Shopping Carts For The Faint Of Heart
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THE WINNING ADVANTAGE eZINE
Friday, April 29, 2005
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Home-based Internet Marketing Business Success.
Published by Earl Savage
ES World Marketing
http://www.esworldmarketing.com/blog/ezine/
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In This Issue:
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1. Message from the Editor
2. Feature Article - "Shopping Carts For The Faint Of Heart"
by T. O' Donnell
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Dear Reader,
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The Winning AdVantage eZine
winning@esworldmarketing.com
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=>> Feature Article
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Shopping Carts For The Faint Of Heart
by T. O' Donnell
The chief criteria for judging an ecommerce shopping cart
are the number of credit card processors and shipping
services it supports, and the number of people that support
*it*.
Why? Because credit card processors and shipping services
mutate all the time. Your cart will require updating. Which
service works today may go out of business tomorrow, and
leave you with the orders piling up.
Other important criteria are how easy it is to set up, and
add products, and how easy it is for the customer to use.
When you set up your shop test it using a wide variety of
the oldest and buggiest browsers you can find. If your web
store works under them you're home and dry.
Here are the cheapest, simplest, and most effective carts
I've found:
1. Oscommerce (free) - http://www.oscommerce.com
A very good, full-featured, cart. Uses Php and MySQL. Not
easy to set up for a 'newbie'. Cookies are used to track the
order. If you have PhpMyAdmin installed in your web account,
it's easier. Requires a customer to register before they can
make a purchase. Supports a wide range of credit-card
processors and shipping services.
Bad point: Technical support is limited to the Oscommerce
forums, which are not helpful to newbies.
Also, it may be a while before an update is available to a
payment module. These are done by unpaid enthusiasts.
Good point: Oscommerce is supported by thousands of unpaid
enthusiasts; this means updates do eventually arrive, and
it's less likely to go out of business, unlike a commercial
cart.
2. X-Cart (commercial) - http://www.x-cart.com
Similar to Oscommerce. Requires a customer to register
before they can make a purchase. Lots of features and
add-ons. Supports a wide range of credit-card processors and
shipping services.
Has an affiliate program add-on, and lets others sell
products though your cart.
3. Dansie Cart (commercial) - http://www.dansie.net
A well specified cart. Supports a wide range of credit-card
processors and shipping services.
Bad point: Apparently the Perl code is obscured, to make it
harder to copy, which is annoying if you want to customise
it.
3. Interchange (free) - http://www.icdevgroup.org
A version of the old Akopia / Minivend carts. Complex
product with lots of files and a lot of setting up to do. A
complete solution, and includes the option of third party
credit-card real-time order processing. Encrypts orders.
4. Agora (free) - http://www.agoracart.com
A Web-Store/Commerce.cgi hybrid.
5. The Commission Cart (commercial) -
http://www.siteinteractive.com
A CGI-based shopping cart which also functions as an
affiliate program. Other webmasters earn commissions by
signing up and linking to your site.
6. ShopFactory (commercial) - http://www.shopfactory.Com
Has a nice little wizard-based set-up. If you have a lot of
items in your shop, this is an option worth checking out.
This is a very valuable feature. A person who's set up CGI
scripts before will get the most out of this. Supports a
wide range of credit-card processors and shipping services.
Bad points: It's ugly, awkward, and uses JavaScript too
much.
7. WebGenie Shopping Cart Pro (commercial) -
http://www.webgenie.com
A simple, wizard-based option. Uses Javascript a bit, but
the main work is done by CGI scripts. It saves the credit
card information on your server.
It's for someone who hasn't set up a CGI script before.
Expensive for what you get, but it works. Option to buy it
on hire-purchase.
8. Actinic Catalog (commercial) - http://www.actinic.co.uk
Most suitable if you have lots of items in your store. It's
a 'wizard'-based PC program; you type in your information,
and the program sets up the store.
You should set up the default store as-is, then customise it
later. Supports a wide range of credit-card processors and
shipping services. A little complicated for an internet
newbie; there's quite a lot in it.
9. Order Maven (commercial) - http://www.briggsoft.com
A clever little program. It's a standalone Windows
executable, which the customer downloads. The customer
starts it up, chooses the product, enters their details, and
sends off their order like an email, with the credit card
details encrypted. It costs $29.00 at the time of writing.
No secure server or order page needed; it's all done on the
customer's PC at their leisure.
You need to customise it. Make sure you write your mail
server URL into the code. For the customer, the order module
is a 160kb download.
NOTE: Try to avoid carts that use cookies and javascript
only, or that tie you into only one secure server and
credit-card processor.
Also avoid web-based services that you lease only. They can
go out of business, leaving you flat.
Having read the above you should have eliminated quite a few
programs from your shopping list. They either won't work
properly with all browsers, or they won't encrypt your
order, or they want to tie you into their manufacturers'
secure order system at $40+ per month.
Another option is to get a bespoke system set up for you by
a specialist company. These cost thousands of dollars.
Aren't you glad you read this far?
About the author: T. O' Donnell
(http://www.tigertom.com/web-designer-london.shtml) is an
ecommerce and web site design consultant in London, UK.
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That's all for this time - thanks for reading!
To contact us, winning@esworldmarketing.com
Your success is our success!
(c) 2001-2005 ES World Marketing
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=>> OUR MISSION
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We, at The Winning AdVantage, are devoted to helping our subscribers
develop their marketing skills and promote their home-based Internet
marketing businesses and affiliate opportunities. This publication
features tips, techniques and how-to articles on such topics as ad copy
writing, finding good FRËË or inexpensive places to post ads, finding the
best available resources, and other issues related to making money on
the Internet. The Winning AdVantage eZine is dedicated to the
enhancement of your home-based Internet marketing business success.
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