Christmas is just a couple weeks away, and the wonderful boost to eCommerce sales will come to an end. However, it doesn’t have to be that way because having a decrease in online sales is never a good thing no matter what time of the year it’s. Think of it this way, if you can uphold the Christmas sales of this year though out the next year then when Christmas roles around you will be able to only increase the sales amount. In this post I will recommend a couple of tips of WebCart’s shopping cart software clients in order to get more traffic.

 Directory Submission – These days there is a directory for almost every subject imaginable.  What makes directories beneficial for many web users is its ability to provide a wealth of links and information for specific topics.  Therefore, it doesn’t require querying Google over and over again just to find a list of sites a person might be looking for. The trick is to find the right directories for your business.  The way to do this is rather simple all you need to do is search Google for “keyword”(your business)+”add site” or “suggest site” etc. If you are able to find the right directory you will see that not only will your organic ranking go up, but so will your traffic.

Paid Text Link Ads -  This is my favorite way of getting traffic because you are able to find high traffic sites and pay the webmaster to place your link on their home page. Obviously, find sites relevant to what you are selling otherwise the traffic you will get will be worthless. The trick in all of this is to find a place where people who love your product visit, and give them the opportunity to purchase for your eCommerce store.

buy shopping cart software Christmas Shopping Criteria Requirements For Shopping Cart Software directory marketing eCommerce Hosting ecommerce shopping cartbuy shopping cart software free commercial shopping cart softwares paid text link ads seo shopping cart software shopping cart marketing

October has come and gone, and it seems like Christmas is just around the corner.  For the retail market the Christmas season usually starts after Thanksgiving because traditionally this is when a lot of people go and purchase gifts. This has been the rule of thumb for many years, however eCommerce is changing all of that. In fact WebCart has  seen a spike in shopping cart software orders because merchants are trying to get on the bandwagon as soon as possible.

This year MSN shopping portal is leading the way in offering online customers the first major Christmas related portal on the web. If I could give my customers a bit of advice it would be to get listed on MSN’s portal because they have invested a decent amount of money in promoting it online.

The marketing should not stop with MSN, in fact I recommend that eCommerce shop owners should seek out and get listed on as many holiday portal sites available on the net. Especially if the portal is category specific. A great example of this is a shopping cart software portal. Within this portal visitors expect to find shopping cart related sites, and nothing else. This usually means a higher click though rate because the traffic is very industry specific. Though out the next few months I will be posting informative tips on how to get the most out of your holiday sales.  

A shopping cart software solution in many ways is a custom made contact management system for products.  However, in my opinion a shopping cart system needs to be more advanced due mainly to the fact that users interact with a shopping cart software,  while a CMS (like a blog) is mostly used for reading articles and information. WebCart's shopping cart gives users many options when it comes to what to display, and provides webmasters with the tools to create products and categories. In this post I will review how these features help an online business.

Categories -  If you're not concerned with usability then you might want to skip this section. Categories are a fundamental part of any website.  This is especially true for eCommerce because many times online customers don't know what they are looking for or prefer to browse though categories.  Either way, WebCart has built a robust category system which allows for 100$ pure flexibility in the way they are displayed.

Products - Obviously every shopping cart software needs products in order to function as a viable eCommerce solution. However, how these products are displayed, the search engine friendliness and a host of other options are what distinguish shopping carts from one another. WebCart's solutions are unique because it allows the webmaster to have full control of how products are displayed on the home, product, detail and search pages.  In addition, every product page is built with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) friendly options. Both of these features allow WebCart to be one of the most flexible shopping cart solutions on the web.

criteria for shopping cart software eCommerce eCommerce advice Free Demo Shopping Cart Software php shopping cart software seo shopping cart software shopping cart shopping cart software web site shopping cartbuy shopping cart software WebCart webcart shopping cart software

Start an Affiliate Program

When starting an affiliate program it’s important to keep in mind that you are essentially recruiting the assistance of other webmasters to promote your business. It’s the most cost effective way of advertising because it will only cost you money if someone buys a product within your eCommerce store.  Generally, affiliates use a number of methods to drive people to your site, mostly through coupons, advertisements, links, referrals, etc. For each referral that becomes an actual sale, you pay the affiliate a percentage of the sale. The more affiliates you accumulate, the more opportunities you have top generate a nice income with out taking risks on advertising.

A rather interesting tactic many shopping cart software owners make use of is encouraging their affiliates to bid against them on their keywords via the pay per click search engines. I know this can sound strange at first, but it really assists you (the merchant) in obtaining a pike in traffic from organic search results. Instead of your being up there next to your competitors, you’re up there next to your affiliates, who are also sending traffic to your Web site!

Many newbies to the eCommerce world get very excited about starting an online business. However, often times eCommerce merchants are disappointed when they realize that no one is shopping at their stores. Before you get worried about your product or the ability to sell it online I usually recommend running though a critera for shopping cart software test to rule out any presentation errors.

Your eCommerce Site:

Does your website take more then 30 seconds to load? Do you have streaming video audio or flash? Most eCommerce websites should not have crazy graphics being presented to the user. The best website is a fast website which is why it’s important that you scale down as much as possible

Product Appearance:

Take a look at some of your products? Do they look Dark or have funky backgrounds? What about the description under your products? Study after study has shown that discriptions are an important tool when it comes to selling online. Within your product description it’s a good idea to be as detailed as possible so that customers can be comfortable purchasing your products.

Finally, The Shopping Cart Software:

Does your shopping cart function like a pro? By professional I mean the ability to present and check out customers super fast?
Give your website the once over and see if you have any places you can improve to make the shopping experience more positive for your potential customers and watch your products sell!

One of the best ways to imagine a hosted shopping cart solution is to think of it as someone else doing all the work for you, and hosting it on a fully managed server.
Therefore, when thinking about the criteria for shopping cart software, a hosted solution can be very appealing to many eCommerce merchants. I put together a few reason merchants would choose a hosted solution instead of stand alone shopping cart software.
1. Technical support is often easier and faster to access with a hosted solution. Even though many stand alone solutions offer tech support, it’s often difficult for engineers to troubleshoot issues on remote servers. Therefore, when a shopping cart is hosted on a developer’s site it provides an extra benefit in case something goes wrong.
2. As a general rule data should always be backed up. This is especially true when it involves eCommerce. Therefore, a hosted solution provides automated backup for all customer data which could save you thousands of dollars in recovery costs if something was to go wrong.

3. Often times a hosted solution will cost less then a standalone. The reason is because  you share server cost with other people on the same server. This is a great idea because unless your business has heavy traffic there is no reason to rent a dedicated server. I often find that many WebCart clients throw away hundreds of dollars a month on servers they don’t need.

4. Non Technical online business owners don’t like to spend hours reading though manuals just to set up an online shop cart. A fully hosted solution eliminates the headache of setup because the shopping cart software is pre-installed for every new user.

If you have ever attempted to register a domain-name, you probably realized pretty fast that the name you originally wanted has already been taken. In order to meet the criteria of shopping cart software, new eCommerce store owners need a catchy, simple and SEO friendly URL to build their online business on.

What do most new eCommerce store owners do to get a domain name? Well, they tend to  choose awfully odd names. They find out “computers.com” is in use and learn that “easycomputers.com” is also taken. Then, the sad reality is that most new eCommerce store owners will end up purchasing a domain name that goes something like “superfast-and-easycomputers.com. What’s wrong with this domain? For Starters it’s too long and it contains a hyphen. The problem with hyphens is the chance customers may forget the hyphen and end up on a competitors site. The key to a good domain name is found in its simplicity and shortness. If at all possible,  it should be short, and spell the way it sounds. Therefore fastcomputers.com is much better than speedycomputerservice.com. Also whenever possible try to get a .com instead of .net, .org .name or whichever other extension is available.

Your domain name can dramatically affect search engine ranking, as a result, if you want to be listed for “computer services,” it would be smart to include the word “computer” in your domain name.. An easy way to do this is by using your brand name alongside a main keyword term. To explain with by an example, JohnsComputers tends to work better than speedycomputerservice.com. If you follow these rules it will save you a search engine marketing nightmare in the future.

buy shopping cart software criteria for shopping cart software eCommerce advice ecommerce shopping cart eCommerce Software php shopping cart software shopping cart software

Many web users are surprised to learn that there is a downsides to podcasting. If you do video or graphics, anyone using a standard audio-only iPod will not be able to take advantage of the imaging you are streaming, so if you’re planning on reaching a large group of people, you might want to think about doing a separate stream for audio and a stream for audio and video.

Popular to contrary belief, not every person uses itunes, (although the criteria was set by them) consequently if you’re going to podcast, consider streaming the content through your website in conjunction with itunes. You may also want to run an email alert system so you can send out a mass email notifying your listeners of new content.

To the best of my knowledge Apple doesn’t charge for serving podcasts in its directory, you are responsible for the bandwidth charges incurred, and any gear you need to generate and edit content. Personally, I look at podcasting as a win-win strategy. It allows you to reach new audiences and also keep current customers updated without then subscribing to an XML feed or sending them new product emails.

Online consumers are always craving helpful information, so as an online store owner you should spend the time devising audio and video that provides useful information that online customers can’t get from reading your product descriptions. For example, if you sell computer equipment, a podcast explaining the proper way install an additional hard drive would be useful to some, and you could always mention or use your product within your podcast.

Online store owners should know that by adding content which is related to your site’s industry improves your clients’ experience as well as your sites search engine ranking. They significant word I am stressing here is related. Content that isn’t somehow related to the products or services you sell online can become potentially harmful because it tends to confuse new clients and gives search engine bots the notion that you’re trying to spam them.
To meet the criteria of relevant content, online shopping cart webmasters should add descriptive paragraphs about each of their products. I usually suggest that my clients be as descriptive as possible, while adding keywords which potential customers might be searching for. Once all descriptions are written it’s a good idea to write a keyword rich “about us” page to let people know what your online store is all about, where your offices are located and how you got started selling online. Often, people look for a personal touch online, especially when they are not sure who is on the other end. Informing your customers about your business can help in making them more comfortable when shopping at your online store.

User friendly eCommerce design is a great way to keep search engine visitors. It’s important that people can find everything they are looking when visiting your eCommerce site. When ever I decide to examine one of my sites I go outside, find total strangers on the street, and offer then a free product or cash to play around with my website. After doing this with about ten “basic” internet users I end up with a wealth of data about what is needed to make an eCommerce site user friendly.

buy shopping cart software criteria for shopping cart software eCommerce advice eCommerce seo ecommerce shopping cart eCommerce Software php shopping cart software shopping cart software

Thus far in this series I have covered WebCart’s technical support, and shopping cart software security, as it compares to osCommerce. I sincerely hope that I have written everything in a clear and easy to understand manner, while sustaining the criteria for shopping cart software. In this post I will describe custom functionality as it relates to the two shopping cart solutions.

Custom Functionality:

osCommerce add-ons

One very impressive feature of osCommerce is its enormous library of user submitted contributions (aka plug-ins) which it offers, free of charge to internet users. Over the years a large collection of contributions had developed, ranging from add-ons like credit modules to templates with exciting features like dynamic dropdowns. Before you get excited, let’s get in to a little more detail on how these contributions function. Navigate to http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions/category,13 and click any module which happens to catch your eye. I personally clicked on the points and rewards module. At first glance the contribute seems interesting, however, at a closer examination I find a long description with no installation information.( the installation instructions are usually found inside the zip) At the point I don’t plan on installing this conribute, but what I will do is show you a very interesting piece of text found near the end of the description.

If you’re a professional web developer then I wish you luck with your installation. However, if you are like the majority of internet users, and don’t know how to create new database tables, or edit templates then the sad reality remains that it will be difficult for you to successfully install the “points and rewards module” or for that matter many other contribute similar to it.

WebCart’s Functionality:

Early on it was clear that WebCart needed to have the ability to extend itself beyond its basic functionality. Let me be clear, before WebCart 11 was released, our research and development department conducted extensive research on what extra features and functionality online merchants would like to see. Our programming team spent countless hours incorporating features like real time shipping, paypal checkout and many other that come standard with WebCart 11.

Despite the effort to include a large collection of add-ons, we understand that many eCommerce merchants might, at some point need custom modules installed. With WebCart’s shopping cart, developing custom functionality has never been more affordable or easier to develop as it’s today. Because WebCart was pre-built to have added functionality, our programmers can build and install custom add-ins for any of our clients for very fair rates.