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So before deciding on a shopping cart system it is important that you make sure you are aware on what you need. While every website has different needs for their payment systems below you will find a general list of things you should be looking for, make sure you decide what is most important for your own retail needs.

What to look for in a shopping cart system

Ease of use

It is a startling statistic that nearly 50% of all items that are placed into online shopping carts are abandoned before purchase. It is vital to any profit margin that you keep that statistic as low as possible, and the best way of doing that is to ensure that potential customers find it easy to use. Test the software and see how a non-technical person might find it.

Customization

Being able to customize a shopping cart is very important. When looking to pay online via credit card many customers are rightfully nervous, being taken to another site or looking at a whole new ‘feel’ to the site at checkout can be jarring and cause them to change their mind. Make sure the system is in keeping with the feel of the rest of your site, and ideally customizable and brandable.

You should also be able to alter it to provide other options, different methods of shipping, etc.

Price

A lot of e-commerce dropshipping sites are designed in the knowledge they will only make small amounts each month, but on a consistent basis. So when considering what cart is best for your site make sure you are looking at costs. There are free carts available, with less options or support, or paid ones which might cost too much. Make sure you look at what it costs AND what you get for your money.

Here are some popular shopping cart systems:

CubeCart – An easy to use yet powerful shopping cart featuring unlimited categories and products, multiple payment gateways, downloadable products. The design is very easy to modify.

osCommerce – A power-user shopping cart with a big variety of modules and support of almost every payment gateway. A big developers community is ready to offer custom solutions depending on your needs.

ZenCart – Zen Cart truly is the art of e-commerce; a free, user-friendly, open source shopping cart system. The software is being developed by group of like-minded shop owners, programmers, designers, and consultants that think e-commerce could be and should be done differently.

Any web hosting company that comes with the 1 click script installer Fantastico (e.g. WebHostingHub) will provide you with CubeCart, osCommerce, and ZenCart for free.