It is not an easy process to create an online store. You must do a lot of brainstorming and analysis related to your budget, objectives, and many more things. One thing that usually goes under the radar is the online shopping cart integration. This is one of the terms you learn while creating an online store. It is a term that can be confusing for beginners because they tend to mix with the cart that you can find in the physical store or the retail store.
An online store isn’t just about uploading quality images and content of your products and getting customers on board. It is also about learning all the terms associated with an online store, even those not part of your online store, because they may come across you soon. For your understanding, this article provides you with the definition, types, and examples related to the integration of carts in the eCommerce industry.
What is Shopping Cart Integration?
When you visit a physical store, the shopping carts are nothing more than a meaningless distraction. It is nothing more than an object you use to place the products you require from a particular store. Once you have a complete set of your required products, you bring the cart to your cashier, proceed to the payment, and complete your business. This shows that a cart doesn’t have much of an influence on larger systems, such as the physical store.
Image taken from Strikingly User’s Website
In the online world, shopping cart integration is the defined system. It is defined as the online store where everything is executed. A cart is where everything related to the shopping and transactions happens on an eCommerce website. An eCommerce cart is where the customers place their products and pay for them through different currencies and payment gateways. Strikingly supports the use of multiple payment systems in an eCommerce store. Paypal is the most common payment gateway, but you can also use Stripe to accept and send payments.
Types of Shopping Cart Integration
1. Full Shopping Cart Platform
As you can see by the name, this is a shopping cart integration that has the solution to all your problems in an online store. This is the cart platform that doesn’t just provide the necessary features to organize an online store but also creates it. You can get all the features to process the online sales, which is the utmost responsibility of a cart. Moreover, you are provided with the website building features such as a complete collection of templates, blogs, and analytics to support your online store.
Image taken from Strikingly User’s Website
Strikingly is a website builder that ticks all of these boxes in an eCommerce store. You can add a blog section on your eCommerce website to tell the audience about particular products from your experience. You can also integrate Google analytics as part of your online store to showcase the traffic status of your online store. Through Google analytics, you can have an idea of the new and returning customers joining. If you have a strong customer base, you will see more people filling up your online carts.
2. Simple Shopping Cart Platform
A simple cart platform can only be good for you if you believe in being one-dimensional and don’t want to bring variety to your products. If you are selling something simple in nature, you likely don’t sell many variants related to it. If you want to sell simple products as part of your online store, this might be the shopping cart integration that you are looking for. As you can see by the name, this cart option believes in simplicity and isn’t used to the products that are variants of one another.
For example, you shouldn’t be integrating this cart platform when selling similar cars but with different colors. Similarly, you cannot use this platform when selling the same mobile phones in different colors. You can simply add things to the cart and proceed to the payment procedure. Unfortunately, this platform doesn’t provide any inventory management functionality, such as eCommerce product pages, inventory control, etc.
3. Hosted Shopping Cart Platform
This shopping cart integration type enables you to use all the cart features on your website without bothering much about the technical stuff. As an entrepreneur, you must leave all the technical things to the company that runs or organizes your shopping website. Your company will be responsible for all the related functionalities, such as server management, backups, data security, and even the online cart features.
Even though this type provides users with many conveniences, it also limits the shopping adventure when it comes to flexibility. The reason is that you don’t have anything in your hands. You are not responsible for the actions in an online cart. Instead, you have to wait for the company’s response if you want to solve any issues related to an online store's existing or new features.
Create Your Ecommerce Website on Strikingly
If you want to consider a website builder for creating a fully-functional eCommerce website, you don’t need to look any further than Strikingly. Strikingly is a free website builder that enables you to create the website of your dreams within a couple of clicks. You can literally create the website design of your eCommerce website without writing a single line of code.
Image taken from Strikingly
Once you are done with your website design, you can start with the shopping cart integration and the rest of your website content. You can assemble all of your eCommerce products and create product categories based on gender, age group, price range, etc. You can also add a blog section to your eCommerce website to share experiences about the products that you have added. You can also add the feature of the order management system as part of your online store, which keeps the customers updated about the order they have submitted on your website. Once you publish the website, Strikingly won’t take more than 48 hours to make it accessible to the audience.
Other Examples of Shopping Cart Integration
1. Constant Contact
Constant Contact is suitable for all business startups today. In fact, it is good for anyone who doesn’t know about shopping cart integration. Its user-friendly interface allows you to create and assemble your cart without breaking a sweat. You can get all the high-quality website features for around $10 per month on this platform. The advanced features will come simultaneously for around $20 to $45 per month.
2. Shopify
Shopify has arguably the most famous shopping cart integration you can find online. It is an eCommerce-based platform that is suitable for any shopping website in the world. If you are willing to create your online store on Shopify, there is good news for you as its interface is extremely easy-to-use. The basic price tag of Shopify is $29 per month. If you want to get more from this platform, the features will cost around $79 to $299.
Image taken from Shopify
These price tags come on the back of all the eCommerce features that help you create a successful online store. There are many website templates for you to choose from, and as we have mentioned before, you can easily use the interface of Shopify. However, having a successful online store doesn’t mean that it will connect all the dots regarding functionality. Just like the case with Constant Contact, there may come a time when you have to use third-party applications to add features to your eCommerce website.
3. BigCommerce
BigCommerce has also created many headlines in the eCommerce world. Its shopping cart integration is beneficial for both new and growing businesses. The standard of this platform revolves around $29.95 per month. The advanced features from this shopping platform will come around $79 to $299. The cost depends on the website building feature you want to integrate.
Conclusion
Carts are a massive part of an online store nowadays. Gone are the days when you just used the cart to place your required products and bring them to your cashier. Now, shopping cart integration may be the factor for your eCommerce website’s success. If your cart has all the necessary information about the customer’s order, there is no reason why customers won’t come back for future orders.
Image taken from Strikingly
To add carts to your online store, it is important that you rely on Strikingly and create the best shopping website that you crave. Once you complete the registration on Strikingly, you will fall under our free plan, on which you can easily create a basic eCommerce website with all the required features. However, you must consider upgrading your subscription plans to improve your store’s features. If you have any problems with website development, you can contact our Happiness Officers immediately. So, create the best eCommerce website and establish a solid customer base for your platform.
