Web Site Tip of the Month

This Month's Tip - Selling Online Part 3

So, you’ve got your site secure and you’ve picked out the merchant bank to handle credit card purchases and now you are ready to pick out a shopping cart for your site. But which one? There are an incredible number of shopping carts out there and it would be impossible to cover every one of them. I’m going to break them down into 3 categories: Custom carts, Purchased carts, and Open Source (AKA Free) carts.

We Do It All For You
It used to be that a custom made shopping cart was only within the reach of very large businesses with an equally large website budget. Not any more. These days, there are a number of companies that specialize in creating affordable, custom-built shopping carts for your medium or even small sized business.

The benefits are obvious; no need to shoe-horn your business to fit someone else’s cart. You get a shopping cart that is designed from the ground up to meet all of your needs. Also, they will usually install and configure your cart on your website saving you time (and probably, a lot of anguish). Another plus, they are available to offer technical support when you need it.

On the downside, you will have to pay for these services. How much, depends on the company you select. Also, getting started will take a bit longer. You’ll have to work with the company to iron out all your requirements and then wait for the cart to be built.

In the end, it all depends on your business needs. If you have an unusual product or service or complicated parameters to incorporate, this may be the perfect solution.

Pay As You Go
A purchased cart is simply that: a pre-made shopping cart that you purchase for your website. The upside of this choice is that it can be very quick. You buy the cart and can install it the same day. Many of the carts offer installation and configuration, for a fee, of course. Fee-based tech support is usually available to help you out if you want to install the cart yourself or need help running it. Some carts offer modules you can buy to customize the basic cart.

The negative of the purchased cart is that you’ll have to modify your needs to fit the cart. The key is to find the best fit so you can keep compromises to a minimum.

Self Service Only
A lot of people choose to use open source shopping carts for one simple reason: they’re free. Some say that you get what you pay for, but in the case of Open Source software, free does not necessarily mean inferior. For those of you not familiar with it the Open Source Movement is dedicated to developing software whose code is open to everyone. Because anyone can work on the software, bug fixes and upgrades happen when people need them and not when a big corporation decides to offer them. Often this results in better quality, higher reliability and more flexibility.

The main plus to using an Open Source cart, besides the great price tag, is that many hosting companies offer them with your hosting plan. This means installation just a matter of a few clicks. Some of the more popular carts have additional modules available.

The minus to all this is that it truly is a do-it-yourself option. You are responsible for configuring your cart and making it look like the rest of your website. This involves reading a lot of documentation and there can be a bit of a learning curve. You must also modify your inventory to fit the cart. Tech support is usually only available in the form of a user’s forum. The more popular the cart, the bigger the forum and the more likely it is that you will find the answer to your problem.

What’s Next?
Before you even start looking, take the time to work out what exactly what you need your cart to do. Make a list of what is necessary and what would be nice to have. Once you know specifically what you need, it will be easier to compare carts or you may decide you need a custom cart.

You also need to be very honest about how much time you want to spend getting the cart up and going. Free can be very enticing but if you don’t have the time or aptitude to work extensively on your site, it may turn out to be cheaper (and faster) to pay someone to do it.

Once you’ve narrowed the field down, take a look at the carts being used on real website. Most of the cart sites should link to real-life examples. Check these over carefully. In the case of a custom cart you may want to email the webmaster to ask about their experiences with the cart and company.

Finally, take a good look at what kind of support is offered. Is there plenty of documentation? Is tech support offered? How up-to-date is the user’s forum?

Which ever cart you chose, just remember: nothing on the web is permanent. Yeah, it’s a pain in the neck but you can always change your cart if your needs change down the road. So, just plunge in!

Remember, on the web, your web site is you.

V.Sandoval
Web Designer, High Tech Center

© V.Sandoval All Rights Reserved 

Download our Web Design & Hosting Brochure (pdf)