How to identify a Good Shopping Cart Program

Looking for a shopping cart program is hard because there are so many out there. You must know what you want out of it before you even start to look. If you think about it, shopping for a shopping cart is just like shopping for a car or coat. You must know what you want ahead of time, including color, style, and price. The same with a shopping cart. You must know the features you want out of the cart. Here are some features you need to look for:

 

·        Shopping cart itself: In order to know what shopping cart to get, a good shopping cart will have the ability to do the following:

o       Accept real-time payments by credit card or PayPal. In many situations, people prefer to use PayPal because it is easy and convenient.

o       Ability to prevent fraud. A good shopping cart program will help you prevent fraud by taking security measures such as Credit Card Address Verification System (AVS), and four-digit Credit Card Security Codes.

o       Memory. The shopping cart should be able to remember what each customer purchased and payment information so when the customer returns, they don’t have to remember what they purchased before. And they don’t have to re-enter their credit card information again. This makes it easier for returning customers to check out faster.

·        Marketing tools: With a good shopping cart program you should be able to:

o       Increase sales. This can be done by offering coupons for the next visit. So when the customer returns, they get a discount automatically when they purchase again.

o       Backend sales. Determine what product you want to sell after the initial sale has taken place. This will increase your sales and provide more revenue. You can judge this based on the customer’s past product purchases.

o       Creation of customer record automatically. A good shopping cart program will automatically create a customer record after the customer purchases something from you for the first time. The data would include the customer’s name, address, payment information, and past buying habits.

·        Shipping: There is one feature that can’t be ignored. That is shipping. If you have no way to adjust for shipping, you could overcharge some of your customers. Here is what a good shopping cart program will do:

o       Sends customers to review page. After the customer submits his order he should be taken to a review page where he can look at his order and review for accuracy. He can change the shipping method on this page.

o       Customers see real-time shipping rates. If the shopping cart is a good one, the buyer can see actual shipping rates by shippers such as UPS and FedEx.

·        Pricing: A good shopping cart program should have the ability to make choices regarding pricing. Here are some things good shopping carts will do regarding pricing:

o       Use an advanced pricing function. This way they can support international customers. This way when someone comes to your site from Japan, they will know the cost of the product in their currency by selecting it in a drop-down box.

o       Set different price levels. One good advantage of a shopping cart program is to set prices for different customers at different levels. For example, let’s say you promise to give a discount to only senior citizens. This way you can program the shopping cart to alter the price after the user gives his or her age.

o       Offer price discounts. Suppose someone wanted to buy a certain product in bulk rate. The right shopping cart would handle this with no problem.