Shopping carts are programs online that allow your website visitors to select and purchase items for sale. Shopping carts have many different check out functions depending on the nature of your business. You need the ability to view the shopping cart and to offer the shopper the chance to return to shopping to add more items to the cart of the option to check out and complete their transaction.
Some website hosts offer a free shopping cart as part of a cPanel. This may be a very viable option for businesses that are just starting out or that are very small as some shopping cart programs can get extremely pricey. You need to keep in mind that a lot of shopping cart programs that you will find will not include your merchant account or your payment gateway. Most of these options need to be arranged for separately and you will most likely pay for such services.
Three of the best cheap shopping carts that we have found are:
- Yahoo – Yahoo recently added real-time analytics to help increase your sales.
- MyMarketingCart.com – this company offers a wide variety of services to help your business succeed.
- SecureNetShop.com – Offers a free trial.
A few other free shopping carts that are available are:
- Zen Cart
- eMartCart
- AmazaCart
- CubeCart
- Precision Cart
- Ubercart
- StoreSprite
While some companies offer a version of a free shopping cart it is good to keep in mind that they will also offer paid upgrades. There can be limitations that the company may implement that you need to be aware of.
The bottom line is that anyone looking to go into Ecommerce needs to look at what there specific business needs are and then to shop around for what may suit the needs best. Make sure that your shopping cart is compatible with your hosting platform.
