Shopping Cart Development – A heart of Ecommerce Website

A shopping cart is a software application that typically runs on the computer where your Web site is located (the Web server), and allows your customers to do things such as searching for a product in your store catalog, adding a selected product to a basket, and placing an order for it. So Shopping Cart is considered as a heart of any E-commerce Website.

The shopping cart "integrates" with the rest of your Web site. In other words, there are typically links on your Web pages that customers can click on, and which allow them to perform some of the functions described above. For example, many e-commerce Web sites have a "search" link appearing on every Web page, as part of the navigation area. The link points to a feature (i.e. the search feature) provided by the shopping cart.

Shopping carts are written in a variety of different programming languages. Some of them provide full access to the "source code", thus allowing experienced programmers to make modifications to the system features, some others don't. Some shopping carts run on Windows Web servers, some on Unix, others on both. In most cases, you can place the shopping cart on your Web server simply by transferring its files there using any FTP software, where FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol.

For example, our shopping cart software  - called Product Cart - is a collection of ASP files that you place on a Windows 2000 or 2003 Web server, where ASP stands for Active Server Pages, a popular programming language developed by Microsoft®. Experienced ASP programmers can customize the system as they wish as the source code is included.
Many of you might be unknown about the fact that the design of their online storefronts-from the landing page to the shopping cart-has a direct effect on sales. Even the negligible design elements can improve or harm conversion rates, and this tutorial will tell you five things you can do as a web developer to increase online sales and make your online shopping cart service a profitable investment.

Think about it from a shopper's point of view. It seems pretty clear that you want you’re shopping process to be as intuitive as possible-but a lot of online storefronts don't practice what they preach. Sometimes, web stores get too artsy with their designs. Others use flash animations that can slow down the shopper's browser. Still others use color schemes that send the wrong signals to shoppers.
Performing different test on your online storefront is an important part of making sure your website appeals to customers and makes shopping as intuitive as possible. There is a range of ways that different design elements can affect online users, and testing helps put those ways in perspective. With more than ten years of experience designing online storefronts, we've seen enough to know what the "dos and don'ts" of web store design look like.
Here are five tips on how you can turn more visitors into customers and seriously improve conversion rates using some simple design techniques while developing your ASP Dot Net Shopping Cart or asp dot net store front.
Make sure your shopping cart is visible
If the customer adds an item to their cart, they want to have the peace of mind that the item was actually registered. Therefore, somewhere on the page at all times during the shopping process, your store should have an area listing the number of items in the customer's cart and other relevant check-out information.
Optimize your "add-to-cart" buttons
Site visitors and customers respond differently to different calls to action. For instance, if your "add-to-cart" button says "more details" or "learn more," our experience has been that customers don't react as well to this kind of indirect call-to-action. In contrast, an "add-to-cart" button that says "buy now" is a specific, direct call to action that elicits a much more positive response from shoppers.
Clean up your product pages
The organization of your site's product pages is a crucial part of ensuring that your customers are drawn in by the information that is most appealing to them.
The first element should always be the product images. The shopper wants to see exactly what he or she is getting for the money. After that, make sure to feature the product name, description and the price to get the customer's attention. Keep elements like customer reviews and links to similar products closer to the bottom of the page.
Clarify your navigation paths
Hidden menus and other elements on the page are very ineffective and can sometimes lead to shopper frustration. One of the most important parts of clarifying your navigation is by avoiding hidden elements on the page.
If you have too many categories, this can be a difficult task. However, fly-out menus (that "fly out" when you mouse over them) are an effective way to keep your page from getting too cluttered while giving the shopper the opportunity to access any category page at any time.
Eliminate distractions from your checkout page
When your customer proceeds to the checkout, you want them to go in a very specific direction. So, when you're designing your checkout, this is the time to remove items like left sidebar navigation to define a clear path to the goal.
 
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