E-Commerce Guide

Shopping cart software is the program or software used in e-shops to facilitate the online transactions and assist customers in purchasing products and goods online. A shopping cart is also known as a shopping basket. Choosing the right shopping cart software can be a daunting task for a website owner who is not familiar with these kinds of programs. However here are some important tips and hints that you can check and make sure when trying to select the right program for your store.

First of all you need to know what this software does. It allows the customers of an online shop to choose the items and place them in their cart. Once the customer chooses to checkout, the software calculates the total amount of the order, summing up all the products chosen, and adding the handling and shipping costs. The software is pre-programmed to calculate the additional fees automatically upon each checkout. In some cases, when taxes are required, the software can also calculate them and add them to total sum, showing the customer what they need to pay. After that, the payment takes place, according to the method chosen by the customer.

The right e-commerce software can determine the success of an online business. If it is too complicated, too slow and too incomprehensible, the customer is most likely to disrupt the process and give up on the purchase, looking for something else. A good and solid e-commerce shopping cart will ensure the customers that they do business in a safe and secure environment. The shop owner can also benefit from good ecommerce software, as it should provide full support and useful features regarding the clients and online shoppers.

A well appointed e-commerce software should feature these characteristics:

Ease of handling : You cannot buy and use an e-commerce software that makes your life difficult. The software should be easy for both the vendor and the customer.

Easy setup: Buying e-commerce software that is hard to setup or update is not recommended, because this can turn your software in to something completely useless soon enough.

Features: The top notch e-commerce software available today should offer a vast array of features, ranging from the basic shopping cart to some more developed and evolved characteristics, such as an accounting option and an inventory function. Needless to say, a well packed software that is easy to use, is the more desirable and useful program you can use for your e-shop.

Technical support: The software should provide full technical support, based on menus, manuals, guides, FAQs and other methods. It should also allow a quick connection to the manufacturer in order to get prompt and useful support and solutions.