Tag Archives | Shopping Software

How Do You Go About Comparing Shopping Cart Software

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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Shopsite Pro Has A Shopping Cart Solution Worth Investigating

Shopsite Pro Has A Shopping Cart Solution Worth Investigating If you are looking for shopping cart software you should definitely check out Shopsite Pro. Shopsite Pro has many useful features that any Website Owner will be thrilled to have. The navigation is very easy. You more than likely won’t find more complete shopping cart software on the web. You won’t be required to know HTML in order to build your shopping cart as Shopsite Pro gives you the ability to completely customize your site easily, in fact a complete newbie could complete the task and have the shopping cart work. There are so many great features with this shopping cart software including the power edit that allows you to edit many products at once because you first choose what options you wish to edit and can then edit these options in a wide variety of products. You can have real-time credit card authorization, search engine for your Website, sales and traffic statistics, and shipping and tax utilities to help you run your business. You will find a hard time locating an easier to use shopping cart than Shopsite Pro. If you want point and click for your shopping cart, you’ve found it. Shopsite is easy to setup and you won’t need to download or install anything because ShopSite is a server-based software. All you need to set it up is a web browser. If you are a small or medium-sized business, you will get a lot out of using this shopping cart. You will receive lots of tools to help with site creation and management, as well as sales and traffic statistics, and you will be able to offer your customers secure encrypted transactions. You also won’t find a better help platform than the one at ShopSite Pro. You will find screen references that can answer specific questions that pertain to the page you are on, and a section for FAQs, as well as a getting started section, search features, how-to sections, and also an index of help options so that you can find what you need help with fast. You can pay for Shopsite Pro on a monthly basis making it affordable to just about anyone. If you are not looking for all of the features that ShopSite Pro has then you are in luck because they have two other versions that you can choose from – Shopsite Starter and ShopSite Manager. If you are a Website owner and looking to present a professional Website to your customers you really need to have a shopping cart software that will please your customers and give you the features that you need to run your business online the successful way. Any ecommerce site needs to have a shopping cart whether they are selling physical products or soft products like software. If you are in the market for an easy to use shopping cart with loads of useable features check out Shopsite Pro.

 

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Frequently Asked Shopping Cart Questions By Website Owners

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

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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The Indispensable Shopping Cart

The Indispensable Shopping Cart

Shopping carts are a necessity for those Website owners who wish to sell physical or digital goods and also those who sell services. Customers have come to expect that a serious ecommerce site will have a shopping cart and will exit a site it if doesn’t. A shopping cart has become an indispensable part of doing business online.

A customer can place items into a virtual shopping cart and continue browsing the site to locate other items of interest. The customer can usually look at the top of the screen and see a running total of how many items they have placed in the cart and can usually also tell a running total of dollars spent so far. While navigating the online shopping cart a customer is able to add to the cart, delete items from the cart, change quantities of the items that are in the cart and make option choices such as color and size from the cart. Shopping carts will even do the math for the customer regarding totaling the retail amount of the order, adding any necessary tax and also adding the shipping fee to the order. Most shopping carts will even email the customer after they have made a purchase and thank them for shopping at the particular Website and will confirm the order that they just placed. The fact that a shopping carts software can be programmed to do this means that the customer will feel secure in the purchase.

Because most ecommerce sites have shopping carts, if your site lacks one you will look unprofessional to a customer visiting your site. The last thing you want to do is drive away potential customers because you did not think to provide a shopping cart.

A shopping cart can provide many benefits to the online store owner including providing data collection and market research based on customer usage, such as how many carts have been abandoned before the purchase was completed, and how much traffic went through the shopping cart. A secure, easy to use shopping cart can even foster repeat business when customers enjoy their shopping cart experience.

The benefits of a secure and multiple featured shopping cart can give your customers a shopping experience that will put them at ease dealing with you. When a customer feels comfortable dealing with you they will purchase more items, and also come back to purchase again from you. They will also spread the word about the good shopping experience they encountered with you and you will pick up more customers by word-of-mouth advertising.

A shopping cart is an indispensable tool to the Website owner who sells goods or services because of the professional look of the site, the shopping experience a customer will enjoy using the shopping cart and because of the invaluable data a shopping cart can provide the Website owner about the shopping habits of the customers who visit the site.

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The Benefits of Having a Shopping Cart on Your Website

The Benefits of Having a Shopping Cart on Your Website

There are many benefits that a shopping cart will bring to your ecommerce business. To discover some of the many benefits of having a shopping cart on your Website continue to read this article.

A shopping cart on your Website can actually increase your sales. The purpose of the shopping cart is to hold items you are thinking of purchasing as you continue to browse the Website. Shopping carts give customers freedom to explore your Website without losing track of where the items are that they wish to purchase during their browsing. A shopping cart allows the customer to do all the shopping on your Website in one transaction. Customers who are forced to check out every time they wish to buy an item, return to shop again only to checkout if they find another item will become frustrated if they have to do this multiple times.

A shopping cart can also display the cart total price so that as the customer adds items to the cart they are aware of how much money they are spending so that they don’t get any nasty surprises at checkout. Customers who are denied a way to check prices will not be as likely to purchase multiple items.

You will want to stay clear of shopping carts that load too slowly because in today’s world people want things fast and if they have to wait they just may move on to the next Website. So it is important not only to have a shopping cart but also to have the right one.

The presence of a shopping cart on your Website also says, “Professional” to your customers. A shopping cart tells your customers that you care about their shopping comfort and will provide what they need to make their shopping experience an enjoyable one. If they are made comfortable while shopping on your Website they are much more likely to return.

Some shopping cart software programs have the capabilities of being your storefront even being your entire Website. The benefit of a shopping cart with a storefront is that you don’t have to bother with any other Website designing.

A shopping cart makes shopping more convenient for your customer. Without a shopping cart you force your customer to browse and remember where items are located that they are interested in. This might cause them to forget items, misplace them, or just leave in frustration. Try shopping for multiple items in a physical store without a shopping cart and see how frustrating it can be. Without shopping cart customers buy less, think about it that shops without a cart? The person buying only one or two items shops without a cart. Do you want your Website visitors to buy just one item or do you want them to purchase multiple items? If you answered, multiple items, then you had better have a shopping cart on your Website.

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