Of course, the goal of all e-commerce websites is to make a profit, and yet selling more products or services is not the only way you will ensure a better margin
Published on February 16, 2010by Harvey Raybould
LONDON, ENGLAND
Paid shopping carts can be very costly. Most require a onetime fee, making start up costs high. Other paid carts charge by the month, some even take a small transaction fee as well, and, surprisingly, to the uninitiated, most paid carts are not nearly as customizable as free 'open source' systems.
Today, there are many, free e-commerce shopping carts, which can help you reduce your initial or monthly outgoings. Free systems can be used on any website without sacrificing your site's appearance or functionality. Familiarity with HTML or CSS will increase the options available, but someone with no HTML skills can still utilize a number of free shopping carts.
Paypal and other add-to-cart buttons
A website selling only one or two different products may just need a simple PayPal button for customers to make a purchase. PayPal offers a free cart and checkout system with no HTML skills required. This allows you to generate the HTML coding for a "buy-it-now" or "add-to-cart" button that can be copied and pasted into your website.
Most web-savvy shoppers are familiar with PayPal, and prefer the fact that a website owner will not have access to their financial information. There is a small transaction fee to the website owner, although this is comparable to other merchant accounts.
There are other systems comparable to PayPal, the most popular are Fat Free Cart and Mals Shopping Cart. Both are free to use with your own merchant account, PayPal or Google Checkout.
Solutions for larger websites
Websites offering large numbers of different products may find creating an "add-to-cart" button for each product time consuming. Cut and paste "add-to-cart" buttons are fine for some types of websites, but a shopping cart system looks more professional and gives greater flexibility and options.
Make sure that your hosting company's server can support the shopping cart of your choice before proceeding. All free shopping cart systems will provide you with the ability to add products to your website easily and allow your customers to purchase these products.
Therefore, the functionality of the shopping cart you chose is important. Be sure to check the demo website, if offered, to see how easily the cart handles an order. If it demands too many steps, or the interface is poor, you will end up with abandoned carts at the check-out and a loss of revenue.
Customers want to order from websites easily, with shipping costs clearly marked. The more payment and shipping options that you are able to offer the better, although again, make sure they do not add additional and unnecessary steps to the check-out process.
Choose from the best of breed
Although, there are many free shopping cart systems available, I would recommend that beginners stick with the most popular, as help is widely available from other users in online forums.
If you are using Wordpress as the platform for your website, then Instinct offers a reliable free shopping cart – successfully downloaded, they claim, over 500,000 times. If not, then Cube Cart, Zen Cart and OsCommerce all offer free e-commerce systems, and all of which, have really user friendly administration areas.
All three offer the ability to add an unlimited number of products. Features to consider when choosing between them are multiple payment options for your customers, shipping options and different currencies and languages, depending on your target audience.
Cube Cart is an excellent choice for mid size e-commerce websites. It has templates, called skins, that may be used as a site template or you can overlay the cart onto an existing website. Free and not so free skins, are available on the web. Skins may also be customized, although this requires some skill in coding the CSS style sheets. There are free and paid (one time fee) versions, both are an excellent choice.
OsCommerce is the best known free shopping cart system. It is widely used by companies all over the world. It is the best choice for larger e-commerce sites as there are more than 3,400 available modules that can be added to the default osCommerce installation, enabling full customization. Zen Cart is another open source shopping cart that is widely available. Zen cart has a user friendly interface that allows the shopping cart to be set up in minutes.
Installation
Many free e-commerce shopping carts can be installed yourself, but it can be difficult. Good hosting companies will install the script for you, and/or have a 1-click installation feature in the hosting Cpanel.
After a shopping cart has been installed, you can customize the catalog section of your website in the administration area. Products, descriptions and prices, payment gateway(s) etc can be configured. Changes to the shopping cart's general appearance are usually done via templates or CSS style sheets.
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