Shopping cart software is a piece of e-commerce software on a web server that allows visitors to have an Internet site to select items for eventual purchase. The software allows online shopping customers to accumulate a list of items for purchase. At the point of sale, the software typically calculates a total for the order, including freight transport, postage as well as packaging and labeling. Associated taxes are calculated as applicable. This software also allows for a final review of the shortlisted purchase and the choice for a user to modify the purchase. The data is used in online marketing particularly in the form of abandoned carts. History The development of web shop systems took place right after the Internet became a mass medium. This was a result of the launch of the browser Mosaic in 1993 and Netscape in 1994. It created an environment in which web shops were possible. The Internet therefore acted as the key infrastructure developments that contributed to the rapid diffusion of the e-commerce, a subset of e-business that describes all computer-aided business transactions. In 1998 a total of 11 e-business models were observed, one of which was the e-shop business model for a B2C (business-to-consumer) business—also called the “online shop” The two terms “online shop” and “electronic” or “e-shop” are used interchangeably. The term “online shopping” was invented much earlier in 1984. Today the term primarily refers to the business-to-consumer transactional business. In order to enable “online shopping” a software system is needed. Since “online shopping”, in the context of the B2C business model, became broadly available to the end consumer, internet-based “online shops” evolved. Technical definition These applications typically provide a means of capturing a client's payment information, but in the case of a credit card they rely on the software module of the secure gateway provider, in conjunction with the secure payment gateway, in order to conduct secure credit card transactions online. Some setup must be done in the HTML code of the website, and the shopping cart software must be installed on the server which hosts the site, or on the secure server which accepts sensitive ordering information. E-shopping carts are usually implemented using HTTP cookies or query strings. In most server based implementations however, data related to the shopping cart is kept in the session object and is accessed and manipulated on the fly, as the user selects different items