10 Things You Should Know About Shopping Carts
November 4th 2005
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Shopping Cart |
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You want to move your
business online, and now you are faced with the many available options
for shopping carts. Trust me keeping track and deciding which is the
best fit for your purpose is no easy job, but these 10 things should
help you make an informed decision.
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Type of Product or
Service / Target Market
One of the first
things to consider is the type of product or service and whom you sell
to? If these are not clearly defined and you are just trying to get some
products online to see how they will sell, then a starter package that
is rentable is probably the way to go. You still need to consider the
following needs. Most shopping carts are built for physical products
that are mailed or shipped to customers. So if you sell a digital
product you need to look for a feature set that accommodates ordering
and then providing immediate controlled downloading of the product.
If your product is
informational then another type of software solution called a membership
site might fit your purpose better. Who you sell to also may require
different features than you typically find in a standard shopping cart,
for instance if you sell to other businesses (B2B) instead of the end
customer (B2C), you will want the cart to handle Purchase orders as well
as Credit Card payments.
2) Technology
Platform
The second decision
you need to make may have already been made for you without you knowing
it. The technology platform you choose will limit the shopping cart
choices you can use. If you have an existing website then the platform
(Web server type) has already been determined for you. You simply have
to go through your records and see which platform your host provides.
Three of the popular technology platforms in use are Linux based or open
source servers, Microsoft .NET (IIS) based servers and Coldfusion
systems. The main thing is to check with your Web hosting provider to
determine this information. You may also need to know if you have a
hosted, shared or dedicated server.
3)
Number of Products
The number of products
you provide or plan to provide also helps determine the right shopping
cart solution. Once you get over about 30 – 50 products you start
spending a lot of your time, just keeping up with changes to the
products, etc. If you hire out this work, then your expenses go up
quickly after this point as well. Shopping cart features to consider
allow batch loading, and changing product information. A batch process
allows you to put the product information (or changed information) into
a spreadsheet form and let the system upload the changes all at once (in
one batch) taking hours less time than the standard one at a time
based feature set.
4)
Product Display
The type of product
you sell and how to display it best will also have bearing on which
shopping cart to use. Most shopping carts have a structured way to
display products, allowing pictures of the products to be displayed in
predetermined sizes. How many sizes of pictures and how many pictures of
the same product with different attributes is something you need to know
before deciding on a solution. For instance if you sell sweaters that
come in various colors, you may want to show each color (same style) to
enhance the chances a person will buy a sweater (or several). If a
visually appealing display is important for your type of product then
this is something you want to know about the system before choosing.
5) Search
Engine Compatibility
So far we have not
focused on the shopping cart, because the type of shopping cart features
are determined not by what is available (through your host) and known to
you (referred by a friend), but what shopping cart will provide the
needed features to your business and its customers. One of the main
reasons business owners want a shopping cart is so they can offer their
products to a wider audience (where ever the WWW reaches). So if you
have a product that is positioned in a competitive market (many other
sites offering similar products) then finding your site, because of
competition will be difficult for customers. The main issue with
shopping carts here is that they provide a Search Engine Compatible page
address and product page address (URL) so that search engines can find
your shop on the Internet. If your product is highly competitive, then
more aggressive Search Engine Optimization will be needed.
Article Continued
By
Robert Speyer
Bob is Co-Founder, President of
Web Success Team and
Speyergraphix Design Studio.
Bob and his team can handle all of your offline design and
advertising needs.
Contact Bob
Search Engine Optimization
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