Shopping Cart Software Reviews
Selecting shopping cart software is an important step of building an online store. There are literally 100's of options so I'm going to break a few of the more popular options. Ultimately your choice will be based on what capabilities you need and how much website building knowledge you have.
Just so you're informed, in addition to shopping cart software there will possibly be a few more things you need to build an online store. Those things are a payment processor, an SSL and a dedicated IP address. If you don't plan on accepting credit cards right away you can avoid a few of of these things.
Some Top Shopping Cart Providers
Quick Shopping Cart
If you're interested in getting a shopping cart online quickly with little to no HTML knowledge, Quick Shopping Cart is for you. This shopping cart software makes it easy to build an online store in just a couple of hours!
Quick shopping cart is setup based on the number of products that you want to sell. Ultimately as your product line grows you can upgrade but it's a great way to get an online store quickly. The shopping cart software comes with the web hosting so there is no need for that additional cost either.
The great thing is that it's integrated with popular features such as eBay so you can easily list your products on eBay along with Froogle, Google's shopping directory. It's also integrated with QuickBooks so that you can keep records of your books. In addition to these features you can accept credit cards or simply use Pay Pal to accept payments.
In just a few easy steps you can move through the easy-to-use wizard; customize the look from 100's of professional templates and them simply add your own product photos and images. The great thing is that no programming experience is required at all.
Read more on Quick Shopping Cart.
osCommerce Shopping Cart Software
osCommerce is an open-source shopping cart which means that if you know how to do some programming that you can actually add features that it currently doesn't offer.
osCommerce comes free with most web hosting plans so it's definitely an affordable option and the basic version comes with most of the tools you'll need when building an online store. Some of those features are shipping integration such as UPS, USPS and Fed Ex. In addition to this you can accept most payment methods such as Pay Pal or a true merchant account to accept credit cards online.
Now there are certain disadvantages to osCommerce that I need to cover so that you don't discover them after putting in too much time. The basic look of the osCommerce storefront is horrible at best. You can view a sample of a basic layout by clicking here. With that said, you can customize the look of the shopping cart to look a bit more like this but it requires a ton of integration.
Click here for a hosting company that I recommend that comes with osCommerce
Ecommerce Templates Shopping Cart Software
EcommerceTemplates.com is by far and away my shopping cart of choice. Not necessarily for it's ease of use or features but for it's search engine optimization capabilities. I can find a work around to some of it's deficiencies but it more than makes up for it with it's flexibility.
One website that I use it on is BBQFans.com. Feel free to take a look through the site and view how easy it is to navigate. If you're interested search for some terms related to 'steak branding irons' and you'll find that my site ranks well.
Now that I've expressed my love for this shopping cart let me list it's disadvantages. As you can see from the choice of templates that you have to choose from that there will be work involved in customizing the website.
Also, there isn't an easy area to configure certain features of the website. You'll need some programming knowledge to get this done. There is an admin page that works great for configuring your site, adding products, fulfilling orders, etc though.
The bottom line is that if you're willing to learn some HTML and spend some time learning the ins and outs of the shopping cart software I strongly recommend using EcommerceTemplates.com. Just to stress the point, you're really going to have to spend some time with this software but it's really worth it in regards to your search engine optimization flexibility and ultimately your search engine rankings.
ProStores Shopping Cart Software
ProStores.com is owned by eBay so the first advantage is it's integration with eBay. It's easy to list any of the products on your website into eBay by simply opening an eBay store. A nice feature is that you can accept payments directly on your website from sales that you get on eBay.
ProStores is another online website builder but it comes with some advanced features that you won't find with other shopping cart software. Things like the capability to setup pricing tiers is available if you happen to sell stuff wholesale or if you drop ship items for people.
You'll find that you're given a variety of website templates to choose from so the actual web design time is minimized. I had used ProStores at one point and found that their SEO capabilities were pretty good too.
If you're interested in test driving ProStores shopping cart software they offer a free 30 day trial. Plus they are tier based so if you're just starting out and have a few products you can start with their smallest plan and upgrade as you find the need. Lastly, they don't charge a setup fee that you find with some online shopping cart software providers.
Learn more about ProStores.com.
Site Sell Ecommerce Solutions
Site Sell has quickly become one of the top eCommerce solutions for new website builders & experienced alike. The plans are built with new webmasters in mind which may be ideal for you. Plus they've integrated solutions for marketing your website once you've built it.
They have put together the tools for building your site, marketing it and the tools to manage your website once it's online. This is one product that I mention on this website that I haven't used but I've heard rave reviews about SiteSell so I figured I'd mention it to you so that you have the opportunity to look into it.
They have taken the time to show the great results of their customers and have built an extremely in depth site explaining how they'll make your site successful. Rather than going on and on I'd just suggest viewing the Site Sell website so that you can see for yourself.
Learn more about Site Sell.
Webmaster Forum
I invite you to visit my webmaster forum, it's a great place to discuss websites and ask questions to fellow webmasters regarding topics that you may still have questions on.