CactuShop: UK Shopping Cart Features

CactuShop was designed and developed with the UK and European markets in mind.

UK & EU VAT: Handling the basics

CactuShop has built-in VAT (Value Added Tax) handling. You can choose whether the price you enter for items in the back end admin section is inclusive or exclusive of tax; the store will then add VAT where appropriate if you entered ex-tax prices, or remove tax for foreign orders if your prices are inc-tax. You can set the VAT rates, include a zero rate for non-VATable items. You can also choose whether to show both ex-tax and inc-tax prices on your store, or just the headline price (either including or excluding tax).

UK & EU VAT: Advanced tax handling for EU customers

If your store is in the UK or EU, you will typically have to charge VAT to all customers in your home country, and exclude VAT to those outside the EU. In the case of companies within other EU countries who are VAT registered, you should zero-rate the tax. They will then declare the order on their EU VAT return and pay tax at their own country's prevailing rate via their tax return.

CactuShop allows you to turn on this EU VAT handling so that customers in EU countries outside your own will be prompted for a VAT number during checkout. There is a basic algorithm you can activate to check that the number meets the basic format of VAT numbers for the country in question (there are many different formats for VAT numbers across the EU). Orders with a VAT number supplied will have the VAT zero rated. You should always check of course with the VAT authorities that the number supplied matches the customer details; but the features in CactuShop cut typos and misquoting of VAT numbers significantly.

Support for popular UK payment gateways

CactuShop supports many of the most popular payment gateways in the UK including Protx, WorldPay, SecPay, Secure Trading, VelocityPay, Barclays EPDQ and Realex.

Meets EU ecommerce requirements

The checkout procedure gives a full summary of the cart contents prior to checkout, and you can activate a "confirm terms and conditions" checkbox from the config settings. A printable receipt of each order is shown on screen after a successful purchase. An email copy of an order is also sent to the customer. CactuShop is web-standards compliant and meets basic accessibility requirements.