Shopping Cart Software
How To Make A Website >
Build An Online Store
> Shopping Cart Software
Selecting shopping cart software is an important step of
building an online store. There are literally 100's of options so
I'm going to break a few of the more popular options. Ultimately
your choice will be based on what capabilities you need and how much
website building knowledge you have.
Just so you're informed, in addition to shopping cart
software there'll possibly be a few more things you need
to build an online store. Those things are a
payment
processor, an
SSL and a
dedicated IP address. If you don't plan on accepting
credit cards right away you can avoid a few of of these
things.
Best Shopping Cart SoftwareBelow I'll list some of
the best shopping cart software that I've used in the past. Unlike
most topics I'm also going to list a few shopping cart options that
I haven't used. Not because I didn't like them but simply because
they didn't offer all of the options that I needed.
Quick Shopping Cart
If you're interested in getting a shopping cart online quickly with
little to no HTML knowledge,
Quick Shopping Cart
is for you. This shopping cart software makes it easy to build
an online store in just a couple of hours!Quick shopping cart is
setup based on the number of products that you want to sell.
Ultimately as your product line grows you can upgrade but it's a
great way to get an online store quickly. The shopping cart software
comes with the web hosting so there is no need for that additional
cost either.
The great thing is that it's integrated with popular features
such as eBay so you can easily list your products on eBay along with
Froogle, Google's shopping directory. It's also integrated with
QuickBooks so that you can keep records of your books. In addition
to these features you can accept credit cards or simply use
Pay Pal to accept payments.
In just a few easy steps you can move through the easy-to-use
wizard; customize the look from 100's of professional templates and
them simply add your own product photos and images. The great thing
is that no programming experience is required at all. Read more on
Quick Shopping Cart.
osCommerce Shopping Cart Software
osCommerce is an open-source shopping cart
which means that if you know how to do some programming that you can
actually add features that it currently doesn't offer.osCommerce
comes free with most web hosting plans so it's definitely an
affordable option and the basic version comes with most of the tools
you'll need when building an online store. Some of those features
are shipping integration such as UPS, USPS and Fed Ex. In addition
to this you can accept most payment methods such as
Pay Pal or a true merchant account to
accept credit cards online.
Now there are certain disadvantages to osCommerce that I need
to cover so that you don't discover them after putting in too
much time. The basic look of the osCommerce storefront is
horrible at best. You can view a sample of a basic layout by
clicking here. With that said, you can customize the look of
the shopping cart to look a bit more
like this
but it requires a ton of integration.
Click here for a hosting company
that I recommend that comes with osCommerce
Ecommerce Templates Shopping Cart Software
EcommerceTemplates.com is by far and away my shopping cart of
choice. Not necessarily for it's ease of use or features but for
it's search engine optimization capabilities. I can find a work
around to some of it's deficiencies but it more than makes up for it
with it's flexibility.
One website that I use it on is
www.SteakBrandingIrons.com. Feel free to take a look through the
site and view how easy it is to navigate. If you're interested
search for some terms related to 'steak branding irons' and you'll
find that my site ranks well.
Now that I've expressed my love for this shopping cart let me
list it's disadvantages. As you can see from the
choice of templates that you have to choose from that there will
be work involved in customizing the website.
Also, there isn't an easy area to configure certain features of
the website. You'll need some programming knowledge to get this
done. There is an admin page that works great for configuring your
site, adding products, fulfilling orders, etc though.
The bottom line is that if you're willing to learn some HTML and
spend some time learning the ins and outs of the shopping cart
software I strongly recommend using
EcommerceTemplates.com. Just to stress the point, you're really
going to have to spend some time with this software but it's really
worth it in regards to your search engine optimization flexibility
and ultimately your search engine rankings.
ProStores Shopping Cart Software
ProStores.com is
owned by eBay so the first advantage is it's integration with eBay.
It's easy to list any of the products on your website into eBay by
simply opening an eBay store. A nice feature is that you can accept
payments directly on your website from sales that you get on eBay.
ProStores is another online website builder but it comes with some
advanced features that you won't find with other shopping cart
software. Things like the capability to setup pricing tiers is
available if you happen to sell stuff wholesale or if you drop ship
items for people.
You'll find that you're given a variety of website templates to
choose from so the actual web design time is minimized. I had used
ProStores at one point and found that their
SEO capabilities were
pretty good too.
If you're interested in test driving ProStores shopping cart
software they offer a free 30 day trial. Plus they are tier based so
if you're just starting out and have a few products you can start
with their smallest plan and upgrade as you find the need. Lastly,
they don't charge a setup fee that you find with some online
shopping cart software providers.
Learn more about
ProStores.com.
Site Sell Ecommerce Solutions
Site Sell has
quickly become one of the top eCommerce solutions for new website
builders & experienced alike. The plans are built with new
webmasters in mind which may be ideal for you. Plus they've
integrated solutions for marketing your website once you've built
it.They have put together the tools for building your site,
marketing it and the tools to manage your website once it's online.
This is one product that I mention on this website that I haven't
used but I've heard rave reviews about SiteSell so I figured I'd
mention it to you so that you have the opportunity to look into it.
They have taken the time to show the great results of their
customers and have built an extremely in depth site explaining how
they'll make your site successful. Rather than going on and on I'd
just suggest viewing the Site Sell website so that you can see for
yourself.
Learn more about
Site Sell.
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