How to choose the right online shopping cart for your ecommerce website
One of the greatest challenge in developing an e-commerce website is to find the perfect shopping cart solution for yourself and or your client. This task can be very overwhelming, considering and if you search the keyword of ’shopping cart’ into Google.com, it’s returns over 14.4 million hits! Most of us don’t have the time to sift through more than a few pages of a search engine to find what we’re looking for. But don’t worry, just follow this 9 guaranteed step-by-step guide to find the suitable shopping cart for your business. The Top 9 Steps to Finding the Best Online Shopping Cart
Cost
How much money do you have to spend on an internet shopping cart? The nice advantage is that there are shopping carts with hundreds of features and they don’t cost you a dime. They are generally open source products. The only problem is that these same “free shopping carts” can take hours of installation time and be fairly difficult to configure. For a monthly fee, web hosting shopping carts are made for users with little programming experience and allows them to have an online storefront presence in no time.
Hosting versus Software
There are two options in selecting your overall shopping cart solution. Either you get shopping cart software, download it, install it on your web server, then configure the shopping cart OR you get an online storefront (a hosted shopping cart) where the configuration is very basic and the required setup time is minimal. If you have some programming skills, I recommend buying a script and installing it on your own. The nice thing is that you pay a one-time fee for shopping cart software and the license is good for a lifetime. It’s approximately the same price to have a hosted solution for a year compared to most one time shopping cart license fees.
Supported Gateways
Gateways give shopping carts the ability to connect and securely process credit card orders in real-time. Not all shopping carts are created equal. Make sure that your client’s merchant account is supported by the cart you select. I have found that almost all carts support the larger online payment processing companies, such as Authorize.net, PayPal and Verisign.
Shipping Options
Will you be shipping physical products? If so, there are shopping carts that have built-in real-time shipping options through DHL, UPS And USPS. Often times, the cart gives the user the ability to view tracking orders and order status all from within your secure shopping cart web interface. Also, there are shopping carts with options to ship digital goods as well (files, programs, pictures, music and others).
Technical Support
What kind of technical support does your shopping cart offer? If you choose to purchase a script, be sure to also subscribe to the shopping cart creator’s newsletter, so that you can stay on top of future updates to the software. Be aware that technical support is generally available on a pay-per-incident basis, as a yearly fee or in the rare case, free. Be sure to know what kind of customer support guarantee the shopping cart comes with.
Security
Please, only buy a shopping cart if it supports SSL (secure socket layer), with 128-bit encryption. As an online storefront, remember that you are responsible for the safe transfer of sensitive information (credit card and bank account information) that is processed through your store. If any of the sensitive information is accessible (stolen) from your website, you could be liable. Be sure that you’re purchasing a secure shopping cart solution. Ask the creator’s of the shopping cart what they do specifically to protect the secure transfer of sensitive information.
Style Compatibility
There needs to be a seamless transition between your website and your shopping storefront or your customers might get hesitant in purchasing your products. There should be similar colors and style layout to look professional and believable.
Extra Features
Affiliate Program – Offer your own customized affiliate program through your shopping cart software. Quickbooks Integration – Many carts allow direct integration with Quickbooks.
Newsletter & Mailing Letter Managers – The ability to stay in touch with your current customers and keep them returning to your online store.
Custom Taxing Options – Create taxable or tax-free products and have the ability to add various global tax options at checkout.
World Languages & Currencies – Shopping cart language translation and support for world currency might be a necessary feature for your cart.
Error Free
Be sure to see what other users are saying about a shopping cart that you might be interested in purchasing. Any shopping cart errors could cost you thousands of dollars in sales. Get a stable and secure cart.
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Comments
Finding the right shopping cart software for your e-commerce business is very important, and it can be hard to find the right fit. A great shopping cart software program is Znode. The program itself is 100% customizable to best suit your needs, and is it very user-friendly. One of the best shopping cart softwares out there, definitely worth looking into if you are in need of new software.
Online shopping very popular way to purchase everything i.e. cloths, shoes, furniture and appliances. There are no crowds to contend with and it’s convenient. Shop as and when you want, instead of when a store is open. Additional benefits of Online shopping are price comparisons and reviews by many purchasers about products and merchants. However, the Internet has unique risks. It is very important to take protective steps when you Online shopping.
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