If you are thinking of selling products or services directly from your website you have a lot more things to think about. We currently have a 4 page questionnaire which our clients fill out so we can decide the best way to create their shopping cart.

Some of the things to consider are:

  • How many products are you going to sell?
  • Are there variations (size, color, men/women, etc.) to the products?
  • Is it a physical or digital product?
  • Where is it sold – the United States only or also internationally?
  • How is it shipped? Are there special shipping needs? (refrigeration, overnight, etc.)
  • Will you offer discounts? An affiliate system? Different pricing to different people?

Picking the proper shopping cart is vital. The wrong cart can create huge problems. You need to research that the cart does everything you need it to do.

You also need to decide how you are going to accept payment. There are a number of ways to take money on line. There is PayPal, Google Wallet, Authorize.net, and more. Their function is to verify the credit card is good, collect the money and transfer it (less a fee) to your bank.

There are also hosted shopping solutions which provide a templated cart which provides a built-in payment processing system. Hosted carts are often good for E-books, music and other non-physical products.

Choosing the right cart for your products is essential. You can, of course, do all the research yourself but we’d happy to help if you want.