What is the importance of a good shopping cart for a web business?

[backpocket]

Hey, I am setting up an online web shop and I'd like to know what other people are using for an eCommerce solution. Either for your own hosted site with say Magento or one of the major carts available, or for a subscribed pay as you go service. The reason for my question is that the web site is a critical gateway to users and should meet and the web marketing requirements, but it can also be very expensive for a new business, and take up a lot of time.
Any opinions on this, I’d really appreciate it.

Will Kingwell

[Heidi Price]

It really does depend on what you are selling online - physical products or downloads etc;

And your expected sales volumes.

Some ecomm's are fine just using the paypal system, while others need many payment options.

Any chance of a few more details?


Heidi

[MissieK]

My site is being done by www.multimediart.com.au and I'm using the shopping cart they provide, and love it. It's easy to use & integrates with PayPal, etc. The template can also be customised to my site.

I think investing in a good cart is important, especially as there are so many online shops these days.

Melissa

[Clint.Davis]

I believe its of the most importance.

You want your shopping cart to be slick (highly integrated and easy to use)
and defiantly customised from the default. (to remove things you don't need, or add things you do) - make it flow with your systems etc.

Something where my 70 year old nana could use.
Its the main hub you are doing your transactions through, and the easer you make it the more customers will continue through the check out process.

EG. if you have a 3 step process (you will loose x amount), a 2 step process you loose less.

[Jexley]

This discussion is a popular one across the forums here in Oz, and hotly debated.

For my money, and in the interests of sticking to budget, I tend to vote for things like WordPress as a CMS and WP E-Commerce by Instinct (mob out of NZ) for the Shopping Cart. This stuff is all free and if you can find somebody that knows their WP and PHP, then you can knock up a decent e-commerce solution in under a grand.

Not bad compared to the $15,000 one of my old employers charged, eh?

[No mans land]

There has been some initial paralysis paradigm for the use of digital in branding and commerce.
Businesses started out contracting their grand kids to build a website as a simple solution for web presence. Then came the Wing ding era as people built complex gimmicky sites that took a century to render and confused visitors.
After the realisation that having someone who understands the big picture of userbility and the importance of branding, businesses started to get serious employing people with the skillsets to provide an effective solution.
Too often businesses see their website as a field of dreams, "Build it and they will come". Websites are a portal funnel of your marketing presenting a dynamic catalogue that shouldn't date. Gluing your target market to your catalogue is of up most importance.
Leading to your shopping cart query, userbility relative to your business product and size is of importance. Speed is very important.
An online presence to a brix and clix business model can be quite often be that clients will see what you have to offer especially with physical product then walk in to the shop and purchase the item. This is often unmeasured.
This means less staff dribble, less display space and handling.
The issue with digital commerce is that it is quite not often measured through its true scope. People that purchase online have a tendency to purchase more than they do in the physical world especially lower priced items.
I had a client resistant to implementing a shopping cart. He said I will expose my pricing structure. He received an online $9000 dollar order from France last week after 6 months implementation.
More than he sees sometimes in a days trade. He didn't even have to have the staff explain it all to the client.
A summary to the bigger picture.

[ray_223]

I agree with Jexley.

IMO, the important thing is to get "something" online that can sell to customers
as quickly and cheaply as possible.
From there, improve it as you build your business.

It's not much use spending $20K early on to have a reasonably good website if your original idea wasn't that good to start with.

Once you make some sales you can re-evaluate your shopping cart needs.

I guess it also depends on what your competition are doing.

[Mark Mandel]

There are so many options out there - it can be a bewildering choice but I believe you always get what you pay for.

So for my money it's Kentico, it is robust, tried and tested, easily customised and is very powerful. It is also a content management system that you can use to maintain your website.

There is actually a free license version that you can use for up to ten products.

For US$1500 you get multilingual functionality, can set up different tax rules for different regions and get a top notch CMS into the bargain.

The downside is that you will need a developer to set it up for you.

Good luck

Mark Mandel
www.HandmadeDigital.com.au

[johnsonkyle25]

The shopping cart can scare some of your customers away, if it doesn’t look safe, no one will put their CC information on some cheap online payments system.

[No mans land]

The downside is that you will need a developer to set it up for you.

Its wise to have someone like you Mark set up a cart or CMS and provide a couple of hours training no matter what the solution. If it saves time, produces results then the money demonstrates the benefits.

Its an investment worth its weight and more.

Many Australians are yet to grasp the value in a knowledgeable Internet professional. Many are scared of simply requesting a figure to carry out the work.

Ive seen many a small business whittle away as their competitor acquire the branding presence that consumes their market share as they sit in denial.

There must be more than one person in this forum who can see how a good Internet professional can make their business work from the tips that are posted from time to time.

That presence is probably more so relevant to small business than any other.

Because your worth it.