Web Shopping Cart Features to Consider

It can be hard to find the right shopping cart for your needs. However, there are some features that you should be aware of that you might need. It is not safe to assume that all shopping carts include all of the features listed below. When in doubt, ask them! It never hurts, if anything, it helps, to talk with the developers about what features you need. You can see if they really want you as a client of theirs or not when you tell them you need specific features and see what their response is. They may or may not add the features you need, however, below are some of the basic ones that you might keep an eye out for.

Shipping Prices

Lucky for us, USPS, UPS, and FedEx are all businesses that people commonly use for shipping certain items. To top it off, they actually have systems in place so that web developers can calculate shipping expenses right from their own website. Therefore, many of the shopping carts on the market right now will automatically figure out the expense and add it to the total price for you. This is something to consider if you are going to be shipping products that are bought from your ecommerce store.

Electronic Software Delivery (ESD)

If you are not going to have a demand for shipping products, you are most likely going to be providing some type of software or files of some kind. For example, if you sell an ebook, you will not be mailing this on a CD to a house. Instead, you might send them a link to download it via email or send the file as an attachment in an email. If this is the case, you will need an ESD feature, or Electronic Software Delivery feature, to help get the software and/or files quickly to those who make a purchase.

Taxes

Unfortunately, many states are beginning to regulate the internet sales. They see that more and more people are selling and buying items online. They just want a piece of the pie. However, it has always been mandated that you apply tax to items sold to other people in your state. In a nutshell, this feature will apply taxes for your state to the total price when it is deemed necessary. This way, you stay legal in your online business and it does not require a lot of effort from your end.

Discounts and Promotions

Apparently some shopping cart developers have assumed that once you have an ecommerce site you will never offer a single promotion or discount on any of your products. This is annoying and typically something you will want to change later on down the road in any shopping cart software you have. Many shopping carts though offer this feature upfront and it is something you should keep an eye out for.

Variety of Payment Methods

The unfortunate side of online business is that not everyone uses the same type of payment method. Some prefer to send a check, others will want to pay with a credit card, and still others will have some type of service like PayPal that they will prefer to use. The fortunate part is that you can accept all these types of payments if you use a shopping cart that will support all of them. It will pay off in the end to accept a wide variety of payments that way you are not limiting which visitors to your website can actually buy from you.

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Top Shopping Cart Software Features

Looking for the right shopping cart software for you can be a daunting task. There are so many ones available out there, finding a good one that meets your needs is difficult. Worse though, some of the companies out there will frequently have issues that need to be addressed for most ecommerce business owners. Below are some things to ensure that is included in the features of your shopping cart. If not mentioned one way or the other, ask the shopping cart company / seller to verify that these features are included with the purchase you might be making.

Easy Product Management

Some shopping carts on the market look great from the front. They seem to have the appearance that you want your business to have in its product listing, and it works exactly how you want it to. The problem is though, adding products is hard and you may find that instead of having a shopping cart that will work for your 100+ products, its intended use was for a business that only had a handful of products they were selling. This is frustrating and can rack up several unwarranted man hours in adding products to the website. Make sure that Easy Product Management is always available within any shopping cart software.

Easy Payment

Some people neglect the thought about how they are going to be accepting payments. Others, may have it in mind, but never make sure that that option is available in their shopping cart software. For example, not all shopping cart software will work with all the merchant accounts on the market. As well, not all shopping carts will work with PayPal. You should make sure that the payment option you have in mind works with the shopping cart you will be purchasing. If it is not listed, you should ask the company selling the shopping cart software to either add the capability of using your payment method before purchasing.

No Limitations on How Many Items You Can Have

Unfortunately, I have seen some shopping cart software, particularly those that you would host with them, that would limit you on how many products you can have. This is really outrageous and simply a good way for them to make a few extra dollars by having you as a customer. Chances are, if you are successful in your business, you will want to build your product database up over time. You should not be limited to how many products you can offer in any circumstance.

Existing and Customizable Themes

There are a few shopping carts on the market that are notoriously difficult to modify and customize to the look you want. Others may not even have a decent looking theme at all. You should be sure that whichever one you choose, it should be fairly close to what you have in mind for the appearance of your own shopping cart. Without that, you may find yourself spending a lot of money in modifying the look to get it like you want. Obviously, not everyone will want the same appearance, so the best shopping carts out there on the market are typically fairly easy to modify the colors and those types of things.

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Why Businesses Choose Single Page Checkout

A single page checkout means a customer can purchase an item using one page checkout only. It is different and a lot better than the old checkout system that has so many pages to go to first before the actual payment is received. Online ecommerce sites utilizing this feature can generate more sales. It is quite functional and user friendly. No need to look into long checkout processes because it has everything necessary for a payment transaction in just a single page.

As mentioned, the single page checkout has very simple set up. In the checkout page, you will find all the information needed to be filled out for the transaction to go through- billing information, shipping information, shipping method and the total amount that needs to be paid. So the only thing a customer needs to do is put in all the required information and that’s about it. The simplest thing ever made for e-commerce!

The single page checkout actually has many advantages. For one, single page checkouts are fast. Customers only need to type in their information such as their name, address and credit or debit card number. There is no need to click on so many things before the payment process is done. Next, it is convenient. If they are repeat customers, their information are already stored somewhere and they will not have to go through the hassle of filling out information again. Once the software detects that you are the same person, it will automatically find your information in its storage system. Lastly, it guarantees better conversion rates. In the traditional online checkout, it takes about 3-4 pages before the customer can actually buy the product. This is obviously giving the customers more reason to think whether they should really buy the product or not. Studies show that half of the customers waiting for the payment to go through change their mind and as a result, it is a loss of sales. With a single page checkout, people are not given time to change their minds so you get more sales coming your way.

There are still some that argue about the efficiency of a single page checkout. Many would say that it does not really reduce the time spent on the transaction because you have to input the same number of information anyway. While this may be true, it is still correct to say that with a single page checkout, there is lesser amount of clicks to be made and definitely, you get better sales and inventory. It may take some time for people to get used to the single page checkout but once they do, they will realize that it is simply a lot better than the steps checkout.

With single page checkout, you are assured of a better experience for your customers. There is no need for them to wait for long before their payment has been processed. Customer satisfaction is significantly increased and with that, you will be sure to find and retain more customers.

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