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Shopping Carts For The Weary

eCommerce Hosting Tips

Here's a great article about ecommerce hosting which should help you learn more tips about finding an affordable hosting resale provider, compare features on different reseller plans, evaluate bandwidth usage and storage deals, or just find an affordable place to host all your own websites.

To choose the means whereby we put our products on the world-wide-web, we proceed by a process of elimination. The chief criteria for judging a shopping cart is the number of credit card processors and shipping services it supports, and the number of people that support *it*.Why? Because credit card processors and shipping services mutate all the time, and thus your cart will require updating. Which service works today may go out of business tomorrow, and leave you with the orders piling up. Other important criteria are how easy it is to set up, and add products, and how easy it is for the customer to use.(May I say parenthetically that I was introduced to Perl programming unwillingly by an early version of one of the carts below; it had a bug, and I had to learn some Perl to fix it. A shopkeeper should not have to learn bricklaying in order to open his store, therefore a bit of research is time well spent.

)When you set up your shop test it using a wide variety of the oldest and buggiest browsers you can find. If your web store works under them you're home and dry.So, having taken all the above into consideration, what are the options? Having gone though twenty-plus different sub $500 shopping cart software solutions, I now present, in order of preference, the cheapest, simplest, and most effective solutions:1. Oscommerce (free) - http://www.oscommerce.comA very good, full-featured, cart. Uses Php and MySQL. Not easy to set up for a 'newbie'.

TIP: As you can tell by reading this article on ecommerce hosting services, there's a lot of technical stuff to compare when choosing between web host resale companies. Keep reading for more good tips on getting your resale site up and running as an affordable hosting service provider.

Cookies are used to track the order. If you have PhpMyAdmin installed in your web account, it's easier. Requires a customer to register before they can make a purchase. Supports a wide range of credit-card processors and shipping services.Bad point: Technical support is limited to the Oscommerce forums, which are not helpful to newbies. You may need to pay a few bucks to an expert via a freelance site like Scriptlance.com, if you run into difficulties.Also, it may be a while before an update is available to a payment module.

These are done by unpaid enthusiasts.Good point: Oscommerce is supported by thousands of unpaid enthusiasts; this means updates do eventually arrive, and it's less likely to go out of business, unlike a commercial cart.2. X-cart (commercial) - http://www.x-cart.com Similar to Oscommerce. Commercial. Requires a customer to register before they can make a purchase. Lots of features and add-ons.

Supports a wide range of credit-card processors and shipping services. Has an affiliate program add-on, and lets others sell products though your cart.3. Dansie Cart (commercial) - http://www.dansie.netA well specified cart. Supports a wide range of credit-card processors and shipping services.Bad point: Apparently the Perl code is obscured, to make it harder to copy, which is annoying if you want to customise it. 3.

Interchange (free) - http://www.icdevgroup.orgA version of the old Akopia / Minivend carts. Complex product with lots of files and a lot of setting up to do. A complete solution, and includes the option of third party credit-card real-time order processing. Encrypts orders.4. Agora (free) - http://www.agoracart.com A Web-Store/Commerce.cgi hybrid.

5. The Commission Cart (commercial) - http://www.siteinteractive.comA cgi-based shopping cart which also functions as an affiliate program. Other webmasters earn commissions by signing up and linking to your site. 6. ShopFactory (commercial) - http://www.shopfactory.ComHas a nice little wizard-based set-up.

If you have a lot of items in your shop, this is an option worth checking out. This is a very valuable feature. A person who's set up cgi scripts before will get the most out of this. Supports a wide range of credit-card processors and shipping services.Bad points: It's ugly, awkward, and uses JavaScript too much. 7.

WebGenie Shopping Cart Pro (commercial) - http://www.webgenie.comA simple, wizard-based option. Uses Javascript a bit, but the main work is done by cgi scripts. It saves the credit card information on your server. It's for someone who hasn't set up a cgi-script before. Expensive for what you get, but it works.

Option to buy it on hire-purchase.8. Actinic Catalog (commercial) - http://www.actinic.co.ukMost suitable if you have lots of items in your store. It's a 'wizard'-based PC program; you type in your information, and the program sets up the store. You should set up the default store as-is, then customise it later.Supports a wide range of credit-card processors and shipping services.A little complicated for an internet newbie; there's quite a lot in it.9. Order Maven (commercial) - http://www.briggsoft.comA clever little program.

It's a standalone Windows executable, which the customer downloads. The customer starts it up, chooses the product, enters their details, and sends off their order like an email, with the credit card details encrypted. It costs $29.00 at the time of writing. No secure server or order page needed; it's all done on the customer's pc at their leisure.You need to customise it, naturally. This isn't hard.

Make sure you write your mail server URL into the code. For the customer, the order module is a 160kb download. Not too bad at all.11. Selena Sol's Web Store (free) - http://www.extropia.comThe mama of them all; the first internet shopping cart of note. Allows orders to be encrypted via PGP if you have PGP installed on your server.

Very complex for an ecommerce newbie. 12. PerlShop (free) - http://www.perlshop.orgPerlShop is a simple shop to set up. One of the first shopping carts.NOTE: Try to avoid carts that use cookies and javascript only, or that tie you into only one secure server and credit-card processor.Also avoid web-based services that you lease only.Having read the above you should have eliminated quite a few programs from your shopping list. They either won't work properly with all browsers, or they won't encrypt your order, or they want to tie you into their manufacturers' secure order system at $40+ per month.Another option is to get a bespoke system set up for you by a specialist company.

These cost thousands of dollars. Aren't you glad you read this far.

About the Author

T. O' Donnell (http://www.tigertom.com/web-designer-london.shtml) is an ecommerce and web site design consultant in London, UK.COPYRIGHT: You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included. You must publish the article AS IS. Do not modify, alter or edit it. You are allowed to format the layout of the article for proper display in your website or ezine, so long as the text, hyperlinks and paragraph breaks are not changed or deleted. If presented in a HTML document, any hyperlinks present must be active, clickable, and go direct to the websites they represent i.e. no re-directs. Notifying the author is not required, but doing so is appreciated, at http://www.tigertom.com/contact.htm.

Hosting Decision Factors - Factors to consider in making your web hosting decision - Pay attention to email and image capabilities - Major bandwidth and mySQL databases are a must.

Affordable Web Hosting - Hosting advice on finding affordable web hosting - Look for bandwidth, storage and cPanel as well as low cost - Comparisons of service providers.

Dedicated Web Hosting - Comparisons of managed versus unmanaged dedicated web hosting - Tips on what to look for and where to find the cheapest dedicated hosting prices.

First Web Host - Advice on setting up your first web hosting account - What to look for and what to avoid - First timers should opt for good support, not the cheapest hosting service.

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