Emailing is a strong component of the eCommerce world because it’s the communication tool of choice for consumers and business’ alike. Therefore, I personally believe that every shopping cart solution should have a robust and fully functional email system, which can work together with customers and vendors with out using an external program. Since the criteria for shopping cart software is important to the developers of WebCart we set out to create a distinguished emailing feature to put in WebCart 11.

To explain how the WebCart email system can help a business I decided to write up an example, in order illustrate a real world situation. Sara LaCie runs a small online used book store. Most of Sara’s clients pay her with credit cards; however, a small few don’t have access to a credit card, and therefore place orders online with the promise of mailing a check or money order. Obviously Sara doesn’t mail her book out until the check is received and cleared, but she does take the book off her website, and categorizes it as sold. Often times, customers forget to mail a check which creates problems for Sara because now she is holding on to inventory that she could potentially sell to someone else. With her previous shopping cart solution, Sara would have to manually locate all orders which have not been paid, copy and paste their email address in to outlook, and send out a customized email requesting a check.

WebCart can save Sara a great deal of time and effort with its new email system. Within WebCart 11, Sarah would simply press the email icon then select “outstanding emails” which would bring up a page where she can enter a custom request for payment with personalization options. All Sarah has to do is run a report on all outstanding invoices, select the appropriate email template, click send and boom! She is done.

Recently, Google made a available a host of online tools to aid webmasters in getting recognized on the most popular search engine. All of Google’s online webmaster tools can be found at http://www.google.com/webmaster In this post I will go over briefly, some of the great ways an online business can meet there criteria with a shopping cart solutions, by using the free webmaster tools.

Google Sitemaps

This is perhaps the most useful feature which Google offers webmasters. Basically, Google is saying please let me know what pages are on your website so we can index them. A shopping cart with hundreds of products can now be submitted to Google with relative ease. I personally use http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ to generate my sitemap. Once the sitemap is generated I uploaded the XML file to the main directory of my website. The XML page usually includes links to all my online products, which will help google recognize all my product pages. Obviously, this is not a sure way to get a top ten ranking, but it’s the first step in letting Google know where and what your products are all about.

The webmaster toolbox also includes a simple analysis of orphaned links (broken links) which Google spiders, as well as a wealth of information about your site. By following and fixing errors that Google finds, your site can be on its way to eCommerce success.

In my last few posts I discussed how using a shopping cart can benefit a typical  brick and mortar business, by reaching out to the entire word through the internet. However, what about people who don’t have the slightest idea of what to sell? One look online and you will find hundreds of products available, but how does one go about figuring out an enjoyable and profitable online venture? In the spirit of the criteria for shopping cart software, I will try to point you in the right direction.

Before I get in to what you should do, let me be specific about what you want to stay away from. The mistake many people make when they start selling on line is copying what everyone else is doing. An example would be selling DVDs, cd’s and designer clothing online. The biggest problem with selling items like the ones I described is the market is saturated with online sellers selling the same exact thing. Therefore, it’s imperative to find a unique product that is in demand and has a high mark up.

Second, try to sell things which are you are passionate about. A great example is Renee, a recent client of WebCart, who sells health food products via the web. When Renee starts talking about her teas and vitamin supplements a sense of pure passion and excitement comes over her. I know Renee will be successful in her online business because she loves what she sells.

If you’re having a hard time coming up with an ideas check out: Lisa Suttora of whatdoisell.com This site provides a wealth of information about product hotspots and ideas. Another great website I would recommend is www.trendwatching.com. If you’ve looked though the web, and are still not sure I would recommend going to a local shops within your area. Talk to the owner or sales person about their business, and think about how you can integrate it online. Good luck with your online venture!

In my pervious post I discussed the importance of technical support when it comes to the installation of shopping cart software. In this post I will discuss the issue of security, and how it relates to osCommerce vs. WebCart.

Shopping Cart Security:

The issue with osCommerce

The criteria for shopping cart software ought to include the ability to provide top notch security for online stores. The concern with open source software is its source code, (which in simple terms means the “soul” or “brain” of a program) is available to anyone who requests it. This seemingly innocent source code gives hackers and those who wish harm on your eCommerce store, an added opportunity to hack your site. Obviously the developers of osCommerce plug holes as they become known, however, the holes are usually plugged after the damage has already been done. Often times leaving eCommerce merchants the heartbreaking task of picking up the pieces.

The difference with WebCart

WebCart’s shopping cart software is built with PHP (which stands for Hypertext Preprocessor) the same language that osCommerce uses to built its software. However, unlink osCommerce WebCart is not open source, which means that less then a handful of developers have access to its source code. For the online store owner, this means hackers are far less likely to exploit any vulnerabilities with in WebCart’s shopping cart software. No piece of software is 100% safe, but what do exist are software solutions that are safer then others. An easy to understand example of this is OS X tiger vs, Windows XP, with the latter being less secure. In order to add an additional layer of protection, the developers of WebCart hired previous hackers (who have now changed their ways) to examine and find holes in our shopping cart software. After 3 weeks our developers plugged every whole identified by the x hacking team.

In the next post I will discuss custom functionality in both osCommerce and WebCart.

The key to search engine optimization is content, the more keyword rich content a website has the better chances the search engines will rank its keywords. Writing content is a pain in part because unless a website hires a full time writer, it often times because a burden to write content full time. The good news I always let my clients know, is that all webmasters need to spend is about 15 minutes every day on content creation, in order to see SEO benefits Every company should have something to write about, for example a section called “company news” can be an extremely beneficial source of content for a shopping cart. The reason is simple; every company, no matter how small, has something new going on which they can write about. In addition, who else on this plant knows more about a company then the owner of a small business?

Another great technique I recommend is writing articles about how the products you are selling operate. An example would be a company which sells business telephone systems. If I were creating content for this site I would start by describing the many models that I have for sale. Followed by, the features of each telephone model, Basically, I would write my own mini review on the pros and cons of each telephone system. Finally, I would write a series of articles about how these phone systems can benefit potential clients. If you have been running a successful online, I am sure you already have a lot of content scattered through out your site. The tick is to get it in to one place and create a structure around it.

WebCart was engineered with SEO as a top priority. Therefore, in every standard version WebCart meets the criteria for shopping cart software by adding useful SEO tools pre-built and ready to be used. As a result, creating a news section within an eCommerce website is easy and painless. An article system is also pre-built which make posting and organizing articles by category, topic or keyword a breeze, for even the most inexperienced user.

The best news for WebCart is when we hear of customer’s success stories. A recent success story was with APA-LA.com (Advertising Photographers of America) who approached WebCart with a unique set of objectives. APA does not sell products online, but instead offers tickets for weekly events which they sponsor. WebCart was presented with a challenge of modifying WebCart to function like a Ticketmaster system by having users login and purchase tickets for events.

WebCart developers spent a few hours applying the necessary tweaks to modify the existing cart. The surprising thing for us was how easy WebCart was to tweak. The price we charged APA was significantly less then they expected. From the early stages of the development, WebCart’s coding was shortened and simplified in order to make editing and adding code efficient.

APA’s modified version of WebCart was an immediate success. Its members were able to create an account, select the event and pay for it online. This system helped ease the strain on its customer service staff, as well as speed the ticket purchase process for its members.

Many online store owners have products of different shapes, sizes and weights. As we all know shipping charges are calculated based on weight. It’s easy for an online store owner to calculate shipping if all the products are the same weight, but of course that is rarely the situation, and many times items can range from 1 to 100 lbs. With an absence of an online shopping cart which calculates weight, online merchants are left with no option of giving customers an accurate shipping quote. WebCart 11 has raised the criteria for shopping cart software by offering a standard built in feature which would allow online merchants to input product weight and size so that an accurate shipping price can be reported to the online consumer in real time.

A great example of an online store that could benefit from an individual product weight feature within a shopping cart solution, would be a store which sells consumer electronics. Can you remember the last time you visited a radio shack? The last time I went to radio shack, I remember seeing a all-encompassing rang of products from phone cords to plasma televisions. Yes, electronics have many different weights, and an online electronic store should need software which is capable of supporting many different individual product weights.

By creating the individual product weight option, WebCart has made the life of many online retailers a little bit less stressful, and perhaps at the end of the day consumers and online merchants will save money and more importantly frustration.

The criteria for shopping cart software are being set high, and in this final post I will conclude the series on WebCart’s affiliate module.

To view the previous post click here

Let’s get started…

Affiliate Payment Control:
The internet can be a dangerous place when it comes to fraud. Affiliate fraud is nothing new, and has been around for years. I will explain how a typical fraud could happen, and the steps WebCart built to minimize it.

Let’s say I sign up as an affiliate for a website that sells speakers. Each stereo speaker sold though my affiliate link gets me $10.00. I forgot to mention that the owner of the Stereo site gives his customers the option of mailing in a check as a form of payment. Once my link was approved I would solicit a gang of my friends to purchase speakers though my new affiliate link, but have them pay with a check that they will never mail in. Of course my friends have no intention of mailing the check in, but credit was given to me for a sale. Can you see how something like this could destroy a shopping cart owners business?

WebCart’s affiliate payment control gives the webmaster the option of disabling checks, and adding an extra blanket of security for online payments. Although this blanket does not eliminate fraud, it does help by diverting fraudulent activity on your site.

Cookie Time:
Can you think of a time when you clicked a link for a product, but didn’t make a purchase right away, but came back a few days later and purchased the item? Well if you never did anything like that; let me assure you many people have. It’s something that many people who sign up with an affiliate program are concerned with.

Take the affiliates view for a second. They are sending you traffic, and just because the person didn’t make a purchase the same day, the affiliate loses a commission. With WebCart’s affiliate module a cookie is set inside of the user’s browser so if the user comes back within a two month span of time the affiliate will receive credit for the sale.

I hope this helps you understand how to run a profitable shopping cart solutions. Please feel free to post any questions you may have.

Affiliate marketing can become an enormous revenue stream for many small businesses. Yet it surprises me how many online businesses don’t make use of it. Amazon.com was one of the first companies to use affiliate marketing, and it attributed to the success of amazon.com becoming the largest online retailer in the word. The benefits of developing an affiliate program are two fold. One, you generate free one way links from who ever signs up with your affiliate program. Second, you generate revenue with FREE advertising on your member’s sites. I would love to get in to detail about how affiliate marketing works, but it’s beyond the scope of this post. I will however, discuss what WebCart’s affiliate module can do for an online business.

I know that osCommerce has a contribute called osCAffilate which adds an affiliate program on an osCommerce store. I personally installed and challenged my self to learn and use it within my demo osCommerce site. Although I am biased towards WebCart believe me when I tell you that osCAffilate doesn’t come close to the features which WebCart gives you.

With WebCart’s affiliate module your online store can enjoy the following benefits:

Co-branding
You can give your affiliate members their own private labeled store. Let me explain how powerful this feature really is. A potential affiliate would like to sell your magazines on his website. However, he would like his members to feel like the offer is exclusive, and made specifically for them. With WebCart’s affilate module a webmaster is able to add a custom logo for members coming from a specific affiliate link. This means that your affiliate’s logo will be shown every time their link is used.

In the next post I will continue to describe the benefits of WebCart’s Affiliate module.

eCommerce solutions are basically pointless unless they have a  payments feature. To the best of my knowledge I have never seen a shopping cart solution that does not accept some sort of payments. The subject of accepting payments online is not the exactly what I am shooting for in this post. However, I do want to mention the different ways people can pay on a website. Most people like to pay with a credit card, however many small mom and pop shops don’t accept credit card payments because they are unable sell enough volume to make it worth while. For these types of stores the option becomes to a) accept checks and money order by mail b) Sign up for a paypal seller’s account C) Do both checks and paypal. As you probably know many people use paypal as a payment method for ebay auctions. What a lot of folks don’t know is that paypal can be used within a shopping cart environment.

WebCart has been programmed to accept almost every payment method imaginable. It’s the webmasters choice on what to turn on or off. However, we at WebCart are most proud of our paypal payment gateway. If you have a paypal account then all that is needed is a paypal email address, and the ability to type it in to WebCart’s administration area. With paypal you open up your online store to millions of potential customers who otherwise would not have been able to purchase from you.

The downside to using paypal is the fee they charge when you receive money. In addition, many people hate paypal, and would never use them. Overall I would say it can’t hurt if signing up for verisign or other credit card services like it are not a current option for you.