where you want shoppers to purchase items. When they click these buttons, they will be redirected to a Shopify cart for checkout.
If you build a new Shopify site, you can activate an account and navigate through the instructions during onboarding. They also have a community forum where you can ask questions to fellow merchants who are typically happy to help.
Final Thoughts
There’s more to shopping carts than what meets the eye! This is a critical decision in your business and should be researched before making a decision and moving forward. We hope you found this guide helpful in making decisions for your online store.
