bacaartikeldisiniaja -- Choosing an online shopping cart is a big decision. Unlike traditional brick and mortar stores, your website is your only chance to impress potential customers. To gain the trust of your visitors, you need to convey a professional image. Shopping carts are a particularly important part of a website because they handle people's personal information and credit card numbers. People are nervous about buying online and need to make sure they give their credit card number to a trusted company. There are many different types of e-commerce shopping carts. They range from merchant services that require no programming skills to fully integrated shopping carts that require custom programming. The three main categories of shopping carts are:
- Merchant services such as eBay and 2Checkout
- Hosted shopping cart service
- Fully integrated shopping cart
- dealer service
Most shopping carts require their own merchant account and gateway. A merchant account is a bank account that allows a business to make credit card transactions, and a gateway allows them to do so over a secure connection. No merchant account or gateway? A Merchant Services shopping cart allows you to use your merchant account, gateway, and shopping cart at a higher cost.
Merchant services are beneficial for very small businesses or businesses that are just starting out and don't have many orders. Merchant Services provides merchant accounts, gateways, hosted shopping carts, and manages customer personal information.
They typically charge a setup fee of $50-200, transaction fees of 30-75 cents, and 5%-10% of each transaction. Because you're using a merchant account, your customer's credit card statement will show the merchant's company name, not your name. In some cases, the customer may not be aware of the charge and may dispute it.
The Merchant Services cart has an admin interface where you can log into your account to add products, prices, and shipping options. The shopping cart will generate the HTML code for the buy button, just copy the HTML code and paste it into your web page.
When the customer clicks the purchase button, they are redirected to another of her websites to enter their credit card information. This shows customers that you are a small business. Some prospective customers abandon their carts instead of entering their credit card information on websites they don't know.
As your business grows and processes over $1000/month, apply for your own merchant account and choose between a hosted shopping cart (little or no coding) or a fully integrated shopping cart (no coding required) ).
Hosted Shopping Cart
The hosted shopping cart is a great solution for a small business that is processing over $1000 a month but does not have the resources to create or customize a fully integrated shopping cart. Hosted shopping carts are similar to the merchant services because they provide an administrative interface for you to enter products, pricing and shipping options. They will generate the html for the purchase buttons, which can be copied and pasted into your html pages.
Hosted shopping carts face some of same problems as merchant service carts because your customers will be transferred to a different website to enter the credit card information. Some hosted shopping carts allow you to customize the shopping cart so that it has the same look and feel as your websites. Customizing your shopping cart may require some programming skills, but it could also prevent customers from abandoning their shopping carts.
The main difference between the merchant services shopping cart and the hosted shopping cart is the name that appears on the customer’s credit card and pricing. Hosted shopping carts allow you to use your own merchant account and gateway, which means the customer’s credit card statement will show your business name next to the charge. This can decrease your charge backs.
If you are using your own merchant account and conducting over $1000 of transitions each month, the hosted shopping carts can be less expensive than merchant services. Your merchant account will probably charge a monthly fee between 20 and 60 dollars, transaction fee between 10 and 50 cents, and a percentage of the transaction, usually ranging between 2% to 3.5%.
In addition to the merchant fees, your shopping cart service will also charge a monthly fee between 10 and 30 dollars and could charge a transaction fee. These fees sound more expensive than the merchant service option, but if you are processing over $1000 a month and growing, it’s better to pay flat monthly fees than continue to be charged 5 to 10 percent of the each transaction.
Fully Integrated Shopping Carts
The fully integrated shopping cart is a great option for any business that can afford it. The shopping cart will be dynamic and will have the same look and feel as your website. The ZIP Baby Potty Training Store is a great example of a fully integrated shopping cart. Fully integrated shopping carts like this contain features that are not found in merchant service or hosted shopping carts. For example, you can discount items, display customer reviews, assign products to multiple categories, display out of stock notifications, sort products and prices, and display shipping estimates without requiring the customer to create an account.
Integrated shopping carts require advanced programming skills and can often be used with your own merchant account or with a service that allows you to use their merchant account for a higher fee. There are many integrated shopping carts available. Free carts require the most programming skills, but if you don’t have the programming skills necessary to customize a free shopping cart, there are many companies that specialize in customizing fully integrated shopping carts.
Your choice of a shopping cart can have a dramatic impact on your business. Your website is the first and only impression you get to make so you’ll want to make it as professional as possible. While shopping for a shopping cart system, put yourself in your target customer’s shoes and browse the Internet. Review your competitor’s websites as well as those outside your industry. Make a list of shopping carts that you find appealing and research them thoroughly before choosing one.
