What to Look For in Ecommerce Shopping Cart Services
Shopping cart software is much like an operating system that can be used to allow people to purchase your items by selecting them from your menu for purchase, keeping track of your accounts, and tying together all of the aspects of your eCommerce site into one cohesive whole. It can be very simple, as in allowing for the purchase of just one item; or very complicated, allowing for the purchase of several items, each by size, color, or similar criteria.
Regardless of whether you're a big time eStore or a start-up, we'd be happy to refer you to some excellent Shopping Cart providers. Give us a call or send us an email today and we'll help you find the right solution for your business!
A shopping cart is one of the five necessary components of an ecommerce enabled website along with:
- An Internet Merchant account in order to accept credit card payment processing on your website
- Web Hosting and Website Development
- A Digital Certificate
- A Secure Internet Gateway Provider
- And last but not least, an ecommerce shopping cart
Make sure the shopping cart services you select are (SSL) Secure Socket Layer Certified. SSL is used to encrypt and protect data on an order from an online merchant's website. Once the order has reached its destination, the encrypted data is decoded. Merchant account providers will require your shopping card service to be SSL certified before approving your merchant account application.
Other important and desirable attributes of a good Shopping Cart system are:
- Automatic site map generation -- good for visitors AND search engines alike
- Customer order management including the ability to email customers and shipment tracking capability
- Cross selling of similar products capability
- Special features such as VIP Clubs, quantity discounts, gift cards, etc.
- Inventory tracking capability to avoid out-of-stock problems
- The ability to list detailed product features
- An affiliate module
- Easy editing of orders to correct customer ordering errors
- Easy order search capability by phone number, zip code, etc.
- A customer note section
- Statistical reporting capability, including sales reports, product breakdowns, shipping reports, affiliate sales, most popular sales and most popular customers reports, etc.
Regardless of whether you're a big time eStore or a start-up, we'd be happy to refer you to some excellent Shopping Cart providers. Give us a call or send us an email today and we'll help you find the right solution for your business!
