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A shopping cart is actually a piece of software that works on your ecommerce site. We all have used them and some are better than others. The software allows customers to take items they are interested in and pay for them. The beauty of the whole system is on the back end. The back end means in the background where the administration is done. Good shopping carts allow more than helping a customer pay for things. They organize your items by item codes, track your inventory, associate photos with items, and can be a data base.
Shopping cart software is made my many different companies and have a variety of fees associated with them. Some allow you to buy the software and use it any way you like. Others allow you to “rent” the software and charge you a monthly fee for that service. This generally runs around $50 a month which can add up after a while. Some web providers include the shopping cart with their service, Yahoo stores is a good example of this. They charge $40 per month but you also get the entire store interface along with that. Some carts are very easy to use and some are very difficult to learn. Its important to pick a cart that will allow you to grow in the future. You do not want to pick one that will limit you 6 months down the road.
X-cart makes an excellent shopping cart software that you can buy outright and use. This software allows you to actually build a website around the shopping cart. This feature is very slick and looks very professional. You will see it used on several well known shopping sites. It can also be a little difficult to learn, we always recommend buying the books that can help you learn the software. There are also well known tutorials out there that help you get over learning curves. |
