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Many individuals explore the idea of selling products online what with the boom on the Internet and all. There are so many business decisions to make regarding having an online business and one of those is whether or not to have a shopping cart.
If you have more than just a few products that you are selling on your Website, it is convenient for your customers to be able to use a shopping cart as they browse your site.
A shopping cart gives customers the ability to place things in the cart as they are browsing your site, to take them out of the cart, to change quantities and to add to the cart as they wish.
If you chose instead to have just a simple order form on your site instead of a shopping cart your customers can be left frustrated when they leave the form to go find another product to find that when they come back all the information has been erased.
If you are using just a simple order form it would be next to impossible to order different sizes and colors of an item without overwhelming the capabilities of the form.
Ask a simple form to total all of your items and to compute the tax and shipping charges and you are likely to experience a major cyber meltdown.
If you expect to succeed online you need to make the shopping experience an easy, quick and stress free transactions for your customers. You must be able to provide them with options regarding payment and shipping and you have to allow them to change their mind, to make choices and to add and delete items at whim. In order to provide your customers with the best shopping experience possible you will need to have a shopping cart.
If you are serious about having an online business get serious about providing your customer with the best shopping experience possible and that online reality requires a shopping cart. Don't skimp on the essential aspects of your online business and having a shopping cart available on your website for your customers to use is one of the most important essentials of your online business.
Think like your customers do and visualize what it is like for them as they navigate your site and make those purchasing decisions. A shopping cart allows them to browse the site and add products to their virtual cart and then go back and browse some more. A shopping cart encourages multiple purchases.
Internet business owners should use shopping carts so that they do not frustrate their customers, to give them an easy, quick shopping experience and to provide them with a means for making multiple purchases
The ideal shopping cart might look a little different if you approached it from the customer’s perspective than if you approached it from the perspective of the online business owner. What does the customer want in a shopping cart experience and what are the needs of the online business owner regarding a shopping cart?
If you could design the perfect shopping cart from your customer's perspective what would it look like?
Your customers will tell you that they want a cart that allows them to add, delete and change quantities, sizes and colors at whim. They will probably tell you that they want to know how many items they have in their cart and what the total retail is for the items in their cart at any given time and the want to see these totals at the top of the page no matter what page they are on while browsing your site. They will probably tell you that they don't want to be redirected to another site when it comes time to input their financial information. They will also say that they want all financial information to be secure and their credit card number to be safe. They will probably tell you that they want the ability to use discount and certificates right in the shopping cart. They will also like the ability to see what shipping and payment choices they have right up front. They don't want any surprises when it comes to how much they are going to pay. They will more than likely also say that if they decide to browse some more that they don't want to lose what is already in their shopping cart. If they go off your site or lose their Internet connection they would like to come back to your site and still have their items safely in their cart, right where they left them.
If you could design the perfect shopping cart from the perspective of you the business owner, what would it look like?
Would you like the ability to sell unlimited physical and digital products? Would you like the ability to offer multiple shipping and payment options, and have the ability to collect credit card payments from your customers right from your own site without having to redirect them to a merchant or hosting site? You would like to have the ability to calculate shipping and sales tax right in the shopping cart. You would like to have the ability to offer discount coupons or certificates. You would also like to have the ability to offer up sell products. You want the ability to accept credit cards, and online checks. A shopping cart with no software needed or extra equipment may be what you are looking for. You might also be interested in a shopping cart that has a contact database, the ability to have an online newsletter, and unlimited autoresponders and email marketing program or a customizable eZine form. How about the ability to manage an affiliate program to help sell your products or to design and offer surveys and questionnaires to your customers.
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.futhr
Future installments to discuss payment processors, Open Source Carts, and Specific merchant systems |
