What To Look For In Your E-Commerce Shopping Cart
Are you looking to start your own online store? Virtually all new websites need some sort of ecommerce built-in for the purpose of selling goods and services in the online marketplace. If you are new to the world of online shopping cart systems this information will help you make the right decisions to launch you very own online store.
The first and greatest challenge is to find the right ecommerce solution for your business. This task can be very overwhelming, for example, if you type ‘online shopping cart’ into Google this search alone returns over 55.4 million results! Most of us simply don’t have the time to sort through more than a few pages of a search engine to find what we need.
For the last 3 months, I have devoted much of my time to researching as much shopping cart technology as I could find. Generally speaking, shopping cart software ranges in price anywhere from free to over $2000 for a single license and hosted carts range from $5 to hundreds of dollars per month. The studied carts cover the spectrum of all web programming languages (PHP,ASP, ASP.NET, Cold Fusion, Flash, Java, JavaScript & Perl shopping carts) and provide limitless features as a whole. The problem is locating the correct cart for you and your business with specific requirements can be a big task. Follow the 10 guidelines below and you’ll be on your way in no time at all:
The Top 10 Steps to Finding the Best Online Shopping Cart
Cost
This is the no.1 question on everyone’s mind. How much money do you have to spend on an online shopping cart? It’s great to have so many solutions to choose from, but of course this also makes the decision making process more difficult.
The nice advantage is that there are shopping carts available with many features and they are completely free. They are generally open source software. Keep in mind that just because they are free, does not mean they are any less functional than expensive hosted or ‘off the shelf’ 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.
The cost part of the decision is also very related to the Hosting Vs. Software section (next) as these two questions are important to forming the basis of your online store.
Be clear from the outset, are you willing to pay a monthly fee (anywhere from $10-$100’s per month)? Should you choose an open source shopping cart which will be easier on your pocket, but will take a investment of your time to learn the system.
Hosting vs. Software
The next item on your agenda should be which route to take with the all-important software that will be the core of your store/business. There are two options in selecting your overall shopping cart solution. Either you download the shopping cart software, install it on your web server, then configure the shopping cart OR you get an online storefront (also known as a hosted shopping cart) where the configuration is very basic and the required setup time is minimal. The most important points of each are outlined below:
Open Source
• Free to download and install to your web host
• Require a merchant system to load products and take credit card payments
• Costs are domain registration, merchants and web hosting
• Thousands of templates to choose from (many of them free)
Open source products are very well supported by the users themselves via online forums, it all depends on how much you are willing to pay to launch your online store. As mentioned above in the Cost section, you either invest money to save your time, or you invest time to save money.
Hosted
• Easy configuration and setup with wizards to help you get started
• Include merchants to load site with products
• Include payment gateway to accept credit cards
• Many templates to choose from
• Costs are monthly/yearly at anywhere between $25-$300 per month, not required, but recommended to buy your own domain
Keep in mind that once you take this route, you are generally ‘locked in’ to this monthly fee, and changing systems from one hosted solution to another, or hosted solution to an open source solution is by all means possible, but will not be simple!
In summary, if you are a DIY kind of person with limited startup funds then an open source solution would be for you. However if you can support it financially, a hosted solution with everything built in would be for you.
Supported Payment Gateways
What are payment 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. When choosing a payment gateway provider, make sure that its supported by the cart system you select. I have found that almost all carts support the larger online payment processing companies, such as Authorize.net, PayPal and VeriSign, but as always double check before choosing.
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. Many shopping cart systems give the customer 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 products as well (ebooks, files, programs, pictures, music and others).
Technical Support
What kind of technical support does your business require? If you choose to purchase a script, be sure to also subscribe to the shopping cart vendor’s newsletter/forum/email list, 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-problem 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.
Many open source products earn revenue from their free shopping carts by providing support and consultancy, so you always have this option. However you will find that with each open source cart, there is always a user forum packed with free information and of course if you can’t seem to find the problem you can always place a message on the forum with your question.
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 consumer information (credit card and bank account information) that is processed through your online 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
If you wish to add a store to your existing site can you customize your shopping cart to look like your website? There needs to be a seamless transition between your website and your shopping storefront or your customers could become hesitant in purchasing your products if your storefront looks very different to your main website. There should be similar colors and style layout to look professional and credible.
If you are starting your store from scratch, can the shopping cart software be made to look anyway you wish? Be sure your system at least allows for templates which you can download (many carts have user-created templates you can download for free). Never forget that your site should not look like every other store out there, you need to be able to customize your store and create your ‘brand’ look and feel to the site.
Error Free
I hear you ask: “You mean shopping carts can have errors?” As with any software whether web-based or on your computer, there are always bugs. Don’t be scared by this, the important question you must ask is are these bugs actually going to affect me? Do they affect the security of my store?
The easiest way is to use Google to search “<name-of-shopping-cart-software> bugs” or “<name-of-shopping-cart-software> security”. Also many of the cart companies have their own forums so be sure to read as much as you can regarding security and errors which users are talking about and see which one fairs best. Also generally the longer the company has been around, the more stable their software is. Any shopping cart errors could cost you thousands of dollars in sales, and many frustrated shoppers. Spend your time wisely and ensure you get a stable and secure cart.
Extra Features
I just wanted to mention some of the other features that I have discovered, which might be a critical point in determining the shopping cart you want.
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 international tax options at checkout.
World Languages & Currencies – Shopping cart language translation and support for world currency might be a necessary feature for your cart. Think about your target market and whether you want to ‘go global’ or not. You can always start locally, within your country. then take your site world wide later.
To Sum Up
Take each of the above steps slowly and your store will have an excellent grounding based on quality decisions. This is important as the decisions you make now are ones that could affect your online store for years to come! Read a review of our favorite three ecommerce shopping carts.