Shopping Cart

Not every site needs a shopping cart, but more and more website owners are finding that having an always-open, world accessible storefront is a great way to sell products and services - increasing their revenue.

If you have decided that a shopping cart may suit your needs, Webstix can build you a website with a shopping cart or even add a shopping cart to your current site.

We use a variety of shopping cart software. It's best to use tried and true cart software rather than reinvent the wheel because of security reasons... plus it's easier! Webstix has extensive knowledge with the PHP programming language. The shopping cart software that we are experts at are VirtueMart and OS Commerce. We can also create single page checkouts if you don't need the flexibility that shopping carts offer.

When building a cart, we've found that each cart is unique. Some are similar but there are usually certain features that are needed - either with how shipping is done, how products are displayed or any other kind of custom feature like member-only pricing. We've set up lots of shopping carts and can handle these requests while keeping the shopping cart code in tact where it can be easily upgraded. Above all, security is our top priority.

How Does a Cart Do a Transaction Online?

Good question! We're glad we asked!

The shopping cart software takes care of putting an order together. It's programming that runs on your website (web server) and its job is help people put together an order and figure out details like tax and shipping. Once that has been finalized, it asks for payment. Payment can be either offline (send in a check) or online (with a credit card or payment service like PayPal).

When someone enters their credit card, if the transaction is in real time, then the online world needs to connect with the banking world to see if they have the funds available. This is done with a Payment Gateway. You will need a Payment Gateway if you want to perform credit card transactions in real time. Some common Payment Gateways are Authorize.net and Verisign. The transaction can either be set to "authorize" or "authorize and capture." The authorization checks to see if they have the funds available and then holds the funds for about 48 hours. If a capture takes place, then the funds get set to be transferred into your checking account, usually at the end of the day in one batch.

The Payment Gateway reports back to the cart if the funds are available and then the cart takes the appropriate action. The cart also then sends a receipt and then the transaction is complete.

Shopping Cart Features and Information:

• No limit on the number of products you can sell
• Multiple state tax support
• Supports the Authorize.net payment gateway
• Dynamic page navigation display
• Dynamic category links
• Support for thumbnail, and full size images
• Listing of random products or related products
• Credit card year on order form will always be set for the next 10 years so you do not have to remember to change it
• Built in search engine
• Multiple shipping calculation methods
• Support for multiple options such as size and color
• Displays total item and cart subtotal on all screens
• Back-door store manager included ($150 value)
• Insertion of 20 items ($375 value)
• Clean, easy to use interface for your customers (priceless!)

Webstix, Inc. will help you populate your own database initially by providing specifications of how the database is set up. If we need to add products for the client, our standard hourly rate does apply (please contact us for a detailed quote as the amount of time to populate a database might vary significantly and the final cost depends on many factors). Since shopping cart configurations vary, we will need to meet with you and discuss the features that you need.

Optional Configurations

The goal of a good shopping cart setup is to make the store as automated as possible. This might, depending on the specific needs of your client, require Webstix, Inc. to make a few modifications or custom features to the standard shopping cart software. These modifications might include:

• The shopping cart software can link into PayPal.com as the gateway for checkout.
• Upon checkout, an email will be sent to the manufacturer as a Purchase Order for drop shipping.
• Using UPS Zone Charts for estimating shipping from your own FOB ZIP code.
• Make certain items have no charge for shipping.
• Have member-only pricing so that you can offer people discounts on products.

And the list goes on. Since we can modify the programming code for the software, we can add practically any feature to it that is needed. Call us for more information.

Some Clients Using This Software:

• Abatron
• Learning Connections
• WASB
• MHTC
• BCRS Equipment
• gThankYou