Do I Need A Shopping Cart?
Order form or shopping cart? This is a question that everyone entering the world of on-line trading will have to ask themselves.
For a store with more than a few products, you need a virtual "shopping cart" in which your customers can put their products. (You don't want their virtual arms to be so full they begin to drop things on your virtual floor!)
Just what is a shopping cart program?
But do you really need it?
If you're only selling a few products, you can probably get by with a simple Web page form which takes the customer's name, address, phone, order, and credit information. bfb Services provides all our customers with the ability to create their own forms whenever they want, whether they are on Sitebuilder or Powerweb.
(Click here for an example of a simple on-line order form.)
But when you begin to sell many products, or products which have a number of variable factors, you'll see the limitations of the simple form. Shopping cart software enables your customers to:
• Place an order for a product on the same page as it is pictured and described.Let's say you have 50 products. With a simple form your customers would have to write down the product name and catalog number so when they get to the order form they can remember what they wanted.
• Order two or more items. With a simple order form, if you leave it to find another product, it's too easy to erase the information you've already put in the order form. And this can be quite frustrating!
• Select multiple numbers of a single product while specifying different colors and sizes. With a simple order form if you want to order 5 blue T-shirts in large, 3 blue in medium, and 6 small shirts in puce (my personal favourite!), your form would be overwhelmed.
• Total all the items along with tax and shipping charges. Simple forms don't do any calculations.
There are millions of former Web store owners in this world. They say, "We tried to sell products on the Internet but no one would buy anything." What they won't tell you is that they probably tried to set up an on-line store without the proper equipment. That would be like opening a supermarket without the convenience of shelves, carts, and cash registers. You could put all the products out there and just have one sign: "Pay the man next to the door before you go out."
When you plan to do a retail business, I'm sure you know you have to make the buying environment attractive and hassle free.
bfb Services can supply your site with the shopping cart to suit your business, whatever it may be. We have a couple of different carts we can make available to you, our entry level cart, suitable for small businesses with limited stock, and our more powerful cart, which can handle any sized business and stock levels you need it to.
This premium cart will deliver the ultimate online shopping experience to your customers. Navigating through your merchandise offerings is a breeze, and the program provides several "Spotlight" lists in addition to the traditional category to product links. Once a product is added to the shopping cart, secure checkout is a simple 3-step process. After providing the billing information, your customer chooses the shipping method. (multiple shipping methods including real-time internet shipping quotes are built-in) Next, a payment type is chosen from one of the popular payment modules. (PayPal™ and AuthorizeNet™ are just 2 of the included modules) Last, the customer reviews the order, shipping and payment choices, and confirms the order. You are immediately notified of the order and your customer automatically receives an e-mail confirmation.
So do you need shopping cart software for the on-line store you're dreaming about? If you've just got a few products, probably not. But if you're planning to sell seriously on the Internet you can't afford to skimp on the essentials. This is an essential.