Have you ever visited an eCommerce website, saw a product that your friend, family member or coworker would totally enjoy? I am sure the majority of online shoppers have had such an experience, which is why many online merchants have a “send this product to a friend� feature. I can’t speak for every shopping carts solution, but I do have previous experience with osCommerce and I can tell you that although it does comes with a “tell a friend� feature, it’s virtually impossible to customize the email message or the look of the box with out an additional module. In fact, the only part a webmaster is able control is its visibility, which can be enabled or disabled.

WebCart makes it easier for webmasters to customize the look and text of the “send to a friend� dialog box. The process is fairly simple. Once an eCommerce store owner decides to utilize this feature, they would simply log on to the backend of their shopping cart system. Then, Select the marketing icon > Tell a friend config > this will bring up a screen which allows webmasters to edit and apply options to the “tell a friend� dialog box.  Here is where the magic takes place. With a few strokes of the keyboard users are able to create a new custom message which will be the default once a user selects it. Furthermore, the “tell a friend� config page has another very important option which allows the customer who is sending the product to include a personal custom message.

Overall, the “tell a friend� addition might not be seen as a huge deal. However, it’s vital for WebCart to exceed the criteria for shopping cart software, and every feature becomes important when a level of criteria is set.

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.

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.

Over the past few years, osCommerce has become an extremely popular choice for online business’s looking for a shopping cart solution. To those who love free (open source) software, osCommerce is and has been a dream come true. Given the choice, uneducated eCommerce store owners will usually opt for a free cart vs. one which  will cost money.
I personally, don’t believe that osCommerce has a faulty product, and my aim is not to convince anyone of this. However, I do want to outline a few specific differences between WebCart and osCommerce, and let you the consumer decides. .

Tech Support - For Many beginners technical support is critical for setting up a presence on the web. With osCommerce there is no phone or email support. The only method of installing their shopping cart is by reading the online documention, and posting questions of the forum. Look, don’t take my word for it visit http://www.oscommerce.info/docs/english/c_installation_and_upgrades.html and take a look for your self.

WebCart on the other hand makes the shopping cart . In fact we don’t even have installation documentation because we install WebCart for you. After talking to clients who were previous users of osCommerce, I can tell you that most of them, who were intermediate web users, had an extremely difficult time going through the installation documentation. A simple Google search for “osCommerce installation help” will produce a wealth of websites trying to sell you an installion service.

Over the next few posts I will continue to compare the features of  osCommerce and WebCart so please stay tuned.

To maximize online sales many eCommerce merchants offer a bundle of two or more products at a discounted rate. The option to offer bundle packaging to consumers is usually a win win situation for both the online retailer and the consumer who is making the purchase. Many shopping cart solutions offer bundle feature, but often times, it’s difficult to set up, and many online webmasters don’t realize what a boost bundling products together can give them.

MagazinePromotion.com, an online magazine subscription super store has been offering its customers a bundle of magazines option, for the past two years. The model is fairly simple, if a customer wants to purchase maxim magazine then they are likely to be interested in other men’s style magazines like FHM or Stuff which they can get together for a discounted rate.

Another example of a big online retailer using a bundle system is, Amazon.com. The feature is known as “better together” where amazon recommends a book which is simpler in subject and price to one that you are browsing. This sort of cross selling is very beneficial for online retailers because it offers a way to showcase products that consumers may not yet know about.

WebCart’s criteria for shopping cart software has lead to a re-engineered bundle system that combines the power of something similar to amazon’s “better together” feature with the ease of use that WebCart has become famous for.

What is the best way to keep online customers updated about special offers? I would personally suggest an RSS feed with new products and sale items, but since many online consumers don’t have or use RSS readers, the next best option would be a newsletter. Sounds simple enough, right? The sad reality is that it may sound like an easy task, but most online store owners don’t know where to begin. Part of the frustration comes from a lack of software which incorporates a robust online shopping  cart with a strong newsletter feature.

WebCart has taken the newsletter feature in to a new dimension which increases the criteria for shopping cart software worldwide. What one person finds interesting, might be thought of as mind-numbing by someone else. Therefore, WebCart has engineered a shopping cart newsletter tool which can be specific to a master category. Let me explain what I mean.

Robyn sells household accessories online. Her online store includes antique, midrange, and high end accessories which are available to the public. If Robyn were to generate a general newsletter it would not appeal to all her clients. The antique devotee does not necessarily want to read about upscale home accessory. While, Robyn’s mid range clients can’t afford her antique or high end accessories, and would rather not read about it. How can Robyn make everyone happy? She could use WebCart’s newsletter tool to offer special deals per master categories which she can designate. By doing this, three unique newsletters are able to be emailed to her customers.

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.

In the final series of posts about WebCart’s Wizard, I will try to give a brief overview of some of the effortless tools we have added to WebCart to make the webmasters life easier. The way I look at it is simple, you’re paying for a shopping cart solution with your hard earned cash The reason you are paying for it is because you don’t want to do it your self. What good is a shopping cart if you have to spend hundreds of dollars buying mods, or worse paying someone to configure your cart once you purchased it?

Let’s See What the criteria for shopping cart software is all about

Step 6
Configuration:
This by far is the easiest to use module. You know how with osCommerce, if you don’t want to edit your header file you could just upload a logo with the filename logo.gif  images directory and by doing so you will override the default osCommerce logo. If you didn’t know that now you know how to change your logo with OS commerce. With WebCart it becomes even simpler because all you have to do is click on step 6 and upload your logo. That’s it no ftp or editing everything you need is inside your wizard.

Step 7
Marketing:
What good is your store if you don’t have a marketing plan? The good news is developers of WebCart were very conscious about having marking become an integral park of the cart  therefore, with every version of WebCart 11 users can utilize the affiliates, discounts, and gift certificate module to market their online stores. Step 7 in the wizard makes marketing even easier because it lays everything out in a simple and straight forward way making what used to take hours, now take only 10 min.

Step 8
Bulk Upload:
Here is a really nifty tool I developed for products and categories. Say for example, you have thousands of different products available for sale. With osCommerce you have to manually type in each product and each category. However, with the new WebCart wizard, the entire process of uploading your products and categories, should take less then 10 min.

Step 9   
Email Confirmation Set Up:
The final step of the wizard is to write every possible email you might want to send your customers. The easy intuitive interface of step 9 makes writing your email a breeze and smart tags (which I will explain in a later post) make customization easy, so that all your emails are personalized to every user.

We added a 3rd cool part of the express checkout feature which is to enable the store owner to turn it on or off at leisure. So customers who don’t want to enable express checkout can just treat each order as if they are a new online consumer and they do not have to save any of the information in a customer account. The point is giving each customer absolute control and flexibility to buy online the way they want to buy.

Here are two ways we envision customers using the speedy Checkout feature of the WebCart shopping cart software: They can add each item individually to their cart until they are ready to checkout and then click the Checkout button from anywhere in the site. As well, they can just go to a product page and click the Buy it now link which will automatically add the item to their cart and take them to the checkout page where they can login and continue to checkout very quickly. The final page in either method is a confirmation to review or edit your order. To place the order, they simply click the Place Your Order button. At this point, they have completed an online purchase.

All in all, developing this fast checkout feature for WebCart was a good lesson in planning both from a technical perspective and a marketing perspective.

On hand inventory is limited to each shopping cart owners set capacity. Once stock runs out more has to be ordered, and customers tend to suffer because their shipment gets delayed or worse cancelled. In order to address this issue WebCart has introduced a new inventory manager which is capable of managing complete stock of inventory, and when the set numbers of items have been purchased then the store owner has the option to give customers a choice of placing a back order before they add an item to their cart.

Sam K, the proud owner of Hats Wholesale  keeps hundreds of hats in his warehouse, and when an order is placed on the web the caps are shipped from his warehouse to his customers. Stanly doesn’t usually run out and when he sees stock is going to be low he usually orders some more.

When the Miami heats became NBA champions hatwholesales.com sold 2000 Miami heat caps within 24 hours with more orders coming in by the minute. Since Stanley was using his webcart stock check module, his shopping cart displayed a special message to his customers about a dely in shipping after the 2000 were sold. Through this WebCart module customers were given a heads up about possible shipping delays all while Stanly slept the night away.