What is a Shopping Cart and why would I choose this option?

When a shopper visits a website they want to be able to pick a product or a selection of products, enter their billing and delivery details and continue on to a payment facility.

When it comes to integrating your site with a Payment gateway, the approach you take will depend on a variety of factors such as:

• Capital
• Technical Knowledge
• Time scale
• Business Requirements

Depending on the above factors could mean that you either integrate using a pre-coded shopping cart or start from scratch and perform a custom/bespoke Integration.

A shopping cart represents an important part of a website but does not represent the whole website - it is an addition to the website that allows the shopping process to take place and allows for the customers details to be collected.

This shopping cart process can either be custom built by a web developer or you can download or buy an 'off the shelf' shopping cart solution.

Shopping carts vary in their functionality and what you can do with them but ultimately they provide a link between your website and your Sage Pay account - allowing you to gather important order/customer details and then pass customers onto your Sage Pay payment page so they can pay for products selected on your website.

Many carts will include what is often referred to as a 'backend' or reporting/administration area which allows you as a merchant to add and remove products at will, as well as attach descriptions, prices and special offers. Importantly this back-end database will change as and when customers purchase items.

Shopping carts are ideal for those wishing for a more simple integration with Sage Pay without having masses of technical knowledge. Shopping carts in reference to Direct are possibly the most functional of the carts that work with Sage Pay. They will offer not only the standard cart features such as an admin area, to add and change products and prices - but will also offer a larger and more functional database where you can keep a record of transactions without relying on My Sage Pay which can allow for greater scope and also allow for you to keep your inventory and order management as well as your billing management area's all under one location.

Not all carts will share the same functions, so be sure to check with the cart software provider before you settle with one. It is important to be aware of the feature list that the different carts offer.