Why Shopping Carts Don't Work
For class registrations, that is. The electronic shopping cart is a great solution for on-line product sales, but it falls short as a solution for class scheduling and registrations. We get quite a bit of questions related to this subject so we decided to post this short explanation.
It all boils down to the fact that the data elements required to effectively manage your classes are quite different than those required to manage store inventory. Shopping carts don't have a concept of class date/times, locations, instructors, or maximum seats allowed. Nor do they have the database structures required to track and report on student progress.
Sure, it's possible to force the square peg into the round hole, but using a cart for class management almost always results in additional work on the part of the administrator by requiring continual maintenance of the shop "inventory" and transposition of the student information into a more class friendly format. Enrollware and other class management systems eliminate all that by providing a solution tailored to fit the requirements.