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Shopping cart software is used in ecommerce to assist users who wish to make purchases online. The software allows online shopping customers to accumulate a list of items for purchase, described metaphorically as "placing items in the shopping cart". At checkout, the software typically calculates a total for the order, including shipping and handling (i.e., postage and packing) charges and the associated taxes, as applicable. When combined with secure checkout and real-time credit card processing, shopping cart functionality helps to increase sales as well as the number of returning customers.
For the online merchant, the selection of shopping cart technology is an important one. Whether you are going to program your own shopping cart application or integrate an existing application into your web site, it is important to first determine what type of shopping cart is compatible with your payment gateway or third-party processing service. Many third-party processing service providers offer the option of using a pre-integrated shopping cart created specifically to work with the other components, providing a total solution package. By choosing applications and services that support each other, the merchant can easily create a seamless, secure checkout system for its ecommerce website.
An additional consideration with shopping cart software is PCI compliance. Merely using a third-party company does not exclude a company from the need to be PCI compliant. It may reduce their risk exposure and consequently reduce the effort to validate compliance. However, working with a third-party vendor does not mean they can assume this requirement has been fulfilled. The burden of compliance rests clearly with the merchant, which can be expensive to manage, especially for smaller retailers and ecommerce stores. The Rapid Marketplace system has been specifically designed to fully address PCI compliance requirements, providing you with the assurance that your ecommerce solution is operating according to legal and regulatory requirements.
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