Investment Strategies

What is the Best Shopping Cart Software For Your Ecommerce Website?

Searching for the best shopping cart software for you ecommerce website can be a daunting task. There are literally hundreds of carts and ecommerce solutions available. How do you know which one is right for you?

You should consider the following factors when you are searching for a shopping cart that fits your needs.

What is a shopping cart?
How much does it cost?
Should I buy or lease a cart?
What Features Should I Look For?
What Kind and How Much Support Does will I get?
Which Payment Gateways Work with the Cart?
What Hosting/Server Platform is Required?
What if I Need Customization?

What is a Shopping Cart?

First, let me define a shopping cart or ecommerce website. In the most basic terms, a shopping cart is software that allows you to list your products on a web site and then automatically collect fees when a customer buys products from your website.

For example, lets say that you sell vitamins from your home, and now you want to start selling them on your website. First, you need shopping ecommerce software. You will also need to have a business bank account and a payment gateway, a service that allows you to automatically process credit cards on your web site.

Once you have the cart software set up on your website, you can add your vitamin products to the website using a web browser. The software allows you to add product images, descriptions, prices, shipping and tax rates, and so on. Once your cart is populated with all of your products, you can start selling them on the web.

Here’s how it works: A customer comes to your web site and adds products to her shopping cart. When she is ready to buy the products, she enters her shipping and credit card information in a form so you know where to ship the product and whom to charge it to. When the customer clicks the button to submit the order, the shopping cart uses your payment gateway (credit-card-processing service) to validate the credit card and then transfer the money from the customer’s credit card to your bank account. Then it’s up to you to ship the product.

You can also use a shopping cart to sell digital, or downloadable products such as electronic books, music, and software.

How Much Do Shopping Carts Cost?

As you might expect, shopping carts come in a wide range of prices, from free to thousands of dollars. Does that mean that the more you spend, the better cart you get? Not necessarily.

There are several free shopping carts that are very powerful and full of features; for example, OSCommerce and ZenCart. Both of these carts are completely free and offer most of the features you would expect in a modern shopping cart: unlimited products, connections to the major payment gateways, credit card payments, real-time shipping prices, discount customer groups, multi language, and more.

Unfortunately, there is a downside to free: free products lack good documentation and support. For example, there is no official support group that you can call when you need help. And there is no official user’s guide to explain how to use the software. You usually have to search through user forums to find answers to your questions.

Free shopping carts are probably not be the best choice if you are new to ecommerce and are trying to do everything yourself.

Fortunately, there are many commercial carts in the range of $100-500 that offer lots of features. The carts in this range usually have some kind of support system to help you with problems, and they usually have documentation to explain how to use their software. X-Cart and Ecommerce Templates are two carts between $150 – $200, and both are very powerful and relatively easy to use.

Should I Buy or Lease a Shopping Cart?

There are two basic models for online shopping carts:

Pay a one time fee for the software and install it on your web server: This can be a daunting task unless you are comfortable working with Linux web servers and configuring web-based software. The good thing about this model is that you don’t have to pay monthly fees, and the software is usually much more customizable than leased shopping carts. If you have the skills to install the software on your server, or if you hire a website designer to install and configure your shopping cart, this method is more economical than leasing.
Pay a monthly or yearly fee to lease the software: This model is easy to implement because you don’t need to install, configure, or maintain any software. If you are going to do it yourself and have little web experience, this is the easiest way to get started. The downside is that leased software is often hard to customize and many ecommerce sites need some customization. Furthermore, it can be very expensive when you add in the cost of leasing over many years.

What Shopping Cart Features Should I Look For?

Most shopping carts come with standard features like unlimited categories and products, web-based administration, easy-to-use product creation screens, and tax and shipping calculation. Unfortunately, not all carts include all the functions YOUR business will need to operate an online store.

The following is a list of features to look for in a shopping cart:

Installation and Design

Easy-to-use web interface: A web interface allows you to administer your shopping cart from any web browser that is connected to the internet.
Shopping Cart Reporting: The ability to get detailed reports about your sales, inventory, states, users, categories, products, destination zones, taxes, shipping rates, orders, membership levels, etc.
Multiple Languages: The ability to display multiple languages in your shopping cart
Customer Support: Most carts usually provide email or forum-based support, but sometimes they provide live phone support.
Upgradeable: Find out if you can get free updates as the software is improved. Usually you can get free updates for 6 to 12 months.
Template-based Design: Tempate-based designs make it easier to customize the look of your website
WYSIWYG Editor for Products: This feature allows you to enter product text and images using a word-processor-like editor.
Content Pages: Does your cart allow you to create content pages? For example, can you create an “About Us” page?
Mini-Cart: A mini cart is a small box that indicates if the user has items in their shopping cart. These are usually located on the top or side of the page. Most carts have this feature.

Customer Features

Newsletter Function: Do you need to ability to send mass emails to your customers? Many carts come with the ability to send emails to customers.
Customer Order / Customer Account / Customer Registration: The ability for your customers to view their account and their order history.
Product Search: A search tool for your products. This function is especially helpful if you have more than 20 or 30 products.
Googlecheckout: Google Checkout is a new service that makes online shopping faster, safer and more convenient. Many carts have been updated so they work with Google Checkout.
Wish list: A “Wish List” allows your customers to save products to a wish list. That way they can come back to your online store at a later date and buy the products in the Wish List.
Send to friend: This feature displays a form that allows customer to enter a name and email address so the can send a link of a product to a friend.
Memberships and special pricing: This feature allows you to create memberships on your store and then give them special prices or discounts.
Printable Invoices: The feature allows your customers to print their invoices.
Multiple Shipping Addresses: The feature allows customers to store multiple shipping addresses. This is a handy feature for customer who often ship gifts to friends and family members.

Store and Products

What Kind and How Much Support Does the Shopping Cart Provide?

Shopping cart software and ecommerce is pretty complex and there are many opportunities for problems. Whatever shopping cart model you choose, be sure to consider amount and type of support offered by the leasing host or the software seller. Because a smooth operation of your website and shopping cart are necessary for financial success, you’ll want to have appropriate support for emergencies.

Which Payment Gateways Work with the Shopping Cart?

If you are going to use a leased shopping cart, or you are going to buy shopping cart software, find out which payment gateways will work with the shopping cart.

Note: Each shopping cart provider builds their own interfaces for payment gateways.

What Hosting/Server Platform is Required?

Will your website and shopping cart be hosted on a Linux / UNIX server or a Windows server? If you are going to use a hosted shopping cart, you probably don’t need to worry about this unless you already have other web-based software applications installed on your current web host.

If you are going to buy shopping cart software, your choice might be limited by your server choice. Currently there are many more shopping carts made for Linux / UNIX than for windows.

What if I Need Customization?

Every shopping cart I have installed, designed, and configured, has required some customization. In most cases, the client wanted to do something the cart did not do. For example, one client wanted the ability to send a custom email with specific products so he could send special instructions whenever a customer ordered a specific product. A few shopping carts have this ability, but most don’t.

The best solution is to first determine your specific requirements and then find a cart that fits your needs. Unfortunately, it’s hard to find a cart that does EVERYTHING you want it to do. If this is the case, you’ll need to have some custom development done to add a new function to the cart.

Keep in mind that many popular shopping carts have dozens of Modifications and Plugins that you can add to the shopping cart software to make it fulfill your requirements.

Note: If you use a leased shopping cart, you will probably not be able to make modifications to the software.

Looking For Employment – Work From Home

Looking for employment? Work from home. Working from home can be one of the most rewarding things in the world. The flexible hours and time close to your kids can be reason enough to take on the challenge. Each year, many people start up home businesses in search of the dream of being free. They want to be free from the corporate grind and free to decide for themselves how much they will work and how much they will make. They want to be responsible to themselves and not have anyone breathing over their shoulder, watching every move they make. People working from home have a great potential for income as well. Many of the wealthiest people are working for themselves.But beware. The very things that attract you to the work at home opportunity can also be your downfall if you’re not careful. In fact, most people can’t handle the lack of structure and the personal responsibility that come with working from home. If you are not very self motivated, working from home can be your worst plan. To be successful, you need to be a self starter. You need to wake up in the morning and get to work, not lay around and waste time. You need to be goal oriented and track your progress with measurable and attainable goals. You need to be able to see the whole picture and know what to do to change it. You need to be structured and devoted with your time. Many people either fool themselves into thinking that they’re working toward their goals when they’re just wasting time, or they work so hard that they ignore their family and friends, basically neglecting their lives. There needs to be a balance somewhere in between.When considering any employment, work from home or otherwise, it is important to take a good, honest look at yourself and see if you are really the kind of person that will be successful with what you are considering. If not, either change yourself or change your plans.

Ideas to Keep You Motivated on Your Off Days With Your Health and Fitness Routine

Sometimes we simply just do not feel like eating healthy, working out, we just plain and simple do not want to do anything that will benefit our health. These are just one of those off days that everyone has now and then. Even the top of health fanatics and fitness experts have some of these days, nobody is perfect. There is nothing wrong with you if you simply just do not feel like being dedicated and sticking to the routine for a day. Your simply just having one of those off days. But just because you are having an off day and just do not feel like doing whatever it is you do to maintain your fitness and health. Dose not mean that you should avoid doing whatever it is you have been doing to benefit your health and fitness. Your health is one of those important things you should stay motivated to better or maintain. So, you need to simply find ways to keep you motivated. And, to especially motivate you on those off days.Ideas that may keep you motivated:
You can make your health important- The bottom line your health is just as important if not more important then anything else. Watching TV, playing on the computer, staying up on your current events, taking a night out on the town, is no where near as important as your health. How can you do all these things, keep doing them, and enjoy doing them for as long as you live if your health is not in the best of shape. Putting your health on the top of your list everyday and reminding yourself of all the things you want to do in life can really push you through one of those off days.
Visualize It- If you picked on a fitness routine to get into shape, change the way you look, lose weight, then you obviously have a goal. Now, nothing can be more rewarding or motivating then taking a nice look in the mirror at your current self if you have not reached your goal yet. Doing this can almost be daunting and it force your butt to get into gear on one of those off days because you do not want to look like that anymore. You started the fitness routine, diet, or whatever it is because you have a goal set in mind. Now after you stare at current self in the mirror and picked at yourself for a bit. Visualize how great you are going to look when you have reached your goal. Not only how great your going to look, but how great your going to feel physically and mentally too.
Reward yourself- Rewarding yourself with something great that you have wanted when you reached a certain goal is great motivation. By having that reward set, whatever it may be, for whatever you may have done ( worked out so many days a week, lost so much weight, controlled your eating habits, there is endless amount of things you can reward yourself for when on a fitness routine or new diet), will definitely get your but into gear. You can not have this reward till you met the goal you have set for yourself and having an off day can set you back further from getting whatever it is you may want. Do not let your off days hold you back from your reward. Take charge and get your routine done on that off day so you can be closer to that reward.
Calling all support- Having a support team, people that stand behind you on whatever you are doing to benefit your health is one of the best things you can have and utilize. When you are having one of these off days you should definitely call on your support team if nothing else works. Having someone else besides yourself to remind you why your doing this and knowing the right words to say to you to get you motivated can be exactly what you need on an off day. So, do not be ashamed of your off day and avoid talking to someone about it. They can be exactly what you need to get you motivated and on track.
Do something- Even if you do not feel like going in 100% on your off day, you should still do something. Something is better then nothing when it comes to your health and fitness. By doing something even if it is a 30 minute stroll around the park you might find yourself rejuvenated and with more energy. This could leave you to still going through with your current fitness routine.

Small Company Marketing Consultants – Why You Need One And How To Select One

Having spent many years working with small and midsized B2B and B2C organizations on their marketing and marketing communications strategies and plans, I believe I’ve got a good sense of the issues facing them. Generally, at the top of the list, is the lack of a real marketing plan. How is it possible that something so basic is missing? My conclusion is that, despite possessing the skill sets that drive their organization’s success, founders and/or management simply do not have:

Time to think about marketing at all, because there is always something “more important or urgent” that needs their attention;

A real understanding of the power of marketing and how it can significantly improve profits and return on investment (ROI);

The resources, budgets and people available – marketing and marketing communications is “unfamiliar and scary”, and there are always other areas that need support first;

The knowledge of how to seek out and evaluate professional marketing help.
These are concerns regardless of the type of organization – start up, early stage or established companies, and even nonprofits for that matter. And, without real planning upfront, many brands are operating with a “Ready, Fire, Aim” reaction to the marketplace.What Will Hiring A Marketing Or Marketing Communications Professional Do For You?In order to accomplish short and long-term objectives you need to develop a meaningful marketing strategy and an integrated marketing communications plan and tactics. At its core, having a professional marketing program will improve a brand’s profitability and ROI. This task is often outsourced, frequently with a part-time Chief Marketing Officer.The process starts with the outside consultant learning about the brand – its strengths and weaknesses, competition, distribution, business plan objectives, existing communication materials, employee involvement. During this learning period, the consultant also avails himself of any pertinent primary or secondary research. Most important, this period is also the time for establishing trust between the organization and the consultant.While some tasks may be completed directly during this learning period, an outside professional would use this knowledge to prepare:1. A marketing and marketing communications strategy, along with a positioning statement. The positioning statement is a succinct description of the core target audience to whom the brand is directed, and a compelling picture of how the marketer wants the audience to view the brand.Sound simple? Take a minute and answer these four questions about your brand:

The target audience, in very specific detail?

The category in which the brand competes, and its relevance to customers?

The brand’s benefit and point of difference?

A reason for the customer to believe – the most compelling proof?
The positioning statement is the credo for the brand to live by. All marketing and marketing communications should flow from this positioning and be understood by all employees, agents, partners and management.2. An integrated and holistic plan with tactical expressions – media programs; creative executions, including new and/or traditional advertising; public relations; content marketing (social media, articles, blogs, white papers, video); packaging; point of purchase; employee engagement; and, events.The use of internal or external staff to create the above will be directed and evaluated by the consultant or, if necessary, specialists may be recommended.3. Recommendations for primary or secondary research when clear cut answers don’t exist on specific subjects. Marketing depends on a complete understanding of the customers’ “wants and needs” as well as how they relate to your brand and competition. Not just what your staff thinks; rather, information. Facts beat opinion every time.4. A procedure of measurement and evaluation of the objectives of the agreed upon plan, as well as the established objectives to be accomplished with each target audience and marketing communication task. Benchmarking and on-going analysis is key to successful marketing programs, allowing for change or refinement as you proceed.5. A format for informing and discussing the reasoning behind the marketing planning, so that everyone in the organization understands why the specific strategies, plans and tactics were developed and implemented. The consultant becomes a “teacher” and the entire organization becomes brand advocates.Marketing consultants have increasingly become members of the C-Suite because of today’s turbulent and rapidly changing environment.What Talents Should A Marketing Consultant Have?Look for a consultant, full or part-time, who is:1. Willing to learn your business from the ground up and doesn’t have a “one size fits all” mentality;2. An established professional, with extensive experience across industries and brands in B2B, B2C and nonprofit organizations, large and small. Expand your horizons and don’t settle for experience in only your niche or industry;3. Media neutral and willing to embrace analytics to develop a variety of programs as well as to measure them. In today’s complicated marketplace, a consultant must understand new and traditional media, the difference between efficiency and effectiveness, “likes” vs. “sales”, the dangers of digital ad fraud, etc., etc.;4. Apolitical and willing to tell it like it is, so candor will flourish in your relationship. Having your consultant free to demonstrate the discipline of marketing and marketing communications will build trust and a meaningful partnership;5. Has an established network of marketing communications specialists who can be called in to provide solutions when necessary.The marketing and marketing communications strategic and tactical challenges of today are growing exponentially. But, as with our uncertain economic and political environment, putting your head in the sand isn’t a viable response. As Will Rogers said, “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”

Taking an Online Digital Photography Class

Taking an online digital photography class is a great way to get an introduction to the hobby of photography or to take your photography skills to the next level. This article explains how to pick a class that’s right for you.The biggest benefit of an online digital photography class is that you can study at your own pace. If your personal situation dictates that you don’t have a lot of free time, you can slow down your pace and pick it back up when your situation changes.Not all online classes are created equal, so do your research before you signup. Try to find out what a course covers and make sure it meets your needs.Some classes focus on fundamental photography techniques. Others focus on camera specifications and setting. Yet others center on software used to edit your pictures.The cost of classes will also vary. There are a number of free digital photo classes [http://www.mydigitalphotoclasses.com/digital-photo-classes.html] available if you spend some time looking. Many of the free courses are very good. Try one and if it doesn’t suit your needs, you can always drop it without losing any money.Getting started as a digital photography hobbyist you can use any camera and upgrade when you reach the limitations of your equipment. Most classes usually teach you how to select and use various pieces of equipment to improve your pictures, saving you time and money down the road.If you have an interest in digital photography as a hobby, the most important thing is to take some action. It is a wonderful hobby enjoyed by many people and it’s relatively inexpensive (beyond the camera purchase). What are you waiting for, get out there and take an online digital photography class.

3 / 9First previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 next Last