As an approved partner of BigCommerce, Business Website Center has a thorough understanding of what it takes to develop a powerful and efficient eCommerce website. Every business wanting to sell online has its own requirements for a shopping cart. Some may want to offer promo codes based on dollar amount off or percentage off with a minimum purchase restriction. Others may want to offer multiple methods of shipping using various carriers like FedEx, UPS, USPS, or others. Other may want to use a specific merchant account for payment such as PayPal ProFlow. The needs and differences between shopping carts are numerous. Today we are going to review and simplify the main aspects to consider when selecting a shopping cart for your website.

=1= Design:

Yes, the eCommerce website has to look great and be responsive to mobile devices. If you already have a good website, it does not mean you have to develop a brand new one. One option is to create what is called a sub domain such as www.shop.you-domain-here.com and attach the cart to that domain only. This means the rest of the website can remain the same.

You can of course choose to redesign your website at the same time. Most eCommerce platforms now offer wonderful templates. Of course, they are templates meaning you may find another business using the same template design. If you use BigCommerce, your programmer can actually modify lots of the design code and make it unique to you. Note that most eCommerce companies have rigid templates meaning little can be done to them in terms of design changes.

=2= Payment methods:

You may decide to offer PayPal (which has several programs), integrated credit card payments (which uses a gateway like Authorize.net), an offline payment option, and/or other methods. This is important to know how you are going to process your customers’ payments online as you would need to make sure the platform you use for your new cart can support that method.

=3= Shipping methods:

You may offer free shipping for all your products. In such case, you do not need to be concerned about integrating to a carrier. You receive the payment from your buyer and your procurement department can choose whatever shipper they want to choose to mail the product to your client.

In many cases, you will want to charge for shipping. The common carriers are FedEx, USPS (United States Postal Services), and UPS. The great thing with our platform BigCommerce is that you can connect directly to your special discounted pricing with the carrier. If FedEx gives you discounts, you may choose to charge retail shipping fees, the difference being a profit for you. Some businesses may offer different shipping methods depending on the destination. This is especially true if you sell perishable items. For instance you may want to offer ground shipping for nearby locations and force faster shipping methods the further the location is from your business.

=4= Other functions:

Do you want to enforce any minimum purchase based on quantity or dollar amount?
Do you want to offer free products added to the cart if a certain dollar amount is spent?
What about free shipping just for one type of products?
Promotional codes?
Would you like your online clients to have their own account where they may review the last items they purchased and easily re-order?
Do you want to offer recurring shipments, perhaps a monthly membership of the same items being sent to your client?
What about inventory? Do you want to be able to manage inventory on your new cart? Perhaps you only have 1,000 ABC products left and you want the cart to stop selling that product once the 1,000 number is reached?
Etc.

As you can see, there is a lot to consider. We can help you navigate through the questions and options to make sure you select the best eCommerce option for your website. Developing a shopping cart is an investment in money and time, and you want to make sure you choose the right one so that it lasts your company many years to come. You also want to deal with an eCommerce company that is very well established, reputable and here to stay. Remember that we offer complimentary eCommerce consultations, so do not hesitate to contact us should you want to schedule a discussion with our team.