A universal shopping cart is provided that obtains and orders products and
services from different merchants located on the Internet. The consumer
completes all of their shopping on the shopping site and is not directed
to another merchant's site to complete an order. The universal shopping
cart provides a monitoring service that allows the consumer to monitor a
product for specified criteria. The order injection system places orders
for products contained within the universal shopping cart from affiliated
and non-affiliated merchants. Specific ordering details required from
merchants external to the shopping site are hidden from the consumer. For
external merchant sites that require a consumer account before allowing
the product to be purchased, the shopping site creates a new consumer
account without intervention from the consumer. Once the products are
ordered, the consumer may keep track of the ordered products from the
shopping site.