Online shopping cart
Logistics Consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of the retailer directly or by searching among alternative vendors using a shopping search engine.
Once a particular product has been found on the website of the seller, most online retailers use shopping cart software to allow the consumer to accumulate multiple items and to adjust quantities, like filling a physical shopping cart or basket in a conventional store. A "checkout" process follows (continuing the physical-store analogy) in which payment and delivery information is collected, if necessary. Some stores allow consumers to sign up for a permanent online account so that some or all of this information only needs to be entered once. The consumer often receives an e-mail confirmation once the transaction is complete. Less sophisticated stores may rely on consumers to phone or e-mail their orders (though credit card numbers are not accepted by e-mail, for security reasons).
Payment Online shoppers commonly use a credit card to make payments. However, some systems enable users to create accounts and pay by alternative means, such as:
Product delivery Once a payment has been accepted the goods or services can be delivered in the following ways.
Once a particular product has been found on the website of the seller, most online retailers use shopping cart software to allow the consumer to accumulate multiple items and to adjust quantities, like filling a physical shopping cart or basket in a conventional store. A "checkout" process follows (continuing the physical-store analogy) in which payment and delivery information is collected, if necessary. Some stores allow consumers to sign up for a permanent online account so that some or all of this information only needs to be entered once. The consumer often receives an e-mail confirmation once the transaction is complete. Less sophisticated stores may rely on consumers to phone or e-mail their orders (though credit card numbers are not accepted by e-mail, for security reasons).
Payment Online shoppers commonly use a credit card to make payments. However, some systems enable users to create accounts and pay by alternative means, such as:
- Billing to mobile phones and landlines
- Cash on delivery (C.O.D., offered by very few online stores)
- Cheque/ Check
- Debit card
- Direct debit in some countries
- Electronic money of various types
- Gift cards
- Postal money order
- Wire transfer/delivery on payment
- Invoice, especially popular in some markets/countries, such as Switzerland
Product delivery Once a payment has been accepted the goods or services can be delivered in the following ways.
- Downloading: This is the method often used for digital media products such as software, music, movies, or images.
- Drop shipping: The order is passed to the manufacturer or third-party distributor, who ships the item directly to the consumer, bypassing the retailer's physical location to save time, money, and space.
- In-store pick-up: The customer orders online, finds a local store using locator software and picks the product up at the closest store. This is the method often used in the bricks and clicks business model.
- Printing out, provision of a code for, or emailing of such items as admission tickets and scrip (e.g., gift certificates and coupons). The tickets, codes, or coupons may be redeemed at the appropriate physical or online premises and their content reviewed to verify their eligility (e.g., assurances that the right of admission or use is redeemed at the correct time and place, for the correct dollar amount, and for the correct number of uses).
- Shipping: The product is shipped to the customer's address or that of a customer-designated third party.
- Will call, lCOBO (in Care Of Box Office), or "at the door" pickup: The patron picks up pre-purchased tickets for an event, such as a play, sporting event, or concert, either just before the event or in advance. With the onset of the Internet and e-commerce sites, which allow customers to buy tickets online, the popularity of this service has increased.
- Simple systems allow the offline administration of products and categories. The shop is then generated as HTML files and graphics that can be uploaded to a webspace.the systems do not use an online database.
- A high end solution can be bought or rented as a stand-alone program or as an addition to an enterprise resource planning program. It is usually installed on the company's own webserver and may integrate into the existing supply chain so that ordering, payment, delivery, accounting and warehousing can be automated to a large extent.
- Other solutions allow the user to register and create an online shop on a portal that hosts multiple shops at the same time.
- Open source shopping cart packages include advanced platforms such as Interchange, and off the shelf solutions as Avactis, osCommerce, Shopify, Magento, Usbanet.com, Zen Cart, VirtueMart, Batavi, PrestaShop, E-Junkie, Clickbank, Fetch, DPD, Pulley, BitBuffet, Dbox, PayLoadz, FastSpring, Cerizmo, Digital Content Center, byteCommerce, PHPurchase.
- Commercial systems such as BigCommerce can also be tailored to one's needs so the shop does not have to be created from scratch. By using a pre-existing framework, software modules for various functionalities required by a web shop can be adapted and combined.
Online shopping
Online shopping or online retailing is a form of electronic commerce allowing consumers to directly buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet without an intermediary service. An online shop, e-shop, e-store, Internet shop, web-shop, web-store, online store, or virtual store evokes the physical analogy of buying products or services at a bricks-and-mortar retailer or shopping center. The process is called business-to-consumer (B2C) online shopping. When a business buys from another business it is called business-to-business (B2B) online shopping. The largest online retailing corporations are E-Bay and Amazon.com, both of which are based in the US.
Customers
Online customers must have access to a computer and a method of payment.
Generally, higher levels of education, income, and occupation of the head of the household correspond to more favorable perceptions of shopping online. Also, increased exposure to technology increases the probability of developing favorable attitudes towards new shopping channels.
In a December 2011 study Equation Research found that 87% of tablet users made an online transaction with their tablet device during the early holiday shopping season.
Customers
Online customers must have access to a computer and a method of payment.
Generally, higher levels of education, income, and occupation of the head of the household correspond to more favorable perceptions of shopping online. Also, increased exposure to technology increases the probability of developing favorable attitudes towards new shopping channels.
In a December 2011 study Equation Research found that 87% of tablet users made an online transaction with their tablet device during the early holiday shopping season.