What to Look For In a Shopping Cart Provider

Shopping cart providers offer a variety of services, and finding the right one may seem like a daunting task. You may already know what to look for in many areas of a shopping cart, and most providers offer the same basic plan and features. But if you are in the market for a shopping cart provider there are a few additional key elements that you may not already know to look for.

A shopping cart provider should offer an easy to use software program. This may seem like a no-brainer. But you also need to make sure a program has the ability to upload information you already have entered in your computer. The program should also allow you to build a variety of levels into your store to help you categorize your products. 

Another aspect of a shopping cart program is that you should be able to quickly and easily change the prices of individual merchandise. This allows you to offer monthly or weekly sales without having to jump through hoops to do it. 

To make sure you are comfortable with the shopping cart software and all of its features, look for a shopping cart provider who offers a free demo of their program. If they are confident in their product and service, they should be willing to at least let you try out the software before making a commitment. 

Your shopping cart provider should offer built in tax and shipping calculators. It’s important that these are available so your customer is aware of all fees up front. These tax and shipping calculations should be automatically updated so there is no need for you to keep track of changes in tax and shipping rates. Also provided with these services should be a currency calculator to make conversions easy for your international customers.

Another feature of your shopping cart provider is that it should be able to handle a variety of payment forms. These should include check, money order, credit card, and any other forms of payment you wish to have available to your customers. Many providers will handle the credit card processing for you, and some will even allow the customer to pay using PayPal.

An important aspect of your shopping cart provider is the level of security they offer you and your customer. Many secure sites used to use 40-bit encryption on their data passing, but nowadays it’s important to have at least 128-bit encryption. This translates as tighter security for your site and the customer’s transactions.

Another often overlooked yet very important feature that a shopping cart provider should offer you is to backup your shopping cart and information at least daily. In the unlikely event of a systems crash, you need to have confidence that your provider can get you back up and running while losing as little information as possible. Just like an insurance policy, many people don’t give much thought to this until it’s too late.

These are just a few of the additional features a shopping cart provider should offer. To get the best feel for your specific needs, research specific companies and see what they have to offer.