1. Are there integrated up-sell modules?
The more products you sell the more money you are going to make.  Not every person that makes a purchase will buy something when you offer additional related products.  However, there are many times that you can make additional sales by up-selling to customers.  This feature in some shopping cart software can make you a lot of money.

2. Are there integrated sales reports database?
To eliminate the hassle of having to print off sales reports and enter them into a database, it is extremely convenient when you find shopping cart software that comes with a sales and prospect database.

3. Can it work with multiple websites with no extra charge?
Many online business owners have multiple websites that they promote various products from.  It can be expensive if you have to get separate licenses and separate merchant accounts for each website.  Most carts today run on their own servers, so there is no expensive installation and set up is almost immediate.

4. Does it have a pop-up box builder?
Although annoying, pop-ups can still reel in customers from time to time for your ecommerce business.

5. Are there printable off-line order forms?
In a time where people are becoming more and more knowledgeable online, identity theft is something on many people's minds that shop online.  Because of this, many people are still afraid to disclose their credit card numbers into a website.  This is an extremely important feature to look into with shopping cart software.

6. Does it offer customizable Thank You pages?
The more personal you are the more customers feel you are reaching out specifically to them.

I feel like it's been a while since I gave out any useful shopping cart software marketing tips therefore, today I will write a post related to article marketing. Article marketing is a legitimate, easy to do and low cost method   of obtaining buzz and back links for any eCommerce related website. The problem is many people just don't know how to go about obtaining and / or distributing articles. If done properly article marketing will help your online store gain immense exposure in cyberspace.

The first step in article marketing is getting hold of an article about a specific product or service eCommerce store owners offer. An example would be an e-commerce store selling shoes to the general public. In order to generate buzz about the shoes for sale a store owner would have to get an article written about a specific brand or collection of. Once a decision is made the hard part of article marketing is over because now all you need to do is write about it.

It's vital to write a well written and smooth flowing article; otherwise the article will be rejected. If writing is not something that excites you don't worry, have someone else write it for you. This could be done by placing an ad on http://www.elance.com or http://www.ifreelance.com  and in a short period of time (usually 6 - 24 hours) you will see a couple dozen bids by freelance writers competing on writing your article.

Once the article is written it's time to start milking it for all it's worth. In the next blog post I will provide several options in doing just that.

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If you have an online business today, it is almost essential that you have some kind of shopping cart.  When you begin looking for php shopping cart software, you will quickly recognize that most software is much more than just a shopping cart.  Everything from security to marketing to quick calculations generally is included with ecommerce software.  Here are 5 things good software can help your internet business with.

Marketing - So you have an internet business and php shopping cart software, but what good is it if you don't have any customers?  A lot of ecommerce software is going to come with various marketing methods to help you generate a higher traffic volume.  One common marketing technique you will see is information on affiliate programs.  Some shopping carts are capable of producing incentives as well such as creating coupons and gift certificates

Customer recognition - It is crucial that you recognize previous customers so that you can potentially give them incentives and deals to come back again.  Many php shopping cart software programs have features that allow customers to see their previous purchases.  On top of this, the program will recognize the customer when they come back for a return visit.

Design - If you're a business person and not so much a web designer, you're in luck.  As the internet and technology continues to develop, it is becoming more common to see some ecommerce software come with wizards to help you build your webpage for you.  This way you can acquire a webpage without even knowing html.

In the next post I will discuss two additional things shopping cart software can do. 

As you first begin to look for a PHP shopping cart, you will quickly realize that it can become an intimidating process.  There are a number of shopping carts to choose from, and many of them seem similar to one another.  However, there are certain features that you can focus on to help you decipher a quality PHP shopping cart from one that is in the mix of the crowd.

Most probably the reason you are getting a PHP shopping cart is to make life easier for yourself with customer’s orders and their payments.  Therefore, it is crucial that your shopping cart includes specific money-making features.  The first feature is that it should be able to calculate shipping and tax for USPS, USP and FedEx automatically for you.  It should also be able to customize gift certificates and product coupons for you.

These features should be a no-brainer for your PHP shopping cart, and will make it extremely convenient for you when dealing with customers.  On top of that, your shopping cart should be 100% customizable.  The more you can make your shopping cart look like yours, the better your business will be.

In the next post I will conclude the reaming things to look for. 

It’s no surprise that Google is the key to eCommerce success.  Since Google is by far the more popular search engine a large percentage of your traffic should be coming from it.  When purchasing a shopping cart software an eCommerce merchant needs to follow what we at WebCart call “the criteria for shopping cart software.”  However, there are a few items that are not directly involved with shopping cart software that can help your online business run smooth.  Ok I am going to get to the point. I am talking about spreadsheets and word processors.  As of this post the average retail price for MS Excel and MS Word (if purchased separately) is $440.00. Which may not seem like a whole lot, but if a new company is paying that per license I would image the price would get pretty high.  The good news is that Google is now offering a free spreadsheet and word processor program.

I am not sure if Google is looking to compete with Microsoft, but the new Google Office Tools may replace MS Excel for many day to day functions.  Perhaps the most useful part of Google Docs and Spreadsheets is its ability to share your work online. This can become an extremely valuable feature when it comes to eCommerce merchants because Internet Company’s work on the internet and no matter where an employee may be located documents can be shared securely. In fact uploading .xml spreadsheets is very easy, and once they are online sharing them with employees becomes a breeze.  Based on my experience with Google Docs I have found that they support these file extensions DOC, XLS, RTF and CSV.

However you feel about Google Docs I believe it’s worth it to take some time and play with them. After all what do you have to lose?  I believe that e-Commerce can become an organizational nightmare, and any took which helps online merchants is ok in my book.

Ecommerce shopping has a number of benefits over shopping in person.  It's convenient, allows you to price-compare quick and easy, and provides you with a wide selection of products and brands to choose from.  However, not everything with ecommerce shopping is positive.

From the shopper's standpoint, there is always the fear of credit card fraud, spam and identity theft from your ecommerce shopping cart.  Because of these very reasons, a number of people still avoid purchasing items online.  Is it really worth the risk of losing everything just so you can "conveniently" purchase a jacket or CD?

Another downside to ecommerce shopping is shipping prices.  Some websites do provide free shipping, but many times it is after you have purchased a certain amount.  Many times, when you add up the price of the item plus shipping and tax, your ecommerce shopping cart is more expensive than purchasing it in person.

When you purchase an item in the store, you have the ability to feel the texture of the item, measure it to make sure it accommodates your needs, or try on the clothing to assure yourself it fits.  With ecommerce shopping, you have no guarantee that the item you are purchasing will work.

When most folks imagine Christmas it's hard not to think about the wonderful gifts associated with the holiday. For brick and mortar retail merchants, the thought of Christmas usually brings dollar signs to their eyes. The latest retail industry to profit from Christmas is online merchants who use shopping cart software to advance their online business.  If you’re an offline business owner Christmas is the best time to get started selling online. Unlike many other business’s selling online requires very little start-up and basic marketing to be profitable. I will continue to outline several methods a new business would use to increase sales though out the next few posts.

Reliable eCommerce Hosting – Take a moment and think about the following scenario: You have just spent bunch of money on purchasing a shopping cart solution, you paid developers to customize it, and on top of it all spent a few thousand dollars on a creative eCommerce friendly website design. The site you have poured your heart and soul into is finally live and ready to make you money. One problem, your hosting company is experiencing technical difficulties, and not only are visitors getting error messages, but search engine spiders can run though your site. In a period of twenty four hours you have potentially lost hundreds if not thousands of dollars in business not to mention the damage done with regards to search engine ranking. This is why I strongly recommend researching a potential hosting provider to make sure they committed to a 99.9999% uptime.

In the next eCommerce post I will dive in to some of the great off page marketing techniques I use to promote an online business so please stay tuned.

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Ever head the saying “no two people are alike?” If you’re like most people then I am sure you have come across that saying at least once in your life.  I firmly believe that no two shopping carts are alike because every store has its own unique “signature” and customization built in to offer online customers a higher level of service and convince.WebCart was engineered to be completely customizable from the top down. Our developers decided first the start to make WebCart a universal platform with functionality that supports a full eCommerce warehouse to a guy selling eBooks out of his basement. In virtually any industry WebCart has been proven to function.

The reason I mentioned selling eBooks online is because we have just done an installation for a woman who wants to sell eBooks on web design. In years past she has been using services like clickbank to facilitate her product. With WebCart 11 she no longer has to pay high commissions to third parties because her software platform allows her to market, manage and accept credit cards all though one simple interface. This is just one of the many examples of how good shopping cart software can help a business succeed online.

Gift Certificates always make great gifts because it allows for the flexibility of purchasing anything inside of the store.  Before the internet was established as a competitive market place for products, gift certificates where almost used exclusively by large retail corporations. The reason many small business owners were unable to use a gift certificate program was because the fraud was very high, and for a small business to invest in a complex computer system didn't make business sense.

With the explosion of the internet and eCommerce small and medium size business are able to harness the same gift certificate power that the big boys enjoyed without paying an arm and a leg for it. In fact, most shopping cart software solutions should come pre-built with some sort of  GC (gift certificate) solution.  WebCart is defiantly no exception! In fact the GC system for WebCart comes with a wealth of features that are not likely to be found on other shopping cart software solutions.

For starters. A webmaster can simply log in to the WebCart backend and create a simple GC option which online customers can purchase. The cool thing about this feature is that it basically manages itself. The system knows how many it sold, and once the GC is redeemed it becomes void.  In addition, WebCart is also capable of generating custom GC for specific industries. Let me explain what I mean. Let's say you sign a deal with the local bookshop to provide all of its employees with GC for Christmas. All you would have to do is create a custom batch of GC though WebCart and the job is done for you.

Let me ask you a question: What good is shopping cart software if you are not able to completely configure personalized options? Well the simple answer is, not very good. Part of what makes a shopping cart solution so popular is its ability to mold in to almost any eCommerce industry. The area of configuration remains in the hands of the shopping cart software developers.  For every eCommerce solution the options are different and in some cases absolutely unique. This brings me to my next point of what makes the WebCart configuration panel so unique? For starters it's very easy to use, and that is not mentioning the fact that almost every option imaginable is configurable. Let's take a look under the hood.

 

The WebCart Configuration interface is very unique. Our developers didn't just copy the look from osCommerce like my other eCommerce solutions do, but rather created an entire new system. Within the configuration page you will find:

Shipping fees (shipping and handling) - Here you can specify how much to charge for shipping and handling in addition you are able to
specify different parameters for things like weight, price and shipping method.

Packaging - This option allows you to define custom packages which could be used when customers are purchasing items.

General - This area is all about your information like email. Address etc. The information here is vital because it will be used by your shopping cart software to send emails and related information.

Inventory - Active and define options for the inventory manger which comes pre-built with WebCart 11

Messages - I love this option because it lets you customize the error messages you customers get. For example: A webmaster has the option of inserting a custom message if the password or user name doesn't match. Another example could be an invalid gift certificate could get a custom error message without breaking in to the code.

Payments - Here Webmasters are able to configure their authorize.net, VeriSign and / or PayPal account.

Taxes - The taxes page allows you to add custom tax information for specific states.

User Controls - Here you can modify the user name and password for logging in to your WebCart shopping cart software's back end.

Contact - This page allows you to create custom contact forms which can be customized for different areas of your eCommerce website.