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Digg it UP - Choosing the Right Online Shopping Cart
Discover the Power of Private Label BooksThese days it seems that just about everyone is looking for a way to make a fortune on the internet, and it is true that the World Wide Web certainly does offer a great deal of opportunity for the smart entrepreneur. One of the problems, however, is finding a product that is in great demand, profitable and easy to find. This combination is of course difficult to attain, but for many smart business people private label books have turned out to be just the thing.It is certainly no secret that books have been hot online sellers since the earliest days of the internet, and in fact several of the most successful internet businesses in history have gotten their start selling books and other information products. Books and related materials still make up a large part of the world of internet business, and the good news is that average people can still get in on th
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
You mean shopping carts can have errors? Of course. A private UK-based web testing firm found the following, after studying a large group of UK online shopping carts for a period of one month (24/7):"The majority of UK web sites are guilty of leaving e-consumers stranded at the checkout empty handed, once they have already spent valuable time browsing and selecting goods to purchase. This is due to erratic functionality within shopping carts, at a critical step in the online purchasing process."
"E-consumers are prevented from making purchases on UK web sites for 9 hours and 30 minutes a month on average, (115 hours a year)." "80 per cent of web sites perform inconsistently with widely varying response times, timeouts and errors - leaving consumers at best wondering what to do next and at worst unable to complete their pu
Whether you are setting up a turnkey website, selling at online auctions or through a local established business, it helps to know which items are hot sellers. Statistically, some products are just more popular among consumers. Among them:Watches are terrific reseller items because they are popular gifts, as well as items that consumers will buy for themselves. Watches are timeless. They are classic and they are always the perfect gift. Everyone needs to know the correct time and can generally always use a new watch. Their meaning can be simple or very elegant depending on the relationship of the person to whom your customer is giving the gift. Pitch the idea like this. If you know someone who is always running late, include a fun card reading "It’s about time you wear a watch." If you’re giving the watch to a spouse, a card reading "Time flies when I’m with you" or "Our love is timeless" will do
The greatest challenge is to find the perfect ecommerce shopping cart solution for yourself and/or your client. This task can be very overwhelming, considering, if you type 'shopping cart' into Google.com, this search alone 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.
For the last 3 months, much of my time has been devoted to researching as much shopping cart technology as I could get my hands on. In general, shopping cart software ranges in price from free to over $2000 for a single license and web hosted carts range from $5 to hundreds of dollars per month. The studied carts cover the spectrum of all web programming languages (ASP, ASP.NET, Cold Fusion, Flash, Java, JavaScript & Perl shopping carts) and provide limitless features as a whole. The problem is that locating YOUR perfect cart with YOUR specific features can be a big task.
But no fear, just follow this guaranteed step-by-step guide to locate it:
The Top 10 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 vs. 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 (aka 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
What do I mean by 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
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 might get hesitant in purchasing your products. There should be similar colors and style layout to look professional and believable.
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.
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
You mean shopping carts can have errors? Of course. A private UK-based web testing firm found the following, after studying a large group of UK online shopping carts for a period of one month (24/7):"The majority of UK web sites are guilty of leaving e-consumers stranded at the checkout empty handed, once they have already spent valuable time browsing and selecting goods to purchase. This is due to erratic functionality within shopping carts, at a critical step in the online purchasing process."
"E-consumers are prevented from making purchases on UK web sites for 9 hours and 30 minutes a month on average, (115 hours a year)." "80 per cent of web sites perform inconsistently with widely varying response times, timeouts and errors - leaving consumers at best wondering what to do next and at worst unable to complete their pur
There are so many ways to jump start your prifits and keep your profit rolling. These top 20 ways are essential if you want to run a successful business. 1. Offer to write exclusive articles (that means you only submit them to one place) for high traffic web sites in exchange for a link back to your site. 2. Create a positive online image. Tell your visitors about fundraisers you have sponsored or that you donate a part of your profits to charity. 3. Improve your customer service on a regular basis. Try out new technologies that make it easier to communicate with your customers over the net. 4. Ask your customers what they would like to see offered by your business in the future. This type of information can boost your sales. 5. Make sure your web host isn't losing your sales. If you get an e-mail from someone that told you that they couldn't access your site, it might
But no fear, just follow this guaranteed step-by-step guide to locate it:
The Top 10 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 vs. 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 (aka 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
What do I mean by 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
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 might get hesitant in purchasing your products. There should be similar colors and style layout to look professional and believable.
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.
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
You mean shopping carts can have errors? Of course. A private UK-based web testing firm found the following, after studying a large group of UK online shopping carts for a period of one month (24/7):"The majority of UK web sites are guilty of leaving e-consumers stranded at the checkout empty handed, once they have already spent valuable time browsing and selecting goods to purchase. This is due to erratic functionality within shopping carts, at a critical step in the online purchasing process."
"E-consumers are prevented from making purchases on UK web sites for 9 hours and 30 minutes a month on average, (115 hours a year)." "80 per cent of web sites perform inconsistently with widely varying response times, timeouts and errors - leaving consumers at best wondering what to do next and at worst unable to complete their pu
IntroductionInfluence is intangible. You cannot see it at work, yet it is all pervasive in any corporate organisation and Public Sector organisations are no different. In any sales situation, if we can identify who the politically influential people actually are, we can tailor our proposals to meet their needs as well as the needs of their organisations’. This can markedly increase our chances of winning the sale, particularly in a very competitive sales situation.In our analysis we identify the politically powerful people as the “Influencers”. The routes to them we term the “Conduits”, who are people we can use to pass messages when we cannot get access to the Influencers directly.The STRANDSThe “STRANDS” of Influence is a tool which can help in identifying who are the really influential people in any organisation. If we can test the way people respond in any situation an
Supported Gateways
What do I mean by 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
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 might get hesitant in purchasing your products. There should be similar colors and style layout to look professional and believable.
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.
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
You mean shopping carts can have errors? Of course. A private UK-based web testing firm found the following, after studying a large group of UK online shopping carts for a period of one month (24/7):"The majority of UK web sites are guilty of leaving e-consumers stranded at the checkout empty handed, once they have already spent valuable time browsing and selecting goods to purchase. This is due to erratic functionality within shopping carts, at a critical step in the online purchasing process."
"E-consumers are prevented from making purchases on UK web sites for 9 hours and 30 minutes a month on average, (115 hours a year)." "80 per cent of web sites perform inconsistently with widely varying response times, timeouts and errors - leaving consumers at best wondering what to do next and at worst unable to complete their pu
Two things you can do to get paid on time by your customersThere is nothing more frustrating to a business owner than delivering quality products and services on time, only to have to deal with a customer that pays late. Slow and late paying clients can drain your resources and be a major source of frustration. Many slow paying customers seem to require multiple collection calls, reminders and cajoling in order to finally pay. At their worst, slow paying customers can create significant problems, especially if cash flow is tight.When cash is tight, many owners tend to go into “collections” mode. They will try every conceivable way to get late paying customers to pony up. This is an understandable knee jerk reaction to a tough problem. Unfortunately, it seldom works. Late customers will keep paying late. And good paying customers will get upset by the collections tactics. This ends up being a
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
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 might get hesitant in purchasing your products. There should be similar colors and style layout to look professional and believable.
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.
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
You mean shopping carts can have errors? Of course. A private UK-based web testing firm found the following, after studying a large group of UK online shopping carts for a period of one month (24/7):"The majority of UK web sites are guilty of leaving e-consumers stranded at the checkout empty handed, once they have already spent valuable time browsing and selecting goods to purchase. This is due to erratic functionality within shopping carts, at a critical step in the online purchasing process."
"E-consumers are prevented from making purchases on UK web sites for 9 hours and 30 minutes a month on average, (115 hours a year)." "80 per cent of web sites perform inconsistently with widely varying response times, timeouts and errors - leaving consumers at best wondering what to do next and at worst unable to complete their pu
Statistics show that a large portion of the world's population owns and runs a small business. This fact is not surprising. After all, having your own business means that you can work any time you want, make your own decisions, be your own boss and be exempt from the usual bureaucratic rules that govern larger business establishments. You need not report to anyone but yourself. These are but a few of the more compelling reasons why most people take the plunge when it comes to operating a company of their own.However, hard days will come for any company, whatever the size. During these times, there is always a threat that your small business will not be able to stay afloat. This is why owners of small businesses turn to business administration grants for security.Small business administration grants are provided for small businesses that are already in operation. However, there are also some companies
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
You mean shopping carts can have errors? Of course. A private UK-based web testing firm found the following, after studying a large group of UK online shopping carts for a period of one month (24/7):"The majority of UK web sites are guilty of leaving e-consumers stranded at the checkout empty handed, once they have already spent valuable time browsing and selecting goods to purchase. This is due to erratic functionality within shopping carts, at a critical step in the online purchasing process."
"E-consumers are prevented from making purchases on UK web sites for 9 hours and 30 minutes a month on average, (115 hours a year)." "80 per cent of web sites perform inconsistently with widely varying response times, timeouts and errors - leaving consumers at best wondering what to do next and at worst unable to complete their purchase successfully. This is potentially costing e-retailers millions in lost sales from consumer frustrations." (http://www.scivisum.co.uk/report/ecommerce/)
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.
Shopping Cart Directory
The following is a link containing a directory of shopping carts that are categorized according to each of the above-stated steps. Make shopping for shopping carts a breeze!
Shopping Cart Directory
If you have any questions or comments about this article, please contact the author.
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