Can web sellers see how much is left in the shopping cart?

[paigeoliver]

Can people running online stores see the stuff you have loaded up in the shopping cart?

I hope so, I wonder if the mameroom guy is drooling waiting for me to check out on this order.

[grueinthebox]

A proper setup can see at what point people might be bailing out in the middle of transactions (used for assessment as to what parts of the ordering process could use some smoothing out), but I don't know if they can tell exactly how much is left in a cart...  I'd guess that the good shopping cart setups can (ones used by places like Amazon and such), but that appears to be a cheapo Paypal shopping cart setup, so it's anyone's guess...

I'd imagine that even if they CAN see it, they'd be smart enough to know that this was never a serious order...  If Bill Gates decided that he wanted an arcade machine, he'd just start a new arcade division at Microsoft.  

[paigeoliver]

I know EXACTLY what part of the transaction everyone bails on, the part where you pay.

[grueinthebox]

There's that, but if a site has forms that are difficult or confusing to a portion of their customer base, they might see a significant number of exits during other portions of the transaction as well...  To maximize the number of completed transactions, they have to tune their checkout process to be easy for not just tech-savvy forum goers like us, but also for people like my mother who couldn't compute their way out of a paper bag even if provided with detailed instructions written using only small words.

[paigeoliver]

There's that, but if a site has forms that are difficult or confusing to a portion of their customer base, they might see a significant number of exits during other portions of the transaction as well...  To maximize the number of completed transactions, they have to tune their checkout process to be easy for not just tech-savvy forum goers like us, but also for people like my mother who couldn't compute their way out of a paper bag even if provided with detailed instructions written using only small words.

My mother wouldn't buy anything off the internet if her life depended on it. She also refuses to use the ATM or the gas pump. Way too confusing for her (she has literally not pumped gas since they made gas pumps more complicated than "lift the handle", selecting cash/credit or fuel grade is too much for her).

[fredster]

I think all of that stuff is stored locally on your computer as a cookie, so I don't think so.

Check your cookies and see if it's in there, it may be a text file.