In the last article, I offered you some ideas about whether to carry your own products or services, or whether you might consider third-party sales to make a profit with your Web site. In this article, I’ll look at some shopping cart sites to consider what makes some shopping sites work. Is the site successful because of its slick design, the "buzz" about its product or service, the great shopping cart program, or is it because some people just seem to have all the luck? In the article below, I’ll take you to sites that use five different shopping carts to understand what works for some and what may work for you…

Shopping Carts: Design-Wise Selling

Programming knowledge is essential to build a shopping cart or an online store, but even a programming klutz like me can understand simple systems like PayPal. However, what if I wanted to become more sophisticated with my sales approach? Which shopping cart program would I use? I could use free programs like Agora Cart, or I should spend a little cash for what appears to be "plug and play" programs? In an effort to understand the program that I might want to use, I did a search in Google. When I typed the words, "shopping cart" into the Google search engine, the following five businesses showed up on the first page in this order:

ShopFactory – The ShopFactory maintains three shopping cart options available, all for under $400. They tout their product as a "plug and play" easy-to-use program even for beginners.

AgoraCart – Available for free as an Open Source based e-commerce solution released under the GNU General Public License. "Originally targeting highly experienced webmasters and programmers, it has since matured to a solution that is easier to setup for beginners, powerful enough for experienced programmers, modular for flexibility, and one that is currently powering thousands live shops around the world." Annual memberships cost money.

X-Cart – An e-commerce solution for under $200. Right up front, X-Cart states that their product is designed for "Software developers looking for a quality PHP shopping cart program at a low price." They have other caveats that I’ll cover in a bit…

osCommerce (Open Source) – Another e-commerce solution under on going development by the open source community. The program source for this product is free.

Monster Commerce – "Get started for $99 a month…" They do have an annual plan, and it seems as though they also tout their product as "plug and play."

While the five sites above all seem reasonable, I want to know what their demonstration sites look like. Why? Because I want to know how my site might look with their programming. Additionally, a look at the top clients for any given product might also tell me about the reliability of their product and whether I’ll receive immediate and satisfactory response to any problems. Last, but not least, I want to look at the sites from a nonprogrammer’s perspective to understand how these sites look to others who might want to use their services. After the reviews below, I’ll conclude with my opinions from that perspective to explain which site I might choose to build an e-commerce site…

Linda Goin

Linda Goin carries a B.F.A. in visual communications with a minor in business and marketing, and an M.A. in American History with a minor in the Reformation. While the latter degree doesn't seem to fit with the first two educational experiences, Linda used her 25-year design expertise on site at archaeological digs and in the study of material culture. Now she uses her education and experiences in creating social media environments.

Accolades for her work include fifteen first-place Colorado Press Association awards, numerous fine art and graphic design awards, and interviews about content development with The Wall St. Journal, Chicago Tribune, Psychology Today, and L.A. Times.

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