Ecommerce Shopping Cart Basics

An electronic shopping cart is a piece of ecommerce software that performs the following duties:
* Allows a user to select and hold items, usually from an online store.
* Calculates purchase price totals - including multiple items, taxes and shipping costs.
* Interfaces with payment gateway/merchant account - you need a merchant account to accept credit cards.
* Sends email confirmation of purchases.
* Tracks customer shopping patterns and purchases.
* Recognizes repeat customers.