Choose The Right Shopping Cart For Your Website

When investigating which shopping cart is best for your website, you will be bombarded with claims and promises. How can you pick the one that really is right for your purposes?

Here's a reference list that you can use to determine which one to choose:

- One Click Upsells/Downsells Shopping cart products with one click upsells/downsells catalog the customer's payment information and allows you to sell a new product to the customer without them entering in new payment information. Some products advertise this feature, but it is not truly "one click" if the customer has to do anything other than click their mouse once.

The idea of this feature is to make it incredibly easy for customers to buy other products. It certainly won't work on every customer, but because it's an automated feature, you can add revenue with absolutely no extra work.

- Membership Sites and Recurring Payments

Subscriptions to members-only websites is a great way to generate recurring revenue, and a shopping cart product that integrates the payment process with the membership data is invaluable.

Some products are capable of recurring payments, but do not integrate those payments with the membership data, so if a customer cancels the payments, they don't automatically have their membership revoked.

Look for an integrated product to avoid hassles and giving away your content for free.

- Flexible Payment Sources

The more payment options your customer has, the more likely they are to buy your product.

- Product Delivery

Shopping carts aren't just about web payment anymore; the very best ones will be able to delivery your product or service automatically.

This includes the above mentioned membership sites, and also encompasses the email delivery of digital products(like ebooks, podcasts, etc). The really comprehensive shopping cart solutions will also integrate with physical product producers.

As an example, it is possible to have a once click upsell that delivers a bound and printed copy of the ebook you have just sold. The shopping cart that is integrated will send the printing information through, automatically, to a print/ship/deliver service.

You will need to set up an account with the printing and shipping company, so if you're just experimenting with this option, make sure to find a company that doesn't charge huge monthly fees or high premiums for low-volume production.

Regardless of what you sell online, your shopping cart needs to provide you with what you need. If it does not include the features that increase the value of each sale you make - then look elsewhere for a solution.