If you sell products or services online than you will eventually need a shopping cart. It’s fine to use basic PayPal buttons if you only sell a few items, but if you want things to be more automated and streamlined than you will want to use a shopping cart. You can still process payments via PayPal when using shopping carts, but it is important to find a better way to automate delivery as your business grows.
1ShoppingCart
This all-in-one solution is the answer for thousands of online business owners. 1ShoppingCart (1SC) can be used to build your entire website from start to finish or you can use it as an addition to the website you already have and make it look just like your current site. You can sell any type of product, from physical to digital as well as options like size and colour. You can add in shipping prices and taxes easily with this shopping cart. You can even set up subscriptions to your digital products via 1SC. You sign up and try it out for free, they offer a wide range of prices for businesses of all sizes.
Shopify
Shopify allows you to build an online store completely from scratch. You can create your own website templates using HTML or CSS or you can have them assign you a designer to help make your entire site for you. Shopify gives you the ability to integrate your store with Quickbooks, FreshBooks and even your email marketing program. It works nicely with social media with add-ons for Facebook, Pinterest and more. If you already have a website you have the ability to embed your store into your current website. Shopify allows you to sell any type of merchandise from digital to physical and they support over 70 payment gateways. This is only some of what Shopify offers, they make running your store a breeze.
E-Junkie
This shopping cart works great if you have just a few options to buy. It is also an affiliate program so if you want to recruit affiliates to help sell your products or services you can easily do this as well. E-Junkie is easy to set up and use and offers all the features you’d expect with a shopping cart with prices starting at just $5 a month.
Zen-cart
This is a free open source shopping cart software that you install on your own hosting account. It offers all the options that you need to open an extensive online store. It isn’t hard to install but you will need basic computer knowledge and understanding of your hosting provider. There are several training videos available that you can watch to help with the setup and maintenance. Although this option is free, it will take more knowledge to set up then the other shopping carts mentioned. All of the mentioned shopping carts are functional whether you want to sell digital or physical goods. They all offer various levels of pricing and ease of use. Each shopping cart has a free trial so go ahead and test drive them to see which will work for you. We like to consider ourselves 1ShoppingCart experts and highly recommend it as a shopping cart for your business. We do however, recommend Shopify to those who plan to be very hands on with their store as it is easier to manage than 1ShoppingCart.
Feel free to contact us if you require assistance setting up or maintaining your online store. We would be glad to help. 🙂
