What is ecommerce? How does an online store work? What should you look for when buying shopping cart software?

If you have ever bought anything in an online shop, then you have already used ecommerce. Ecommerce at its simplest is the buying and selling of goods and services online.

Shopping cart software is what sits behind an online shop - it is the software that shows products, lets customers choose them, pay for them and tells you to dispatch them. But how does this process work?

When you go to a supermarket, in most cases you'll pick up a trolley to put in all the items you are thinking of buying. An online store works just the same. An online store has an electronic shopping cart, which keeps track of the products you have indicated you want to buy. As you go through the store as a customer you can add or remove items to your cart. When you have enough you can go through an electronic checkout which confirms the items you have chosen, and asks you how you want to pay for them, how you want to receive them and where you want them sent. It then collects your credit card or other relevant details to complete the transaction.

What should you look for when you are buying a shopping cart software application to run and manage your own online shop. Some of these are:

• How much does it cost to set up? Some companies have an artificially low setup price but hefty monthly payments in excess of $150 per month. There are free applications on the market, but then you have to figure out yourself how to install them and fix anything that goes wrong. For an application as important as your business do you really want to do everything yourself or have the comfort to know professionals are there to help out when something goes wrong?
• How easy is it for customers to go through the checkout? If it is difficult then you may lose business
• How easy is it for you to manage? Powerful shopping cart software applications have many features so its important that it is easy to learn, and there is plenty of help available. Is there seven day support? If something goes wrong on a weekend you don't want to wait until Monday to get it fixed
• Does the shopping cart software make it easy for your website to be indexed by search engines?
• Is the design of the store appealing? Many customers are fickle and if your site doesn't look great they may not buy from you even if you have the products they are looking for. Just like a physical store, first impressions count.