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Online Shopping Cart Software
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Online Shopping Cart Software and e-commerce solutions package offers you the
ability to build a successful online store with no web design or development
experience required! Online Shopping Cart Software offer all of the features and
functionality that you need to develop and market a successful online storefront
- no programming required. Features include web-based administration, real-time
payments, shipping calculations and integration, and more!
There are many companies which are providing Online Shopping Cart Software. The
Online Shopping Cart Software packages are beneficial to small companies and
large corporations alike. They have training manual and online store builder
reference videos to get you started. They also offer free technical support,
available 24 x 7.
They offer shopping cart solutions to help your company stream- line online
sales at very little cost. If you’re in a position where you need to evaluate
Online Shopping Cart Software programs for your company, you’re in for a big
challenge. There are literally tons of Online Shopping Cart Software vendors
online, so how do you decide which one is the best fit for your business? While
they can’t possibly offer you a perfect solution.
What to consider when evaluating Online Shopping Cart Software programs:
Hosting – Do you have to host your entire web site with the vendor of the Online
Shopping Cart Software? This isn’t really a plus or minus decision, but if you
decide to outsource, are you absolutely sure the hosting company has a reliable
and secure hosting environment for your business? For example, if you decided to
use Yahoo’s shopping cart solution, you can probably sleep soundly knowing
they’ll keep your site running 24/7. In cases where you are not as familiar with
the company running your store, make sure to do your research so you won’t end
up with an offline store.
Design Flexibility – Does the Online Shopping Cart Software have the flexibility
to integrate with the look and feel of the rest of your web site, or will you
have to sacrifice your store’s look to adjust to the restrictions of their
Online Shopping Cart Software? In some cases this might be to your advantage
because the shopping cart designers may have integrated a few cart design
principles you may have missed but this isn’t always the case. Provide a
template of your current site to the shopping cart vendor and ask them if they
can integrate that look into their program. If not, keep looking. Additionally,
if you’ve used a different shopping cart package in the past, finding a solution
that will enable a relatively simply transition with a database upload from your
current cart could save you many hours of work.
Shipping – This one can be challenging. Let’s assume you have some items in your
cart that don’t justify a shipping charge (memberships, gift certificates,
etc.). Additionally, you have other items that are ridiculously heavy to need
special shipping requirements. Can the Online Shopping Cart Software handle the
exceptions? Can the cart offer free shipping for specific items, or for orders
over a certain dollar amount?
Taxes – Do you need to tax people in the state you’re in? What if you’re selling
a combination of taxable and non-taxable? For example, you probably wouldn’t
need to charge a tax on a membership, and some states don’t charge taxes on
clothes. Does the Online Shopping Cart Software address with exception?
Search Engine Friendliness – this is a big one. Can search engines read the
whole site? Ideally, search engines like Google should index your whole shopping
cart, but not all shopping cart programs were designed with this critical
criteria in mind. If the major search engines can’t read your web site (or do
manage to read it but it’s not fully optimized for search engines) you’ll likely
miss out on a large percentage of your potential search traffic.
Reporting – What kind of data should an Online Shopping Cart Software provide?
Sales figures? Traffic info? Biggest selling products? There is a ton of data
generated by a shopping cart but and the best shopping carts do a great job
presenting that information in an actionable format.
Back end functionality – How easy is it to add new products or product
categories? Can you turn items off if they’re out of stock? Can the cart ever be
tied to an inventory system? How about loading images? Is this a chore or a
simple task? Do you need to upload separate images for thumbnails and a zoom
view? If it looks like it’s going to be a chore to maintain your shopping cart
over time, move on.
Cross selling – Can you cross sell by listing related items for sale within the
cart? How about offering some batteries for that new stereo? Cross selling is a
great way to fill shopping carts but few programs offer this feature.
Merchant Account Flexibility – Unless you’re starting an entirely new business
online you probably already have a merchant account you can use to process
credit card payments. Will you be able to use this with the shopping cart
software you’re evaluating? If you have to use the merchant account affiliated
with the shopping cart program you’re evaluating, are the acceptable? How do
they handle charge-backs? Do they accept all of the cards your offline account
accepts? Also, how usable is the cart’s merchant program for your customers?
Does it require registration with a 3rd party program to make a purchase like
paypal.com? If anything about the merchant program could have a negative effect
on your site’s close rate, be careful.
Feature additions – Once you launch your cart, you’ll probably start thinking
about features that could increase your sales. Does the cart you’re evaluating
offer the flexibility to handle additional features? Can the cart have a gift
registry so that users can save a wish list? Can the cart have promotional
codes, so that referred users can receive a discount? Does the cart offer an
affiliate program? Does the cart offer a wholesale login?
In conclusion, there are many questions to ask when choosing a shopping cart
technology especially in Online Shopping Cart Software. We hope the questions
above will set you on the right track when evaluating shopping cart software
solutions for your business. Clearly every business has its own requirements to
consider when evaluating shopping cart software solutions so we hope the
question above will put you on the right track when evaluating an appropriate
solution for your own business.
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If you're serious about setting up an
online shopping cart, you've come to the right place. You're going to find
all the tools you need to set up a successful shopping cart and online
selling experience.
Check out the
online shopping cart at eCOMpal.com
eCOMpal.com
A service of Litening Software
2495 S. Kihei Road Suite 260 Kihei, Maui, HI 96753
800-211-4931
support@ecompal.com
copyright ©2004-2006 Litening Software
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