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.

The conclusion of  A Few Reasons Not To Use osCommerce For Shopping Cart Software I will give three additional reasons why e-commerce store owners should stay clear of osCommerce. 

Password protection
One of the most frustrating parts to osCommerce is that there is no inbuilt ways to password protect the administration area.  While this can easily be corrected by finding information of password protection on the oCommerce site, it is frustrating that this does not come with the default installation.

Attribute system
If your business relies a great deal on attributes, osCommerce is probably not the cart system for you.  osCommerce has many limitations to their attribute system including there being no SKU identifiers and no stock control.  Some of the limitations can be modified and upgraded, but it is recommended that you select a different cart system if you depend on a quality reliable attribute system.

Large product catalogs
The last downfall worth mentioning of osCommerce is its limitations with large product catalogs.  When dealing with large product catalogs of over a hundred, modules for the input/management of data is required.  If the product catalog is even larger than a couple hundred, there are several other modifications that must be taken care of.

osCommerce is a decent open source based online shop, but there are several downfalls that should be considered prior to getting into it.  Ecommerce shopping requires a very reliable shopping cart system and open source based system.  While osCommerce has some great things to offer, there are many things that it lacks that other systems make up for.

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.

Have you ever visited a website and saw the all too familiar message “this page is under construction” or something like “this section will be available soon”? Unfortunately, coming soon pages are a fact of eCommerce life. Webmasters tend to use these pages for two big reasons. One, these categories or pages establish a method in which a shopping cart software owner can market a new idea which might still be in development.  One company who uses such a method is the magazine subscription company usubscribe.com. On their website they have a tab for “single copy and back issue magazines’ to the surprise of many usubscribe.com does not sell single issues, but instead offers a message that says

“Thank you for clicking!We are currently researching what types of products our users are interested in. By clicking on the link that brought you to this page you have effectively cast a vote in favor of this section. Nothing is more important to us then user feedback. If you would like to make an addional comments or suggestions about our site please use the form below.”

This is a great way of doing a little bit of market research to find out if a new product or service is desirable by your customers. The second reason many webmasters use under construction pages is to start the SEO ball rolling. By inserting specific keywords in to your new page the search engines will begin to know that you are adding a new section. Once the new product or service launches the keyword  process will become a lot easier because Google would have already indexed your page. 

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.

Previously I wrote about how eCommerce design differs from any other design style, and by incorporating the right look a merchant’s conversion rates will sky rocket.  In this post I will discuss other high impact areas like affiliate marketing, promotional and marketing campaigns and many other areas that effect your shopping cart software conversion.

Good Old Affiliate Marketing

A successful affiliate marketing strategy can be an eCommerce store owner’s best friend. It’s a perfect situation for a merchant because it offers free exposure; commission based advertising and free one way links. Having an affiliate program allows websites to advertise without spending any money.

Setting up an affiliate program is easy; first you would need shopping cart software which supports affiliates. If you are using osCommerce then you have to install an additional module. WebCart on the other hand come with a pre-built affiliate program which is ready to go out of the box.  Second, you need to find people who will put up your store banners on their website. This in its true form is pure marketing, and I am not going to get in to the specifics, but a simple search in Google for “affiliate marketing tutorials” will bring up a wealth of information. 

Once an affiliate program is in full swing many eCommerce merchants relax, and subsequently don’t take the time to keep in touch with their affiliates.  This creates lost business and poor business relationships with the people who are helping your eCommerce business succeed. Here is what you should do to keep your affiliates happy.

1. Send out a newsletter twice a month
2. Visit your affiliate’s sites and call them once every few months to talk about how their business is going.
3. Offer special commission and coupons to your affiliates so they market your products more aggressively.
4. Private Label your site for each affiliate so that you can offer a level of personalization. (this option is available in WebCart)

There is no question that using a state-of-the-art shopping cart software can boost eCommerce conversion. Nevertheless, it’s not the end all to achieving absolute eCommerce success.  Many other factors play in to an online visitor’s decision to stick around. In this post I will shy away from writing about the actual benefits of a shopping cart solution, and instead focus on things like usability, design and content.

The design of an eCommerce website is perhaps the most misunderstood area of shopping cart development. For reasons unknown to me,   web designers have a tough time grasping the concept of designing a site that is free from flash and heavy graphics. Shopping cart software web design is different from almost any other design style because it’s not meant to impress or “shock” the visitor, but rather provide to act as an intuitive and easy to use website which will perform a service (like buying a product) without having to watch animations or hear funky imbedded audio clips.

A great design example is amazon.com on which is the undisputed eCommerce king when it comes to conversion and traffic. To compare http://www.amazon.com/  to http://www.blitzagency.com/ would be unrealistic. Clearly, Blitz Age has had some amazing flash work done which gives it a beautiful look, but the look they use would never convert well for a site like Amazon because when a customer wants to make a purchase, they usually don’t want to be bombarded with movies and extras.

In the next post I will write about usability and content.

When shopping online, shoppers usually know that an extra shipping and handling surcharge will be added to their final price.  I don’t know about you, but to me there is nothing worse than finally finding a product I have been searching for online, check out and find out that the shipping fees are ridiculously high.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have shopping cart software that would allow customers to calculate the full shipping and handling fees before they checked out? Call it a marvel, but WebCart 11 has a pre-built shipping calculator that is easy to setup and use.

All a customer would have to do is click a link that says “calculate shipping and handling” and type in their zip code. WebCart will automatically begin to calculate the shipping distance and reference FedEx, UPS, or USPS.

The last few posts I discussed the cool features of WebCart’s Shopping Cart Software. I decided to take a little break, and talk about ways eCommerce merchants can maximize their profits from their shopping cart software. Obviously, I don’t have all the answers, but I can provide some amazing tips that can help you get started right out of the box.

Add Audio Instructions – Many times customers want to make a purchase on your website, but don’t have the faintest idea of how to fill out a checkout page. It’s easy to assume this day in age that everyone knows how to make a purchase online, but let me reassure you that many people don’t know how to use a computer this is especially true with older folks who never used a computer before. Therefore, it’s important to give very clear instruction. One way to do this is my providing an audio clip explaining how to make a purchase.

Guarantee – Most online shoppers are a little skeptical about purchasing items from the web. Therefore, it’s important to make your customers feel comfortable about making a purchase from your eCommerce web site.  One way to do this is by offering a guarantee that goes beyond what anyone else is offering. Think of it this way if your product is solid you will have very few returns, but your revenue will increase.

WebCart’s shopping cart software comes pre-built with hundreds of features. In previous blog posts I discussed many of these features. However, in the next series of posts I plan to really get down to the nuts and bolts of how each feature functions. In addition I will be posting screen shots of different features to give you (my readers) a new level of understanding when it comes to the functionality and usability of WebCart’s shopping cart software.

Often times when dealing with shopping cart software the learning curve is so difficult that many non technical users just give up. The challenge many eCommerce solution providers is organizing the flood of features which are available to the merchant. However, even a well organized backend still causes confusion because the merchant may not remember in what category the feature they want is located. To combat this issue WebCart created a “favorites” feature which allows the Webmaster to simply add a feature / page to their favorites and in a sense creating a custom set of categories.

By incorporating simple, yet useful usability features in to WebCart we hope to take the management of maintaining an online store away from expensive professionals and leave it in the hands of the small business owner.

criteria for shopping cart software easy to use shopping cart software php shopping cart software shopping cart software webcart shopping cart software