Choose Your Shopping Cart (2 of 2)
The biggest advantage to buying ready-made shopping cart software is that you can change Web hosts or other service providers without changing your entire storefront. These software packages can be purchased starting at around $150 (U.S.). Generally, the more expensive the package, the more sophisticated the features you'll find in terms of customization and back-end support.
Since you'll be doing all the back-end work yourself, you'll have to confirm that the software is compatible not only with your Web server but with your customer and inventory databases. Your shopping cart software will have to support your merchant account provider's (MAP's) technology. Most importantly, you will have to have the in-house resources to manage all the features of the store.
These are some standard features for off-the-shelf shopping cart software:
- Templates and wizards for catalog customization.
- Support for multiple credit card transaction services.
- Secure server.
- Real-time credit card processing.
- Support for multiple currencies.
- Inventory management support.
- Site traffic statistics.
- Order notification options for you and your customers.
- Support for several shipping types.
- Multitiered tax calculating capabilities.
Do-It-Yourself Solution: Customized Perl Scripts
Finally, if you want to design your own shopping cart and storefront, many free shopping cart programs are written in the Perl programming language, which is cross-platform — meaning it works on all operating systems. For this option, you or someone you hire will need to know how to program in Perl. Often the download site requests that your site contain a link to its site, and/or display its logo. Be sure to read the user agreements. Some examples of shopping cart programs written in Perl include eXtropia's WebStore, OpenSale's AllCommerce,Perl$hop, and Commerce.cgi.
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