Shopping Carts and Accepting Payment
What is a Shopping Cart?
Just as you might use a trolley when you go to the supermarket so the on-line purchasing process typically involves selecting items from the virtual shelves and placing them in a shopping cart before heading to the checkout counter.
Typically, a shopping cart is the interface between a company's web site and its deeper infrastructure, allowing consumers to select merchandise, review what they have selected, make necessary modifications or additions and purchase the goods.
It is a user-friendly approach – typically fronted by a graphical representation of a real world trolley – which keeps a record of all the items intended for purchase. When complete, the whole order is submitted, together with payment details, typically a credit card number.
You can confirm that the order has been received via e-mail, while the order itself - along with payment - is fulfilled through established off-line procedures.
The shopping cart must be seen as part of an overall system rather than being considered in isolation. If you are a one-person business, a plug-in or off-the-shelf shopping cart may be all you need but make sure you have access to the help desk and support as part of your purchase arrangement until you get everything running smoothly.
For larger businesses the best approach is to look at your overall e-commerce strategy and what you want to achieve and ensure your technology will work as an integrated whole. Purchasing different components from different vendors and expecting to get a seamless process without some serious tweaking and development may be naïve. You need to take expert advice – preferably from someone who has done this before.
There are a number of options to include shopping cart software. A Web design company or ISP may offer a solution to integrate with a small on-line catalogue which takes credit card details as well as processes the order through to fulfillment stage for as little as $2000.
The more complex the site the more work and therefore cost is involved. Large sites require greater security and integration with back office systems. For organisations with ERP systems the shopping cart may come as a module of the e-commerce side of the web and require customising to work with inventory and processing systems.
Make sure the shopping cart contains all the functionality you will need and is compatible with existing technology and future plans. That means your web site design, supplier enablement strategy, which includes the use of electronic catalogues and shopping cart needs to work seamlessly together and be compatible with the systems employed by your own suppliers and partners if you want to take automation the next stage.
The shopping cart may appear a cute and simple process but it is an essential component of your on-line business approach. If there are problems or the buy process is complicated then customers may, after having selected product wish to buy, abandon their purchase at that very point.
On-line payment systems
Breakthroughs in banking policy and technology are now opening the way for easier and more capable systems after being stifled by the lack of affordable solutions to accept and process credit cards on line and complete multi-currency transactions.
Buying and selling on the internet is getting simpler but it’s still not as simply as setting up a web site, installing shopping cart and credit card processing software, there are many considerations to take into account to avoid pitfalls and disappointment.
A transactional Web site covers the whole process, from product or service selection, through ordering and confirmation of delivery arrangements, to real-time on-line credit card payment. However up until recently New Zealand banks have only been able to accept payment in local dollars, which has made the process very difficult and confusing for customers in Australia, US or UK buying from New Zealand web sites.
That meant New Zealand businesses were forced to charge in New Zealand dollars. An approximate US-dollar price may be quoted but continual currency fluctuations can cause the cost appearing on the buyer's credit card statement to be different from that quoted on the Web site. That can depending on which way the money market swings disadvantaging either the buyer or the seller.
This uncertainty has raised concerns about whether selling to the US is worth the effort. For some foreign customers it’s been a deterrent to buying our goods.
The market for currency transactions software has however begun to mature with an increasing number of banks and third party sites able to offer multi-currency transactions. In the event that such an option is not available or is too costly web site owners can include a currency converter to their sites so purchasers can do the calculations before clicking through to the shopping cart.
The majority of banks now either offer clearance capabilities in multiple currencies or through add-on software or work with a third party clearance house to ensure payment is verified, cleared and transferred in the currency required in double quick time.
Most systems integrators, web site developers or ISP's offering e-commerce systems will also have an option for payment processing, some can be simply add on boxes which hand payment through to a third party, others are tightly integrated with the purchase process and in-house IT systems. If you are opting for real time on-line credit card payments you are in effect integrating your Web site into the banking system .The option you chose will depend on the cost and whether you are getting sufficient sales to justify a simply $50 per month option or something more complex.
If you are dealing mainly with familiar customers or suppliers, then you will probably continue to supply and accept purchase order numbers in the usual way, and arrange for payment at the end of the month. The only difference is that you might send or receive the order electronically.
Another complication can arise when a person buys something on the web because this is classed as a "card not present" transaction. In other words the funds from the transaction don’t actually end up in your account for up to 90 days even though it may have been authorised. During that time the purchaser may challenge the purchase even though the transaction has been complete. In which case you have shipped the goods and payment may not be completed by the banking system.
The Ministry of Economic Development recommends:
- Asking your bank about the rules that apply to credit card charge-backs.
- Don't regard the money as yours until it really is yours.
- If you receive an unusually large order, check the legitimacy of the person ordering. The bank may be able to do extra checks on the validity of the credit card for you. Be extra careful if you get a large order from a country with which you don't usually do business.
- Don't regard the money as yours until it really is yours.
Of course any on-line payment system requires a high level of security to ensure credit card details and personal details are kept away from prying eyes and used only for the purposes they were offered in the first place. Despite on-line shopping becoming a mainstream activity there are still many people who are reluctant to give their credit card details on-line. There are a number of ways to reassure them.
In the past couple of years most security issues have been covered off and submitted your cared details on-line is no more risky than using that same card in-store. There are a range of security measures commonly used at commercial web sites including encryption which scrambles your personal information so it can’t be accessed by anyone accept the intended party, secure sockets layer (SSL) used by many sites to authenticate cards, and digital certificates which authenticate the identity of the user.
As you move into the purchasing stage on most commercial web sites you are alerted that you are now in a secure environment and you are alerted again when you leave that environment as further comfort to purchasers uncertain about how their private data is being treated. Also look for the little closed padlock icon at the bottom of your computer screen.
You can include a privacy statement on-line detailing how you handle private information and transactions so the customer can see the lengths you have gone to ensure their information is safe. You can offer a range of payment options, perhaps even reverting to emailing details or sending a cheque at the time of ordering on-line.
Back to the iStart B2C eCommerce Research Pavilion
