How to Choose an Online Shopping Cart

Web Hosting Provider Explains Shopping Cart Tips

A good shopping cart is essential to the function of an e-commerce site - let your web hosting provider explain. Between free shopping carts, commercial shopping carts, and custom shopping cart solutions, how do you identify the best online shopping cart for your website?

Start with your web host

Chances are that your web host offers one or more shopping cart scripts. Those scripts will work on the server that your site is on, they'll probably be easy to install, and your web host will be able to provide help with them.

Evaluate your needs

Make a list of features that you require for your shopping cart, for example, advanced product search, search-engine-friendly URLs, ease of installation, or multiple tax support. Include website-specific requirements, such as supported programming languages. Separate what's essential for you from what's simply desirable, and eliminate any shopping carts from your list that don't have those must-have features.

Not sure of what you need? Look at your competitors' shopping carts. After all, they're what your potential customers see if they're shopping around. What features do your competitors' shopping carts have that aid in product presentation and streamline the ordering process? What shopping cart features do you not like?

For a small e-commerce site, you don't need every available shopping cart feature. A full-featured, commercial shopping cart is probably a waste of time and money for an e-commerce site that sells only a few products. It will take longer to install and customize, and unused features can get in the way. On the other hand, a free shopping cart may not be robust enough for an e-commerce site with hundreds of products and inventory in different locations. Money spent on installing and customizing a commercial shopping cart will reap more rewards for a large e-commerce site.

Evaluate your customers' needs

While you're checking out your competitors' shopping carts, think about the shopping cart features that your customers would and wouldn't like. Does the shopping cart software make it easy for customers to add or remove items at any time? Can customers view the shipping and handling costs for items in the cart? Does the shopping cart allow multiple shipping options and payment in multiple currencies? If customers have to work harder to place orders at your site and have fewer options when they do, you aren't going to look as good as the competition.

If you already have a shopping cart and are looking for a new one, consider the reasons for shopping cart abandonment. If any of those reasons are connected to the shopping cart, such as requiring customers to fill in too much information, be sure that the next shopping cart will allow you to fix those problems.

Evaluate shopping cart reviews

User reviews are useful as long as you know that they're genuine and the reviewers' criteria are similar to yours. Searches for shopping cart reviews or [shopping cart name] reviews produce links to online reviews. Note whether what the reviewers like or dislike is relevant to your needs and how many reviewers mention the same points.

Evaluate the shopping carts

When you've made a shortlist and are visiting shopping cart websites, head first to the list of system requirements. If those requirements don't fit with what your web host offers, it's time to move to the next shopping cart website.

Try out demos at the shopping cart websites both via the storefront (what site visitors see) and via the admin control panel. Set up one of your products to view how it could be ordered using the shopping cart. Play with the other configuration settings as well. (Demos are meant to be played with.)

So far, so good? Keep going. Look for a list of sites that use that shopping cart, and observe how well the shopping cart integrates with those sites.

Evaluate the shopping cart support

Availability and quality of support count, especially if you're looking at commercial shopping carts. Is the user guide easy to follow? Can you get tech support when you need it? If there's a forum where you can ask other users of that shopping cart for help, look at how the questions are answered. Even the best shopping cart isn't of much use unless you can get help with it when you need help.

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• Customer Retention: How to Keep Customers

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