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Shopping Cart Information For Website Owners

By Randy Roedl on January 20, 2012 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, article directory, article plugin, article themes, Blog Business, Blog Platform, Blog Posting, blogging, Blogs, Conversion, Domains, Free Reports, Google Adsense, Membership sites, Mobil Blogging, New Blogging, SEO, Themes, Traffic, Web Design, Websites, widgets, wordpress, World Internet Summit, Wp Headers, Wp Themes, Youtube Video

Shopping Cart Information For Website Owners

Do you own a Website and are considering a shopping cart? Would you like to know all there is to know about shopping carts? Keep reading to find out some very useful information that will help you decide if you need a shopping cart and what shopping cart features would fit your Website. A shopping cart that is used on a Website is actually a series of scripts that keep track of the items your cyber customer is interested in purchasing until they are ready to checkout.

The shopping cart itself does not handle any of the financial transaction, but really just holds the items that the customer has selected for purchase until they are ready to actually make the purchase. The information about the items they have selected is then passed on to a secure connection or payment gateway, which is a separate service from the shopping cart. The payment gateway service then takes over by handling the requested purchases thought the financial networks whether you have a merchant account to handle credit card transactions or you use PayPal or some other software payment management system.

When deciding on what shopping cart is right for your business (Website) you will run into a lot of shopping cart applications. Two of the basic types of choices you will run into when it comes to shopping cart applications is the free shopping cart versus the premium shopping cart.

Before you start looking at shopping cart applications you should make a list of what you want your shopping cart to do. You should also know what your budget is for your shopping cart. When deciding about shopping cart features you should consider your current needs and your future needs. You should have room to grow in your choice of shopping carts. If your shopping cart won’t grow with your business then you will find yourself making a change in shopping carts down the road and that change will cost you time; time that is precious to your business. Free shopping cart options:

You can find some really good deals when it comes to free ecommerce solutions such as the basic shopping cart that PayPal offers. The basic PayPal shopping cart can integrate with many of the payment gateways and merchant accounts and PayPal are accepted all around the world. There are no monthly fees with PayPal and you receive free fraud protection and you will not have to worry about charge back fees.

PayPal offers Website owner’s easy to use tools that make implementing the PayPal shopping cart a snap. Other free shopping cart software includes Zen Cart™, 1FreeCart, and AgoraCart. There are many different premium shopping cart software out there including but not limited to Shop-Script, Mercantec Softcart, 1ShoppingCart Pro, and X Cart Pro. Choosing a premium shopping cart software can help your business because many of the premium shopping cart programs allow you to accept checks, COD, and other methods of possessing payments; which gives your customers payment options. Some premium shopping cart programs will include wizards that help you to build your web page even if you don’t know HTML. They may even come with templates and other tools that will help you to set up your online store.

Really good shopping cart software will even help you to keep track of your inventory and generate reports for you. A good shopping cart will also include a shipping tool that will calculate shipping costs based on parameters that you set and may even link to common shipping methods such as FedEx. Another valuable tool that shopping carts have is that they can calculate tax. Some premium carts will even let customers view previous purchases, which comes in handy for those repeat orders. A premium cart can even help with affiliate programs, coupons, gift certificates and other incentives that help to generate sales. Many premium shopping cart programs offer protection by encrypting information, and by processing credit cards through reputable processing services or by allowing customers to use the program without having to download cookies.

Shopping Cart Hosting Advantages and Disadvantages

By Randy Roedl on March 22, 2011 in !Randy Roedl Internet Marketing, affiliate marketing, article directory, article plugin, article themes, Blog Business, Blog Platform, Blog Posting, blogging, Blogs, Conversion, Domains, Free Reports, Google Adsense, Membership sites, Mobil Blogging, New Blogging, SEO, Themes, Traffic, Web Design, Websites, widgets, wordpress, World Internet Summit, Wp Headers, Wp Themes, Youtube Video

Shopping Cart Hosting Advantages and Disadvantages

There are many factors to take into consideration when you are deciding on what shopping cart software to use including the hosting. There are advantages and disadvantages to shopping cart hosting that you should carefully explore before deciding on a shopping cart software program. Generally there are local hosting and remote hosting options when it comes to hosting your shopping cart.

The advantages of remote hosting:

There are usually many features involved when you use remote hosting for your shopping cart including fast implementation, secure connection, monitoring of service just to name a few. Typically all of these features are a part of the hosting service. You will save on bandwidth charges because your shopping cart is hosted on another server especially if you sell soft products such as software.

Most remote shopping carts are actually total marketing solutions that contain affiliate programs and the ability to send sequential pre-defined messages out to your customers and leads. Most remote hosting will also include gateway services and an Internet Merchant account. Most remote hosting services charge a monthly fee for their features so choose carefully and look at many remote-hosting companies before you settle on one.

The disadvantages of remote hosting:

You may run into this disadvantage especially if you go with a small, unknown company or a one-man operation and that is a situation where the hosting company goes belly up overnight and leaves you high and dry?

You normally have less control over the various cart pages and how they display. Make sure that you are with a reputable remote hosting company as some are known to harvest your client databases in order to Spam them.

A very popular remotely hosted shopping cart service is 1ShoppingCart.com it’s motto is that it is your total ecommerce solution. The rates at this company start at just $19 a month. It is easy to configure and use and new features are constantly being added at no extra cost. 1ShoppingCart is a secure shopping cart system, which means you don’t need SSL for your Website. This remote hosting is set up for both physical goods and soft goods. It has a delivery system for digital goods that is secure and minimizes unauthorized downloading. It has an up sell module, and the ability to use gift coupons and also has a discount module. It also supports most payment gateways, unlimited client database and unlimited autoresponders. There is an affiliate programs tracking and management capability as well as ad/revenue tracking so that you can determine the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns.

The advantages of Local hosting:

With local hosting of your shopping cart you have total control over the software and incur no ongoing fees.

The disadvantages of local hosting is that you will probably spend more time installing, configuration and maintaining the shopping cart. You will incur greater initial outlay; will require a secure sockets layer (SSL), which can be costly.

A locally hosted shopping cart is hosted on your own server and is typically a one-time purchase.

If you run into difficulties installing or customizing, most shopping cart companies will help you for an extra fee.

A popular locally hosted shopping cart is Interspire shopping cart. This local hosting cart handles digital products and physical products, and has multiple inventory tracking options. No coding knowledge is needed as you can drag and drop design mode options. It has a full-featured couponing system and comes with free software installation and 12 months of phone, and email technical support. Any future updates are included in the initial price and there is a full 60-day refund guarantee.

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