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E-commerce or electronic commerce refers to the buy-and-sell of products through use of advanced networking technologies like internet. For this to happen, computer scientists and engineers have come up with "enablers" that facilitate online shopping which includes secure payment gateway software, shopping cart software etc. Shopping cart software has become one of the most popular pieces of online store software and forms the backbone of most shopping portals.

Online shopping cart is used to keep track of all items selected by online purchaser and it also displays total amount to be billed on checkout. It is almost similar to the billing software used by supermarkets all over the world. It is designed in such a way that it is analogous to the physical trolleys we use in supermarkets.

Once a visitor to online shopping portal has examined all the products available for sale and decided to purchase a product, he or she will mark that item and select it using the online shopping cart icon displayed on the page. The most common place for this icon to be found is below each product image, usually underneath the price.

In the shopping cart panel of the webpage, the item selected, its product code, its price, discount if any etc. is displayed. In case, the customer wishes to buy some other products as well, he can go through the product listings and add them to the shopping cart which already has one item which was previously selected by the customer.

It may sound a very simple application to build. However, developing such software requires immense technical expertise in areas as diverse as real time database management, accounts and billing, secure payment gateway etc. It is also imperative that the software development team does a thorough analysis of the delineated customer profile and utilizes this knowledge to facilitate ease and incorporate principles for "usability".

Concept of cookies in Hypertext Markup Languages (HTML) is utilized fully in developing the shopping cart software. Two types of such software are available in the market today. The first type requires a one time payment and unlimited usage on purchase and the second type requires monthly or annual subscription charges for its hosted services.

The online shopping cart is keeps track of items selected by online customers and then totals them at checkout. Any visitor on an online portal, who decides to purchase a particular item, has to click on the cart icon to add the product. The online store software is complicated as it should take into account customer needs and proper software design requires that the developers be familiar with the customer profile and mode of operation. Cookies can help in this regard. Of the two types of shopping cart software available, one requires a one time licensing fee, while the other requires a subscription fee.