subject: Types Of Shopping Cart Software [print this page] As an Ecommerce website, you need shopping cart software to entice your customers to buy your products. Good shopping cart software does what it is expected of and is quick and accurate at doing it. There are many types of shopping cart in the market that sometimes it can be confusing to beginners. Here are some of the common types of shopping cart software:
Basic and Full-Featured Shopping Cart
A basic shopping cart is a simple way to let your customers buy a product or service. There are several free options available like PayPal and Google Checkout. All you need is to place the link on your website, which can then let your customers buy a product on your website. Your basic shopping cart is a quick way to sell products online but you cannot add discounts, special promos, product options, and other features to it. You also don't have control over shipping options, multiple payment options, and other features.
A full-featured shopping cart, on the other hand, is not just a shopping cart software but a full featured Ecommerce software platform. It handles all your Ecommerce needs like the storefront and advanced store management tools.
Hosted and Licensed Shopping Cart
When looking for a shopping cart, the first thing you'll probably look into is whether you want to own an Ecommerce software or just rent one.
Hostedshopping cart is a shopping cart option which you'll only pay for monthly fees, setup fee, and sometimes commission on sales in order to use a shopping cart software. This is the kind of shopping cart where you rent a server from the ecommerce hosting provider then pay a monthly fee for it.
Hosted shopping cartisthe cheapest shopping cart available. With low initial cost, you'll be able to start your business even if you are on a budget. It has a quick start up time too because the servers are good to go, it just needs your website to work. However, you'll have higher long-term costs, and you are entitled in a contract that you'll have to finish before you can move your software to another host. Also, you cannot customize your shopping cart because they have locked the source code.
Licensed shopping cart is a software you buy for your own and host it in your server. You'll pay for the software license, updates, and annual support - which are very expensive. It also has a longer start up time because you'll have to do everything from scratch.
The cost compensates for the quality service you'll get. It has a lower long-term cost, and you can take the software with you. You'll also have access to the Ecommerce platform source code so you can modify it whenever required.
