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iNet//Web Solutions
2811 La Cuesta Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323)851-6400
Fax (323)851-4570
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A PRIMER ON SHOPPING CARTSIn the Super Market, the shopper picks up a cart near the door, and starts walking up and down the aisles, browsing the available merchandise. The shopper can choose a product from one department (2 lbs. of ground beef), then something from another department (a gallon of milk), and so on. The shopper accumulates products in the cart, until he or she is ready to checkout; only at that point does the credit card come out, and payment is made. While the shopper waits, the Checker gets an authorization number from the credit card company, and hands over the charge slip for signature. And that's it ... within a few days, the Super Market receives payment from the credit card company, and at the end of the month the shopper is billed for the amount charged. On-line, the process is an exact parallel. As soon as the visitor enters your site, he is assigned a cart number, which follows the visitor until he leaves. As the visitor browses your merchandise, he can select any quantity of any product and "place" it in his "cart". At any time, he can review the contents of his cart, and change quantities or even "put back" anything he no longer wants; a running total of the cost of items he's chosen is there, too. When he's finished shopping, the visitor clicks on the CHECKOUT button, and is given one final chance to change quantities or "put back" items. Now the visitor is given three options for payment: type in a credit card number (with on-line security), use one of the proprietary Internet payment methods known as "wallets", or print out the order form to fax or mail to you with a credit card written in by hand. The credit card user's purchase is authorized on-line, immediately, and a confirming email (listing all the items purchased) is sent. And that's it - it's that simple! As soon as authorization is received by your site, electronic notification starts: messages are sent to your order department, your inventory department, accounting, shipping, ... whoever needs to know the details of the order will receive an email automatically. Anticipating too many orders to deal with one at a time? Easy - we'll cache the details, and email you once a day to download the orders. Or twice a day ... or three times a day ... here's hoping you have that problem! The Shopping Cart metaphor is not only intuitive to Internet buyers, it's fast, and it's easily implemented in the programming languages and protocols of the Web. And, too, it's easily customized: the after-sale reports can be made on any schedule, in any form, to any group or groups of employees, according to your needs. At iNet // Web Solutions, we've designed and built very basic Shopping Carts using hard-coded merchandise lists (inexpensive, but very inflexible), and we've designed and built very complex Shopping Carts using standard relational database functions. All the major database protocols can be interfaced (Oracle, Syquest, miniSQL, etc.), so transferring your product listings to the Internet won't require "...re-inventing the wheel". Got a catalog you're thinking of putting on-line? That's a smart move ... send us a copy, or give us a call, and put the iNet team to work for you. Your competitors are already on the Web ... how long can you afford not to be?
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