E-commerce Shopping Cart

ZIP sites have the capability of featuring an amazing shopping cart, which is seamlessly integrated into the site. Built on BULAWORKS’ proprietary technology, the shopping cart has a wide range of functionality. Here's a taste of what you can do with it. 

1. Category "Home Pages"

Our shopping cart provides a unique page for each primary category in the store, allowing you to add information and highlight specials particular to that category. From this primary category page, visitors can browse the stock (featured products can be located at the top of the listing). The storefront can have any number of product categories and subcategories, and these categories can be managed easily using a visual design tool that is part of our content management interface. (More on this below.) No matter that your product offerings are small to begin with -- you can easily add categories later as you add products.

2. Item detail page with dynamic configuration

Our shopping cart also provides an item detail page for every product, where a larger picture and more in-depth description of the item are provided. We use dynamic selections for configuring the product (e.g., size or color), which allows a shopper to make changes and display pricing results before adding the item to the cart and without needing to pick from a large menu of configuration options.

All item information is content-managed using the page management tool we provide. You can upload images for products (if desired), change pricing and product descriptions, "hide" and display products to match specific time frames for specials, etc.

3. Wholesale and Retail Pricing

The shopping cart has the capability of offering two sets of prices -- a retail price and a wholesale price. You can use the login page to identify wholesale customers, who receive a different pricing after they log in.

4. Inventory Management

Our shopping cart keeps track of inventory on an item-by-item basis. You can keep inventory levels up to date, and as items drop out of inventory, they are flagged as on back-order. (You can set some items to never run out, if they are the kind of items you have a constant rotating inventory on.) You can also set up items under "pre-order" status, which allows you to sell them and ship them as they become available.

5. Cart summary page and Secured checkout

We also include a standard cart "summary" page, providing a detailed summary of all items in the cart, including the ability to change item quantities and remove items. Carts can be saved and retrieved (if a person's shopping session is cut short, for example). From the summary page, customers move into a secure (SSL-encrypted) checkout sequence. Our shopping cart supports online, real-time credit card processing through the Verisign Payflow Pro gateway or Authorize.Net. Our shopping cart also supports a variety of shipping methods, including a real-time interface to UPS to get precise shipping costs.

Emails are sent to confirm orders (one to the customer, and one to your staff, to let them know that an order has come in.) Completed orders are accessible from the page management tool.

6. Account Management

The store will include a "My Account" page which will allow shoppers to log in and access their account information. They will be able to review past and pending orders, change their billing and shipping preferences, etc. Shopping carts can be set to "persist" for any amount of time, allowing people to start shopping and then return at a later time to complete their order.

7. Gift Certificates and Discount Coupons

The storefront also has the ability to issue discount codes (for limited-time promotions) and gift certificates (which can be auto-emailed to the intended recipient). You can even sell gift certificates in your store!

8. Search engine

The shopping cart includes a full, custom-formatted search engine, to allow people to home in on products by key words or other filter criteria (see discussion earlier). This search engine is actually an extension of the search engine feature included on all ZIP sites.

9. Security

All customer information is stored in the database using Triple-DES 1024-bit encryption algorithms, to guarantee that personal information is preserved securely.

10. Reporting

You will be able to run reports on sales and inventory on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis.

To see a sample shopping cart (a products page on a sample ZIP site) click here.