Shopping carts & ecommerce software solutions guide

Choosing the best cart solutions for your launch into ecommerce is critical to the success of your online business. If you're wanting to learn more about this sometimes confusing world, this guide will explain the points you should consider before purchasing a cart.

If you're currently in the market for software or services and would like our recommendations, read our cart software and services review.

What is a cart?
In a basic definition, it's a series of scripts that keep track of items a visitor picks to buy from your site until they proceed to the "checkout". A popular misconception is that carts handle the whole financial transaction, but they only really act as a front end which passes information via a secure connection (another service) to a payment gateway - a separate service altogether.

The payment gateway service then channels the requests and transfers throughout relevant financial networks, including the Internet merchant account with your bank. It then sends back confirmation or denial back to the cart software. For further information on the "back-end" aspects of ecommerce; read our guide to payment gateways and merchant accounts.

The good news is that there are literally hundreds of cart packages available. The bad news is the same as the good. Sometimes, too many choices make it very difficult to make a decision - especially when all companies claim to have the superior product. I recently experienced this challenge by reviewing over 130 cart programs. I hope this article may make your life just a little bit easier!

Free or premium carts?
It's very important before you begin reviewing software and services to be to be very specific in what you actually want the cart to be able to do. It may be that you really don't require all the bells and buzzers offered by high end packages - if this is the case, then a good package will cost around the $US150 mark. Some companies offer free carts, but bear in mind that nothing in this world is truly free - read the fine print.

[ Read more shopping cart information ]

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Free Cart

5 of the best 'easy to use' carts

Installing your own free cart needn't be a nightmare - there are many discussion groups that espouse the virtues of easy-to-install and easy-to-use sites that do enough for a simple ecommerce solution. Emartcart (www.emartcart.com) offers a 'Lite' service that works with Paypal (or allows you to use a merchant account of your choice), and is a good option for small business who don't need to configure any more than 25 products and work with less than 45 orders a month. Commerce CGI (www.commerce-cgi.com) is easy to set up and offers free, open source software using Perl. It allows vendors to store unlimited products, is easy to update and offers online credit card processing. The PDG cart (www.pdgsoft.com) is another option that includes some easy-to-change storefront layouts and secure payment systems, and is noted for its speed. CubeCart (www.cubecart.com) has gathered followers because of its straightforward installation and use for beginners, and includes payment gateways, secure socket layers and multiple payment methods.

Crystal Tech (www.crystaltech.com) produces an easy-to-use site that users claim is customisable and easy to integrate into existing websites, while Merchant Store (www.merchant-store.com) users claim that the free MySQL site caused no installation headaches and is easy to use. [ To find more free shopping cart ]

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carts, Online carts, Ecommerce carts.

If your business is selling products then you seriously should be looking at an online shop accepting credit cards will maximise your sales by offering your customers an easy way to buy your products or services online. Our carts designs are user friendly you will be able to add and update your own website without having to employ a web designer or programmer and still have our backup service available so if you get stuck just give us a call and we will be there to help you.

Carts Free Quotation

Well Programed Cart
Below is what you would expect from a well programmed
carts design. All these features are of the latest software and technologies, you can even update, add and remove categories and sub categories and much more saving you time and money.

Support Means
carts design changes, Adding new pages, Adding new minor features to the site, modifying minor site application.

carts Cost
£1470 upwards
This includes total project cost from complete carts designing & Programming. This too includes free site support for 3 months after completion. [ view more detail ]

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