E -
COMMERCE
Weighing Your Shopping Cart Options If
you sell more than a handful of products on your website,
you'll need to add what's known as a shopping cart. This is a
function that allows your customers to pick out the items they
want and send them to a "cart," which holds onto them until
they're ready to check out. The program then totals the order
and adds any applicable taxes and shipping charges. So how do
you add a shopping cart to your site? There are three different
options you can choose from. 1) Link out to a third-party
service (hosted) 2) Buy your own software and do it yourself 3)
Download a script and configure it to your needs Let's examine
each option separately and the pros and cons involved with
each: THIRD PARTY/HOSTED CARTS Third party cart services are
easy to set up; you can be running in a matter of hours. They
require no software to buy or install, but usually charge a
monthly fee. Most include a secured server and a merchant
account option, if you don't have your own. This is a
relatively inexpensive solution for small businesses. 1)
VCart.com: www.vcart.com Free to try for
30 days then you pay 90.00 for 3 months, 150.00 for 6 months or
1 year for 249.00. Supports 1 to 10,000 products- No CGI to
configure and you can use your existing merchant account. 2)
FreeMerchant: www.FreeMerchant.com
Prices range from 19.99 to 40.00 per month with a 30 day free
trial. Build your store using their web based interface.
Fantastic Affiliate! Get plugged in and start making money
today with the e-mail marketing manager for small business.
It's Easy, It's Free, And You Make Money!
3) Yahoo Store: store.yahoo.com You
can't go wrong with Yahoo's expert reputation. Easy to build
your store on their servers using a point and click interface.
You can even upload your own images. Cost for up to 100 items
is only 100.00 a month. You can also use your existing merchant
account or apply for one through them. 4) Marketers Choice:
gta-tech.com Believe it or not, this one
is free. Supplied by Marketers Choice, this cart calculates
totals, taxes, shipping charges and notifies you of new orders
automatically. Follow the wizard for easy set up. You need your
own merchant account but they supply the secured server. So
what's the catch? They try to get you to upgrade to their
150.00 a year package, which is an option. If you continue to
use the free one the only trade off is they will display
business related ads on all of your cart pages. SCRIPTS If
you're at all good at programming with CGI, there are limitless
scripts you can download for free or low cost. If you're all
thumbs you could hire someone to configure the script for you.
One of the best online programmers I know of is David Black.
He's fast, reliable and his prices are fair. You can contact
him at DavidBlack@thewavecave.com 1) CGI EXTREMES: Use a short
audio or video to introduce your ministry to the visitor. Use
pictures of the Ministry inside and out and include workers.
Coordinate the pictures with script. Let people tell your
visitors about themselves and your work. Take your visitors
inside the your ministry for an "up close" look. Use streaming
media technology wisely will to make your web site and
E-commerce stand out in a very crowded field.
1. How inviting is your homepage? Is it friendly,
easy to read and reassuring? Reassuring? You doubtless know
there are many more people wary of buying on the Web than there
are those who do so fearlessly. So you need to put them at ease
from first contact, just as you would greet and welcome people
entering your store. My
completely unscientific poll of web surfers confirmed my
suspicions: People are put off, even threatened, by an
abundance of whirling doodads, flashing thingamajigs, and
critters popping in and out all over a site. You won't have a
chance to provide personal service if they won't stay a while.
You have to set the scene in the first ten seconds.
Just as a review, Anderson Consulting
listed the top 10 problems online customers experienced online
doing their holiday shopping last year:
??10. 16% of online shoppers said
the site didn't offer enough gift-giving ideas to help them
make an appropriate purchase. ?? 9. 22% said prices at the site
were not competitive with the prices of other sites selling
similar wares. ?? 8. 25% said the Web site they shopped at did
not provide enough information needed to make a purchase. ?? 7.
26% said the Web site where they shopped was too difficult to
navigate. ?? 6. 27% said product selections were limited. ?? 5.
28% said they did not receive a confirmation or status report
on their order. ?? 4. 36% said they had connection problems
and/or download problems. ?? 3. 38% said they paid too much for
the delivery of their order. ?? 2. 40% said the product they
ordered was not delivered on time. ?? 1. 64% of Internet buyers
said they wanted to purchase a gift that was out of
stock.
Five basic principles drive the BBB
Code of Online Business Practices:
Truthful and Accurate
Communications
Disclosure
Information Practices and
Security
Customer Satisfaction
Protecting Children
To view a copy of the entire Code or for
additional information about BBB online initiatives, visit
http://www.bbbonline.org.
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