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Choosing a Shopping Cart for Your Ecommerce Website
Starting up your own online
shop can be difficult – you need to select your shopping cart software,
install and customize it before you can even think about entering
products.
What do you need to consider before starting out then? Firstly, is this
more for a hobby or an expanding business? If you’re wanting to sell
items, such as handmade cards, for arguments sake, then you may not want
to invest heavily on a bespoke shopping cart. However, if you intend to
market your products online as a business, you may want to opt for
spending a little more and having support on hand should you require it.
The main differences between free shopping cart software and bespoke
software is support and build quality. You must understand that with a
free solution, such as the popular osCommerce, you will not have
dedicated support. Although there are many individuals with extensive
knowledge of the product who will be able to assist you, there is no
official technical support. Unless you have somebody to hand, finding a
developer to perform bug-fixes at short notice can be a costly and
stressful process.
Build quality also varies, and whilst the likes of osCommerce, Agora or
X-Cart are all fully capable of small-medium shops, you may not be able
to implement all the features you require. A bespoke cart system on the
other hand will have been designed with your specific requirements in
mind, so it is safe to assume what you discuss with the developers
should be included on the final product.
Installation of the majority of cart systems is relatively painless,
though coupling payment gateways other than the most common can be a
little difficult unless you have some prior experience. Again, unless
you are confident you would be best off hiring somebody to aid you with
the initial set-up of your cart.
Payment gateways are another issue to consider when selecting a cart. If
you are looking at setting up a sideline, then a free cart coupled with
Paypal payments would be perfectly adequate. You may lack flexibility
and power, but a solution along these lines will be inexpensive and
quick to set up.
However, if you are looking at being a serious online retailer, having
your site either built from the ground up, or built around an existing
platform by professionals, will pay dividends. It will require some
initial cost, and you may well be considering four-figures. However, you
can rest assured that with this kind of investment, you will be able to
catalogue a huge number of items, have total control over your shop and
support to hand should anything go wrong.
It all depends on your interests, though there is one thing to bear in
mind when deciding – You really do get what you pay for.
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