Tools You’ll Need to Set Up a Website with a Shopping Cart
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If you’re selling merchandise from your own site, the most convenient and safest way to process and accept payments is to have your own shopping cart. But first, there are certain tools you’ll need to have.
First of all, have a website that’s designed and ready for the type of business you wish to run. Then have it hosted by a reliable service provider – someone who can offer you continuous service and not the type who will conk out on you just when your business is running strong. It’s also mandatory that you find a service that has a secure server, something that can encrypt data so it can’t be stolen by hackers so that your shopping site will run smoothly.
Next, you’ll probably need a merchant account to help you run your e-commerce business. A merchant account will let you accept credit card funded payments on your website. To set up one, talk to your local bank about this or get in touch with one of those ISOs (Independent Sales Organizations) such as Concord EFS for you to start accepting payments funded by credit cards.
Once you have your merchant account or any means with which to process online payments, you can then integrate a shopping cart in your website. There are two ways to do this – the hard way and the easy way.
The hard way entails that you learn to program or ask one of your programmer friends to code the shopping cart tool into your site. This process takes lots of time and effort, so be prepared to wait a few weeks or even months before your shopping site becomes operational.
The easy way is of course, better. Simply buy shopping cart software that offers great and useful shopping cart features. This program is easy to use and set up on your website. Look for features that include secure socket layer or SSL capabilities, calculators (convenient if you’ll be charging sales taxes and shipping fees), cross-selling tools that will allow you to offer related products, search, categorizing and discount functions, inventory tracking, interactivity with your other services, order notifications, frequent shopper points calculators, etc.
Once you have all the features you need, your shopping cart will be operational. You can then begin running your online business from your website.
Have you tried using a Shopping Cart Software? Any recommendation?
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Thanks for the tip, there are a few friends of mine, who are into online sales and I think they would find this link more useful.
I’ve been using, coding, and designing for ProStores users for years now. I’ve found it to be very friendly when you put your products in, while it has a medium learning curve for actual designing. Their Forums are very helpful, they also have several references for designers that can be very helpful.
To make the most out of ProStores you should have medium or higher experience with designing or coding. But if you have enough drive and ambition anyone can get a great looking ProStores site going. Or you certainly could hire someone. ;-)
Matt
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