How to Know Whether You Need a Shopping Cart Program, or Outgrowing a Simple Order Form

1. AT&T has announced five hours of free Internet connect time for each of its customers, and $20 to $25 per month for unmetered service. This is likely to bring a whole new wave of people onto the Internet over the next few months. It will also force local Internet Service Provider (ISP) access fees to remain competitive.
2. VISA and MasterCard agreed several weeks ago to develop common security standards for on-line credit card purchases. When these are in effect by later this year, I think we'll see a rush toward on-line stores, and a rapid expansion of on-line commerce.

Wise entrepreneurs will be positioning themselves now so they are ready by the time the wave of ready-to-buy shoppers comes. Maybe you're one of those would-be on-line store owners.

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? It is software that resides on your Internet Service Provider's computer which aids your customers in shopping from your on-line store. The image is one of an invisible shopping cart. You like a product? You click on the "order" button, and voilà! It is placed in your invisible cart, and the total of all the products you've picked up so far is displayed with tax and shipping charges calculated for you. When you get ready to check out, you can change your mind and remove the item from your cart, and then purchase what's left. This is slick software, and really convenient for your customers.

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. Wilson Internet Services includes this kind of form with all our Web site packages six pages and larger.

If you'd like to better understand the substantial abilities of a simple one-page order form, take a look at our demo of a simple form.

This simple form is designed for you to experiment with, and will send you e-mail so you can see the kind of feedback you'll receive from it. (Also refer to Web Marketing Today, Issue 5, January 22, 1996, "The Marketing Potential of Web Site Forms").

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. Frustration!
• 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 chartreuse (who would ever pick that color!), your form would be overwhelmed. Just to prove it to yourself, go and try this out on our demo form.
• Total all the items along with tax and shipping charges. Simple forms don't do any calculations.

A year or two from now there'll be thousands of former Web store owners. They'll say, "We tried to sell products on the Internet but no one would buy anything." What they won't tell you is that they tried to set up an on-line store without the proper equipment. That would be like opening a "Seven-Eleven" convenience store 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.

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.