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We need to label our shopping basket/cart on our Hotel & Tour Booking website. People can add products (rooms or tours) to their basket, and reserve after reviewing. What should this be called: a Shopping Basket or a Shopping Cart?

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3 Answers

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As to whether it should be "Basket" or "Cart", I would have said this was a localisation issue. The US seems to favour "Cart", but here in the UK "Basket" is more correct. eg. amazon.co.uk uses "Basket", amazon.com uses "Cart". In fact, I'd go so far as to say "Cart" is incorrect for a UK based website.

I think "Cart" or "Basket" is simply the shortened form of "Shopping Cart" and "Shopping Basket". You don't want to over use the word "Shopping" if its context is obvious IMO. "Shopping Basket" would be the title and/or perhaps used the first time it is mentioned in copy and "Basket" thereafter. eg. "Your Basket is empty", "You have 2 items in your Basket".

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In the UK we don't have "shopping carts" at all: they are "shopping trolleys" ("trolley" does not mean "streetcar" in the UK). This may be why UK sites use "shopping basket" rather than "shopping cart". But I think "shopping cart" is now quite well known here, from the Internet. – Colin Fine Jun 10 '11 at 14:29
And in the American South, they are apparently "shopping buggies". – Peter Shor Jun 10 '11 at 19:23
@Peter just buggy (we also say shopping cart). Shopping buggy sounds funny, even to a Southerner ;) – snumpy Jun 10 '11 at 19:48
And people used to say carriage in New England (a few still do, which confused us when we first moved here). – Peter Shor Jun 11 '11 at 16:21
up vote 3 down vote

Shopping baskets and carts are physically very different.

Shopping Basket

A metal or plastic container with one or two handles, used to carry shopping in a shop.

Shopping Cart

A four-wheeled cart provided by a supermarket or other retail store for a customer's use in collecting purchases.

Google Ngram Viewer Graph created in Google Ngram Viewer.

It's interesting to note that Shopping Cart is more popularly used both in American and British English. Shopping cart is today's most popular choice. Probably due to the fact a cart can hold more items then a basket and most people show at supermarkets with trolley's. Baskets are for smaller purchases.

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+1 Just for throwing in a graph. :-) – T.E.D. Jun 10 '11 at 14:41
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In the UK we call a "Shopping Cart" a "Shopping Trolley". The term "Cart" is never used. Websites never use the term "Trolley" (that I have seen). So it's really a localisation issue IMO. Where does the data for your graph come from? More "Shopping Cart"s could merely indicate that there are more shops in the US; because it's bigger? – w3d Jun 10 '11 at 14:49
up vote 1 down vote

Usually, it's just "Cart", as in "You have 2 items in your cart"

This can be seen here, at the top right hand corner.

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