Did you know that you can integrate LilyPad for Fishbowl with a shopping cart solution? Doing so will allow you to connect your website and inventory to manage both together. LilyPad will monitor your inventory levels and update the stock in real-time, preventing stockouts, which can improve the customer experience. Best of all, LilyPad’s shopping cart integration for the Fishbowl app is compatible with most of the biggest retail or eCommerce platforms.
What is a Shopping Cart?
A shopping cart integration is a software or service brands use to simplify eCommerce processes and operations. In other words, it’s software that facilitates product or service purchases. It will accept the customer’s payment and send information about the order, including shipping address, to the payment processor, merchant, or other stakeholders for fulfillment.
Why is a Shopping Cart Important?
Shopping carts help businesses offer seamless online shopping experiences by bridging the gap between product purchase and fulfillment. You’ve most probably made a purchase online before and received your item without needing to contact the retailer or warehouse – or worrying about ensuring the vendor has the correct shipping address. Shopping carts make such painless online experiences possible, which is why having one is critical.
A shopping cart can come with way more features or capabilities than leading your customers to checkout, such as multi-currency compatibility. In general, most shopping carts have the following common aspects.
- Shopping carts can store product and payment information.
- The cart serves as a gateway for catalog, customer management, and purchases.
- A shopping cart renders the product data and information for screen display.
Unlike the tangible shopping carts people use at supermarkets, digital ones do much more than hold items for checkout. A shopping cart integration can help support order handling, accounting, inventory, email marketing, and other activities, streamlining eCommerce operations.
Shopping Cart Options for Brands
Generally, there are two types of shopping carts, and these are as follows.
The Hosted Shopping Cart
This refers to shopping carts provided by third-party firms (aka hosts). The shopping cart vendor is responsible for maintenance, upgrades, and information backup, which can reduce an organization’s liability. The only drawback with a hosted shopping cart solution is that customers are often directed to the firm’s website for payment processing.
The Licensed Shopping Cart
This refers to a custom shopping cart solution, where the business builds the cart, sometimes from scratch, customizing it to specific needs. As you may have guessed, there’s greater flexibility with this route – your organization can change functionalities or adjust features whenever required. However, the upfront investment is typically higher than the alternative and requires more hands-on experience, including expertise, especially when troubleshooting technical issues.
While a total newbie or newcomer to eCommerce may prefer a hosted shopping cart solution, established businesses often opt for licensed shopping carts. LilyPad Shopping Cart Integration for the Fishbowl App offers the flexibility of a licensed shopping cart solution – and seamlessly integrates your website and Fishbowl Inventory.
LilyPad Shopping Cart Integration
With LilyPad shopping cart integration, all orders are securely and accurately sent through for fulfillment, and the inventory is updated. The shopping cart integration is compatible with most major carts. And even if you can’t find your shopping cart solution on the list below, the team can help program a ‘link’ to make it compatible.
Here’s a list of LilyPad compatible eCommerce shopping carts.
- Amazon
- ASP Export
- CommerceHub
- EDI 788, 795, and 945
- eBay
- Shopify
- Volusion
- Newegg
- ShipWorks
- ShipStation
- WooCommerce
- Zen Cart
- BigCommerce
- Zethcon
- Magento
- 3dcart
- 3PL Central
- CSV
- X-Cart
- Groupon
- TrueCommerce
- Joor
- Method CRM
- Path Guide Latitude WMS
- Mighty Merchant
- OpenCart
- OSCommerce
- Miva
- Spree
Benefits of LilyPad Shopping Cart Integration
LilyPad shopping cart integration for the Fishbowl app provides the following benefits.
- Easy order import – All order details are automatically transferred from the shopping cart you use to the Fishbowl app for order fulfillment.
- Product synchronization – Sync product catalog or information between Fishbowl and your shopping cart as often as you require to ensure everything matches correctly.
- Order export – You can easily schedule data or information transfers from Fishbowl to your shopping cart.
- Inventory synchronization – No need to worry about taking orders you cannot fulfill. LilyPad shopping cart integration will sync inventory quantities at regular intervals, so you know what is available to sell and never run out of items.
Get Shopping Cart Integration for Your Fishbowl App
The above information will help you implement a great shopping cart experience for your customers. Good shopping cart experiences can increase sales volume and return customers. If the shopping experience is positively memorable, people are more likely to buy more and return to make further purchases.
Additionally, when you integrate the Fishbowl app with LilyPad’s shopping cart integration, you can streamline your operations – freeing up more time to focus on orders, customer service, and other crucial areas. You can reach out to speak with an expert about your business situation before making a final decision on implementation.