There are many tutorials that may be used in order to learn how to use the shopping cart software in order to launch your own business; choosing the best solutions may be crucial for the success of your business. Therefore, you will have to learn more about the world that may seem quite confusing in the beginning. The tutorials and guidelines are to be used in order to decide which software will fit your future online business and several steps are to be followed so that you learn how to use the necessary online tools. Before purchasing any cart, you will have to consider all the points and rules that are provided by a professional tutorial that deals with the online shopping and selling.
First, you will have to understand what a shopping cart is in order to learn how to use it in the proper manner; the shopping cart may be defined as being a long series of scripts that are used in order to keep track of all the visitors that may access a particular site in order to buy online items. The cart will keep track of all the items that are bought by every visitor by using your site; these items will be tracked until they are being passed through the so-called check-out. You should be aware of something, namely that the shopping cart software does not handle the entire financial transaction and you should not rely on this tool when it comes to keeping track of the financial transaction. The software will only react as a sort of front end that will pass the necessary information via the secure connection in order to keep the online store “alive". The information will be passed to a special payment gateway and this gateway is to be regarded as a totally different service that does not belong to your online store.
The payment service will channel all the requests and it will transfer them by using the relevant financial networks; these networks will also include the internet merchant account that you have with your own bank. This service will also send back the necessary confirmation but you have to be aware that even a denial is possible in the case of an online store. The denial or confirmation will be thus sent to the existing shopping cart software; further information is to be searched for in case that you want to find out more about using the special software that was designed in order to support the online store and you will have to read more about the possible merchant accounts and payment gateways.
There are many cart packages that are available on the current market; but you have to take care so that you will not be overwhelmed by these choices that can coma all at once. It may be quite difficult when it comes to making a decision because you will have to make sure that your final decision is the one that is likely to work best for your online business. You also have to be perfectly aware that almost every company will be interested in claiming that its own products and services are the best ones on the current market; therefore, you will have to take your time in order to select the necessary tools and you may also choose to read some reviews in order to help you. The guidelines are also to be taken into consideration because they can actually make your online life easier.
As soon as you begin reading about a particular software, you have to become very specific when it comes to choosing premium shopping carts or the free ones; you will have to be very specific when deciding the main features of your future software because you have to choose the software that is going to work in your case. Good packages are to be looked for in order to provide yourself with the necessary devices that may help you develop your online business; you also have to be aware that there many companies that are likely to offer the so-called free carts but you have to bear a single aspect in your mind, namely that nothing is likely to be truly free. The tutorials are to be carefully read because a free cart is likely to come along with some negative features that may waste your time and money.
You will also have to focus on your budget because this feature is of most importance for your online business; you have to calculate your initial investment in order to cover all the possible costs that are likely to come along with the delivery mechanisms. Delivering goods online may become a tricky business; therefore, you have to choose the proper mechanisms that are likely to do their job without affecting your online business in a negative manner.
Before I write more, I must explain the relationship between a shopping cart and ecommerce solution. Well, to put things simple, an ecommerce solution is a solution/website where you can sell your stuff online, just like super store owners sell stuff in retail outlets. Now, when you go to bigger stores like Walmart, or Target, or Harrods, you end up picking a shopping trolley or a shopping cart from the store, in which you can stash your items, and walk along, remove a few which you do not like, and add another few while you're browsing through the store.
An electronic shopping cart works in a similar way. Although there are no physical items that you can pick from racks and put into the shopping cart, but you can click some buttons like "Add to Cart" or "Buy Now" or "Add to Order" and your desired item is added to your 'virtual' shopping cart.
Ecommerce doesnt end here, it takes you to next step where you checkout, and enter your shipping and billing details. You are then redirected to a secure interface where you make payment using your credit card, and then a sale is recorded. What's happening at the backend is, your credit card is being billed by the merchant firm, who gets an authorization from your credit card issuing bank, and once that authorization is issued, your purchase is confirmed. You usually end up getting a few emails from different parties that were involved in an electronic transaction like ecommerce.
Okay, so now when I planned starting off, I came accross so many solutions, each one with its unique features. I tried a few demos including 3dcart, OSCommerce, ZenCart etc, but none of them had a simple to use admin panel, which was my first requirement because I was a novice and wanted something which is super easy to use, and makes my life easier instead of loading me with technology.
The search went on, and I finally had to start searching based on following criteria.
1) The solution price: I think it made more sense to me to invest in a solution that doesn't burn a hole in my pocket, and still meets all requirements that I have. I experimented with many. Found OS COmmerce and Zen Cart etc to be free to use, so I thought they'll be a choice when it came to price.
2) The search engine performance of the live solution, when it goes live: Almost all solutions I experimented with had a not-so-impressive performance with search engines. All of these used complex structures, with an exception of 2ShoppingCart, that I found to rank high on search engines. The reasons for this included an optimal use of alt tags, mod_rewrite (a technology to convert dynamic links into static links that end with html extensions )
3) Easy to use admin panel: Well, to be honest, when I tested OS Commerce , Zen Cart etc, they all failed this test, because they were very complex to use for me a guy who wanted to be a shop owner, not a computer programmer because they offered complex handling for daily simple tasks, and they scared me to say the least. I was frustrated when I looked at admin panels of most of the open source applications, and some of the hosted solutions such as 3d cart etc, but generally what I loved was the easy to use admin panel from Volusion Software or the one from 2ShoppingCart. Both offer intutively easy to use admin panels, that make routine tasks so much simple.
4) The maintenane costs: For me, since getting a site up and running wasnt the only problem, but I knew I am going to need a lot of help with updates, and images, and all other aspects of the site, I wanted a solution that's backed by some serious guys that will be willing to help me when I needed help. I am still communicating with different vendors to see what their online support contract costs, but generally there were firms like Volusion and 2ShoppingCart that offered a turn key solution with free support for life so I was kind of relieved to know that i'll have after sales support once my shopping cart website is up and running. A few others that were excellent were 3dcart because they're a hosted solution, but needed upgrade fees and more, and then Paypal, but franky speaking Paypal was dissapointing because they dont offer the bells and whistles that I needed for my store in order to be able to sell anything to my customers. Paypal had a rather dull interface, so I decided to go with someone else instead.
A few other factors that are less important, but still carry weight are technology used, loading speeds, response rate, stability, number of products allowed, hosting fees etc, which we'll discuss in next article.
Both Clint Jhonson & Aslam are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.