In today's economic climate, more people and businesses are searching for alternative revenue streams. There are also more and more of us buying online. Put the two together and you have a massive demand of online shops.
Now, where do you start?
There are thousands of shopping cart programs and software available. It is a matter of working out/researching what features you need and are avaialable.
Here is a quick list of things you might consider:
- newsletter marketing
- easy to use for you and potential customers
- sales reports
- search engine friendly software
- slides shows
- coupon codes
- payment options
- postage options
- downloadable products
- custom design capabilities and the like.
There are heaps of cheaper (and easy to use) online shopping cart software options available online suitable for many small businesses. www.bigcommerce.com starts at $24.95 per month. They even offer a 15 day free trial.
If you are web savvy, you can also try free shopping cart software like www.zencart.com – all you need is to have a hosting account set-up (prices do vary for hosting). For those who have a Wordpress website (popular editable website platform), there are now heaps of free shopping cart plugins that you can instal yourself for free. There are usually some fees associated with Paypal or your preferred payment gateway (payment processor), however these are usually quite resonable.
Paypal also offers shopping cart solutions for business accounts. If you know a little bit about HTML, you can create your own paypal buttons for an existing website – great if you only have a small amount of products that do not change that often.
For a more professional/customisable shopping cart with heaps of options, my favourite is epages. This is what I predominately use for clients. It covers most of what small/medium business requir (and then some). While not the cheapest to set-up, the latest version is easy to update and includes many great features to assist with sales reporting, search engine optimisation, marketing and more.
This is only a snap shot of what is available with heaps of new programs emerging all of the time.
Speaking to a web designer, who offers eccomerce, or researching online is a great place to start. Most web designers can also help you design and establish your online store to get you started.
If you have something great to sell...why not sell it online?
More people need to read this and understand this side of the story. I can’t believe you’re not more popular because you definitely have the gift. Here's my Safety Sign website by the way.
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