Tag Archives | Online Shopping

Offering Certificates Coupons Discounts and Sales Through Your Shopping Cart

Offering Certificates, Coupons, Discounts and Sales Through Your Shopping Cart

Driving sales to your Website through use of promotions such as sales, discounts, coupons and certificates is what make for a successful online store. Your shopping cart can help you to drive sales if it has the right features.

Some shopping carts that have more of a storefront system contain many of the advanced features that are useful for driving traffic to the store and we all know that traffic equates to sales. Most any basic shopping cart will allow you to change prices when you want to have a sale but you usually have to do it manually, one at a time. Then, after the sale you have to change them all back again. Some shopping cart systems allow owners to set up pre-set timed sales, where the program sets the beginning time of the sale and the ending time automatically.

Another useful promotion feature of some store-front shopping carts is the ability to feature an item or items on the homepage of the store so that it can be prominently seen by customers as the enter your store. Some even have the capability of placing sale products or new products on the front page to drive sales that way.

Shopping cart software that has the capability to email customers can be set up to email customers about coupons offers or discounts. Not all shopping carts can do this and when they can what they can offer may differ such as some being able to offer a percentage or a dollar amount coupon, and others can offer either specific product coupons versus all-store coupons. Some times you can program the shopping cart to kick-in a discount when the dollar amount of the purchase reaches a certain dollar amount.

Another useful feature is when the software has the capability to offer free shipping when orders reach over $50.00. This type of offer really helps to boost sales.

Customer pricing is another type of discount that kicks in when the customer logs into the Website. The private login password identifies the customer and the customer’s assigned percentage of discount that appears on the order form at checkout.

Just as offline brick and mortar stores offer sales, discounts, certificates and coupons to entice customers into the store. The ability of shopping carts to send out emails enticing customers to visit an online store is crucial for driving sales. An online store is dead without a constant flow of interested buyers. Sales, discounts, certificates and coupons are promotional tactics that a shopping cart can be programmed to handle saving a storeowner time and money. When making a shopping cart decision don’t ignore the power of advanced features to generate greater sales, features such as the ones discussed in this article.

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The Indispensable Shopping Cart

The Indispensable Shopping Cart

Shopping carts are a necessity for those Website owners who wish to sell physical or digital goods and also those who sell services. Customers have come to expect that a serious ecommerce site will have a shopping cart and will exit a site it if doesn’t. A shopping cart has become an indispensable part of doing business online.

A customer can place items into a virtual shopping cart and continue browsing the site to locate other items of interest. The customer can usually look at the top of the screen and see a running total of how many items they have placed in the cart and can usually also tell a running total of dollars spent so far. While navigating the online shopping cart a customer is able to add to the cart, delete items from the cart, change quantities of the items that are in the cart and make option choices such as color and size from the cart. Shopping carts will even do the math for the customer regarding totaling the retail amount of the order, adding any necessary tax and also adding the shipping fee to the order. Most shopping carts will even email the customer after they have made a purchase and thank them for shopping at the particular Website and will confirm the order that they just placed. The fact that a shopping carts software can be programmed to do this means that the customer will feel secure in the purchase.

Because most ecommerce sites have shopping carts, if your site lacks one you will look unprofessional to a customer visiting your site. The last thing you want to do is drive away potential customers because you did not think to provide a shopping cart.

A shopping cart can provide many benefits to the online store owner including providing data collection and market research based on customer usage, such as how many carts have been abandoned before the purchase was completed, and how much traffic went through the shopping cart. A secure, easy to use shopping cart can even foster repeat business when customers enjoy their shopping cart experience.

The benefits of a secure and multiple featured shopping cart can give your customers a shopping experience that will put them at ease dealing with you. When a customer feels comfortable dealing with you they will purchase more items, and also come back to purchase again from you. They will also spread the word about the good shopping experience they encountered with you and you will pick up more customers by word-of-mouth advertising.

A shopping cart is an indispensable tool to the Website owner who sells goods or services because of the professional look of the site, the shopping experience a customer will enjoy using the shopping cart and because of the invaluable data a shopping cart can provide the Website owner about the shopping habits of the customers who visit the site.

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