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There Are Many Shopping Cart Types Merchants Can Choose From

By on May 3, 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

There Are Many Shopping Cart Types Merchants Can Choose From

There are several different types of shopping cart options for online business owners to choose from including merchant service shopping carts, hosted shopping carts, and fully integrated shopping carts.

Merchant service shopping carts can be managed through your administration area. They provide an interface to manage product catalogue, define your prices and to change the prices. You can use “Buy” links or buttons located near the product descriptions. These links and buttons when clicked on by the customer bring the customer to the merchant’s site where they enter the personal data and credit card number to complete their transaction. This financial information is obtained off your site thus allowing you to abstain from having to have a secure site. The fact that the customer is directed away from your site may make your customer uneasy. The redirect tells your customer that you are a small business, and they may not like being taken to another site where they may not be familiar with the company that will be solicitation their credit card number.

A hosted shopping car generally needs little or no programming and allows your customer to stay on your site for the financial part of the purchase experience. Hosted shopping carts are a good deal for both the small and medium sized online businesses that do at least $1,000 USD worth of business each month. The fact is that the customer will still be redirected to the hosting site but with interfaces being able to be configured to look just like your site they probably won’t know that they are being redirected. You keep your integrity and look just like the “big corporate guys” but with out the cost of being one. Some programming may be necessary to be able to set up the hosted shopping cart and you want the ability to keep your color scheme to stay the same as your website. In the hosted shopping cart you are able to use your payment gateway and merchant account so that the customer’s credit card statement will contain your company’s name, and not the name of the merchant service. The ability to have your company’s name on the statement is that it avoids charge backs that occur when the customer sees a different name from the one they are expecting.

The fully integrated shopping carts are the best choice for online business owners who can afford them. They have the ability to configure them with extended features that are not possible with the other two options such as allowing for discounts, certificates, ratings and comments from visitors, and the ability to define product categories and subcategories, to calculate shipping costs, and tax. Fully integrated shopping carts do require some good programming skills and can also be used with your own merchant account.

The shopping cart that you choose to use on your Website will help to determine how professional you appear to your customers. The more professional your site appears the more customers will be drawn to your site. The more customers you have, the more sales you will generate. Research all your shopping cart options carefully before deciding.

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How Do You Go About Comparing Shopping Cart Software

By on March 28, 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

How Do You Go About Comparing Shopping Cart Software?

Anyone who desires a successful Internet business understands the importance of a good shopping cart. There are so many shopping carts online now that it can be difficult to wade through all your choices to locate the one that will work best for you.

One way of knowing which shopping cart is best for you is to read shopping cart product reviews that you can find online and in IT magazines. Read about what others think of the shopping carts, make note of the features discussed and compare what is offered to what you need.

Another way to find what is the best shopping cart software for your business is to do some comparison-shopping yourself using a list of what you need in a shopping cart and your budget.

When you have pared down the possible candidates to just a few, then it is time to look at live stores that use each of the candidates shopping cart programs. Notice how easy or not it is to navigate, search for products, add to or delete products from the shopping cart and the features available for the customer. Look to see if the shopping cart software companies offer a customer service and give them a try to see how they respond to you.

When you are paring down your list of possible shopping cart candidates do it by comparing price, feature, and by reading the reviews of each shopping cart. Look for the shopping carts that seem to be up to date on the latest technology, are easily integrated with payment processors and your Website. Make sure you discard the shopping carts that are older or have lower quality.

When investigating live stores that use the various shopping carts that you have pared down your candidates to you want to get a feel for how the shopping carts work when in use. Typically the shopping cart companies will provide a list of several online stores that use their shopping cart. Some of the things you will be looking for are how well the shopping cart blends in with the Website and does each store look different from the others? Actually use the shopping carts on these stores to see how the carts perform.

When filtering out the candidates use a list of the top 3 things that you are looking for in a shopping cart and if a candidate does not have one of the top 3 than cross it off your list. Make a list of the features that are important to you and which ones you cannot do without this will help to narrow down your list of candidates.

If you know you will be using electronic certificates that cross off any shopping carts that do not offer this feature.

Make sure you investigate how good each company’s customer service department is by sending them each an email asking some pre-sale questions and make notes about how fast they respond, if they respond with a canned reply or really give you individual attention.

Do the candidate shopping cart companies have technical support? Take a look at the FAQs and index of help topics to see how helpful they are and if they are easy to understand. Download the user guide and review it to see if it is understandable.

Read shopping cart review from respected sources to see what is recommended. See if you can find user reviews on each of the shopping carts that you have decided are the biggest contenders for your money.

Once you have your list narrowed down to just 3 or 5 shopping cart software companies than it is time to look at the total cost of using each shopping cart, and also look at what the strong points are for each of the remaining carts.

Look at price, features and support and make your best decision.

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How Do Shopping Carts Know How To Fulfill Orders and Manage to Integrate The Accounting Needs

By on February 25, 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

How Do Shopping Carts Know How To Fulfill Orders and Manage to Integrate The Accounting Needs It can sometimes be a difficult task matching accounting systems with your order fulfillment system. There are many categories of products on a Website: those products that are pending, those that are in back-order status, those that are to be drop-shipped, and those that have shipped. An order management system must also be able to print up sales invoices, packing slips, address labels and inventory reports. Some management systems can actually interface directly with the main shippers such as FedEx, UPS and USPS. Your orders should be able to integrate directly into your accounting system if things are to work as smoothly as possible. If you are a small merchant you may be thinking at this point that there is no way your shopping cart can handle all of this, well, the truth is that there are several ways that small merchants can deal with the needs of order fulfillment and accounting integration. One way for small merchants to integrate order fulfillment with accounting is to select a shopping cart purposely because it has the order management features you want. You can also import orders into an order management system on your desktop such as StoneEdge Order Manager from Stone Edge Technologies, Inc. or Dydacomp’s Mail Order Manager, which has Ecommerce Integration. These order management systems can import orders from the following shopping carts: AmeriCart, Miva, ShopSite, Storefront, and Yahoo. You can also start with an accounting program such as QuickBooks and use it to track your order fulfillment. When using QuickBooks you may find value in using Fishbowl by Fishbowl Inventory. Fishbowl fits small to mid-sized companies and uses the QuickBooks platform for the accounting aspects and incorporates advanced inventory tracking that can handle multiple locations, manufacturing, credit card integration, UPS/FedEx integration and a complete wireless bar-coding for warehouse inventory as well as EDI, shopping cart and merchant services. How Do Shopping Carts Know How To Fulfill Orders and Manage to Integrate The Accounting Needs

BusinessFlow by MainStreet Commerce is complete order management and multi-channel sales software that integrates with ecommerce as well as eBay sales. Order management is linked to inventory control, payment processing, marketing and also to customer relationship management. No one likes it when an order gets messed up least of all the customer, so having a order management system that coordinates perfectly with your accounting system is vital to the success of your business. When making your shopping cart decision take the time to check out similar Websites to see how they’re shopping cart works. Don’t be afraid to ask questions of customer service before you buy the shopping cart. Know what your needs are regarding order fulfillment and accounting and make sure that what you buy fits the bill. Being able to track orders, know what is pending, what has been filled, what has shipped and what orders have been returned are all equally important. How Do Shopping Carts Know How To Fulfill Orders and Manage to Integrate The Accounting Needs.

 

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Shopping Cart Advanced Features

By on January 12, 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 Advanced Features

Advanced features is what sets apart the basic, simple shopping carts from those that offer merchants the chance to gather information from customers that can be used in marketing decisions, or allow merchants to gather and keep track of customer’s names and addresses to a shopping cart that has the ability to email the customer a purchase confirmation or notify past customers of a sale that is happening on the site. Advanced features can also help the customer to make buying decisions such as recommending product selection based on buyer preferences based on past order history.

A customer may be able to look at their past order history, check the status of recent orders or track a package that is in transit to them. Cookies on the shopping cart can identify a customer as a past customer and provide data on that customer that will enhance and improve the present shopping experience of that customer.

Advanced features may vary from one shopping cart to the next but some common advanced features include: Order management, which is the ability to view new orders, or to view past orders, to print invoices and packing slips for each order. Product Management, which is the ability to add and edit products quickly or to view statistics in the product database. Web Page Management, which is the creation and updating of the entire Website. Advanced shipping would include custom shipping methods or the ability to utilize real-time shipping calculation from major carriers such as USPS, UPS and FedEx.

Tracking of Inventory, which would include managing and updating items for sale, and pricing of items. Featured Items in which select items appear on a special section of the home page or all pages in areas that would be eye-catching to site viewers. Sales Reports that might include a printout of all sales in a given time period, and the ability to view and compare weekly, monthly or yearly sales comparisons, sales trends, and to evaluate these trends. Order Status is the ability to update the order and the shipping status available to the customer in the customer login area.

Multiple Currencies and exchange rates for all product categories. Customer Management, which would include the ability to find, updates, and view archived information on all customers. Email list management is the ability to email a customer after a purchase to confirm the purchase and to thank them for their business, or to email out notices of an impending sale or special discount, or to announce new products.

Ad tracking ability that can track all click-through advertising and resulting sales. Affiliate Manager to allow the Website owner to run an effective affiliate program to promote the site Wholesale Manager, which would allow the site owner to offer a wholesale membership option. Other advanced features include volume discounts, customer discounts, minimum purchase, promotional codes, coupons, and gift certificates, digital download manager, Bill Me Later capabilities, Traffic and Hit Counter, Ticket manager to care for problems with orders, a Will Call capability and an online manual and documentation to help get the shopping cart up and running.

 

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Frequently Asked Shopping Cart Questions By Website Owners

By on December 23, 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

Frequently Asked Shopping Cart Questions By Website Owners

When designing a web presence website owners will run up against many questions concerning their website shopping cart. Gaining answers to frequently asked questions about shopping carts could help head off problems and save time and money.

One of the basic questions asked about the shopping cart is how to use it? You should as a website owner guide your visitor to your shopping cart and have visible instructions both in text and in picture as to how to use the cart. There are several steps to using the cart including product selection, reviewing the cart’s contents, payment into, checking out, and order confirmation. Each step should include plain and simple instructions for your customer so as not to confuse them and cause them to leave your site without completing the purchase.

Customers will need to know how to remove and edit items as they change their mind about purchasing items. Adding a FAQ (frequently asked questions section) can be helpful in answering any questions about removing or editing items.

Having a shopping cart system that is capable of saving items in the cart for later completion aids the customer in making the purchase at a later date when interruptions happen. This can actually help save the sale. This usually requires a registration.

Shopping carts can also handle subscriptions, free trials and discount coupons.

When considering shopping carts software find answers to these questions before making your decision. A shopping cart is a very important part of your website function and should command your undivided attention.

Shopping carts should be visible without being distracting from your products. Your shopping cart should complement your website design, not be flashy, and be easy to navigate.

Make sure that you add order buttons to your site, and that you match your shopping cart to your site design.

Shopping carts should allow for multiple items in your cart and to allow the buyer to change the quantity if necessary. The buyer should have the ability to delete an item if necessary or to save the contents of the cart for later.

The shopping cart you chose for your website is an important decision make sure that all of your shopping cart questions are answered to your satisfaction so that when purchasing from you your website visitors will be able to do so without having any questions of their own because you will have thought to insure a successful buying experience by selecting the proper shopping cart for your website.

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Offering Certificates Coupons Discounts and Sales Through Your Shopping Cart

By on December 3, 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

Offering Certificates, Coupons, Discounts and Sales Through Your Shopping Cart

Driving sales to your Website through use of promotions such as sales, discounts, coupons and certificates is what make for a successful online store. Your shopping cart can help you to drive sales if it has the right features.

Some shopping carts that have more of a storefront system contain many of the advanced features that are useful for driving traffic to the store and we all know that traffic equates to sales. Most any basic shopping cart will allow you to change prices when you want to have a sale but you usually have to do it manually, one at a time. Then, after the sale you have to change them all back again. Some shopping cart systems allow owners to set up pre-set timed sales, where the program sets the beginning time of the sale and the ending time automatically.

Another useful promotion feature of some store-front shopping carts is the ability to feature an item or items on the homepage of the store so that it can be prominently seen by customers as the enter your store. Some even have the capability of placing sale products or new products on the front page to drive sales that way.

Shopping cart software that has the capability to email customers can be set up to email customers about coupons offers or discounts. Not all shopping carts can do this and when they can what they can offer may differ such as some being able to offer a percentage or a dollar amount coupon, and others can offer either specific product coupons versus all-store coupons. Some times you can program the shopping cart to kick-in a discount when the dollar amount of the purchase reaches a certain dollar amount.

Another useful feature is when the software has the capability to offer free shipping when orders reach over $50.00. This type of offer really helps to boost sales.

Customer pricing is another type of discount that kicks in when the customer logs into the Website. The private login password identifies the customer and the customer’s assigned percentage of discount that appears on the order form at checkout.

Just as offline brick and mortar stores offer sales, discounts, certificates and coupons to entice customers into the store. The ability of shopping carts to send out emails enticing customers to visit an online store is crucial for driving sales. An online store is dead without a constant flow of interested buyers. Sales, discounts, certificates and coupons are promotional tactics that a shopping cart can be programmed to handle saving a storeowner time and money. When making a shopping cart decision don’t ignore the power of advanced features to generate greater sales, features such as the ones discussed in this article.

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