While it is easy to mindlessly scroll through a store's website online and add things to a virtual shopping cart, online shopping is a pretty complex process. Online shopping allows customers to browse through a store's catalog, view products and add selections to their carts without being locked in to purchasing the items. If a customer decides to purchase an item later, he or she can "check out" that specific item from the cart, enter payment information, and the product will be shipped to the destination entered.
If an online store plans to display and sell over 50 products, it will usually use a store-building system as opposed to an online ordering system. The store-building system and the online ordering system both handle the product pages for each of the products, but the store-building system handles orders on the same site instead of redirecting a customer to another web page to pay and complete the transaction.
The shopping cart feature allows the customer to indicate the quantity and specifications of the products he or she wants and save them to his or her personal cart. The store-building system will usually show the running total of items in the cart. In order for the shopping cart program to differentiate between shoppers, a variety of systems are used. Most sites use cookies: small computer files that identify a shopper and remain on a shopper's hard disk while on the website. Another method includes software that can read the temporary IP number of a customer that is assigned by the customer's internet service provider upon logging onto the internet.
When it is time to check out, the software will usually calculate a customer's total cost, including shipping fees and taxes. Because taxes differ by states, some carts allow tax calculation by zip code. Shipping calculations are based on a number of specifications, including sales total, weight, and number of items in the order. Some sites have a flat rate for shipping any order. To get real-time authorization of credit cards, a secure payment gateway is needed. The payment gateway software is usually provided by an outside service, not the online store itself. Finally, in order for the transaction to be secure, a Secure Sockets Layer or SSL secure connection is needed between the customer and the website to encrypt communications and prevent hackers from stealing personal information. When the merchant retrieves and downloads a placed order, there also needs to be a secure SSL connection or another secure method to make sure credit card information is not exposed.
References:
Content:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopping_cart_software
http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/100112-cart_intro
https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/online-shopping-cart-work
Images:
https://secure.fatcow.com/images/user-guide/screenshot-ecom-checkout.jpg
https://compass.ups.com/uploadedImages/Artical_Area/Articles/1112_ShoppingCart_Article.jpg
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