If business people (and prospective business people) put as much work into there shopping cart as they did trying to get people’s opinions before hand posts like this one wouldn’t be necessary. I have seen people take over 12 months to find a shopping cart solution and then muck around for another 12 months trying to get it pixel perfect. Then they spend the next 12 months wondering why they haven’t made any sales.
Shopping carts need work. A lot of work. Not only do you have to upload the products and enter all the initial data, you need to get people to visit, you need to convert visitors into buyers and you need to provide exceptional customer service. This childish notion that you put up a shopping cart and the money flows in is ridiculous and I can’t believe it still exists.
When you are trying to select a shopping cart you only need to consider a three things:
Your Products, Your budget and Your technical skills.
Your Products.
Some products just don’t fit into some shopping carts. Shopify for instance only recently started offering multiple product options – that made it a terrible fit for selling shoes that had size and colour variations. They have fixed that now – but 6 months ago if you needed to sell shoes with size and colour options you had to butcher your Shopify shopping cart to make it work.
Interspire (and Big Commerce by extension) is very flexible with the types of products you can sell. Shopify as done the hard yards and offers a full product variation setup, Magento has always been flexible (if you can understand it).
osCommerce, Zen Cart and X-Cart are traditional shopping carts but you can usually find (but you will need to install) plugins and addons to handle non-traditional product types – yes they can do it – yes you will need to have (or have access to someone with) very thick glasses and a pocket protector.
Your budget.
Some shopping carts are free. Some require monthly payments. Some require per sale percentages (transaction fees). If you have no money use a free one and pray to go you sell something fast so you can pay for a shopping cart. If you sell a lot of items – try something like Big Commerce that doesn’t charge transaction fees (Shopify does) . If you have limited start up dollars though Shopify is free to setup, Big Commerce charges about $50.
Don’t cheap out on your shopping cart. If you are selling products online $25/month is not too much to pay. If you think it is – I will be honest – you need to find something else to do. $25/month for a commercial (and bloody good) shopping cart is great value. Trust me, I am the other option and I am not cheap.
Your technical prowess.
If you are capable of basic computer administration, buying Interspire outright may be preferable to Big Commerce – you will save money over the life of your shopping cart. If you have no computer skills no shopping cart is as easy to use as Shopify – hands down.
Old school shopping carts like osCommerce, X-Cart or Zen Cart should only be attempted if you have a university degree in a computer field. I know geeks can “work through them” – but this is the year 2010 and quite frankly people shouldn’t have to. Thankfully with products like Big Commerce, Shopify, Magento, and Interspire normal people never again have to punch a programmer in the face to get there shopping cart to look and act like a decent piece of software.
Yes, I know I added Magento to that list – I admit I personally have tonnes of trouble getting it to behave – but every time I bitch about it my inbox is flooded with Magento fan boys that insist it is stepping up and improving with every release. I will put it under the pump after the holidays and see where it is at again.
So, where does this leave us.
Is money an issue ?
Try Shopify or Big Commerce. Big Commerce will let you try it first so start there. It is cheaper month to month because Shopify charges 2% per sale, however it costs $50 to setup where Shopify is free.
Are you computer illiterate ?
Look at Shopify it is the easiest.Big Commerce isn’t far behind – and isn’t actually difficult, it just has more options.
Are you outside the USA or Canada ?
Try Interspire, Magento or Big Commerce.
Is all of this too much ?
Contact me, my consulting fee is very reasonable and we can work our way through all your concerns, issue and needs and get your shopping cart setup and running.
