Understanding the eCart Object

The eCart Object maintains all of the information specific to a shopping cart configuration within your site.

Shopping cart displays, buttons, and server behaviors all depend on the eCart Object to define the global attributes defined for the shopping cart. These attributes range from the way information for items in the cart are displayed to the way charges, discounts, and totals are calculated.

All pages that contain shopping cart functionality must have an eCart Object applied to the page. This provides the fundamental structure for the operation of the shopping cart.

It is possible to create multiple shopping carts within a single website that have different configuration requirements (for example, creating a shopping cart and a separate "wish list"). For this reason, it is possible to define more than one eCart Object within a site, and apply multiple shopping cart instances, if necessary.

Objects specific to a shopping cart instance are maintained in the eCart support folder, which is created in the root of your site when you first add shopping cart functionality to a page within your website (see Site structure for more information).

The following sections detail how to create, manage, and configure the attributes of an eCart Object:
  • Using the eCart Object panel: This section discusses how to access and use the eCart Object panel to add and edit instances of the eCart Object within your website.
  • Defining the eCart Object: This section details configuration of an eCart Object. Configuration of the object is broken into the following categories:
    • General: Sets the persistence option, currency and item weight settings.
    • Columns: Sets the columns utilized within the cart, both default and custom.
    • Calculations: Sets how totals are calculated for columns within the cart.
    • Discounts, Charges, Taxes, and Shipping: Details the process of creating merchandising rules to establish how charges, discounts, taxes, and shipping are applied based on the contents of the cart nad your business requirements.