Shopping Cart/Store-Building Program
Comparison Worksheet

Check if feature is needed

 Name of program studied:

Hosting

Is this an Application Service Provider (ASP) or can you select your own hosting service?

Site design

Does the program have a web interface webpage design system? Can you include custom HTML on the page design?

How are the product pages generated? Static HTML, dynamic pages?

Products

Does it contain a product database?

Does it allow products to be assigned to one or more product categories?

What is the appropriate maximum number of products you can sell?

Can you upload a database of product data to renew the online store?

Can you export the online product database?

How well does it handle options such as size or color? Does it allow multiple drop-down options (size AND color) for a single product? Can the product price be altered by the option selected?

Does it allow a field for monograms, personalization, or inscriptions?

Do product pages allow you to suggest purchase of other related products (cross-selling or up-selling)?

Does it allow room for more than one description and one photo to describe and display the product?

Does it make it easy to display on-sale or featured products from the front page?

Does the store have a search feature to help customers find the right product?

Can you sell digital product and allow for download after the sale?

Does the product page show if an item is in-stock or out-of-stock?

Pricing

Does it allow sale pricing?

Does it allow discounts for totals over a set amount? Or discounts if 3 or more products are selected?

Can members receive special prices?

Can products be set for taxable or non-taxable?

Can the order system be set to require a minimum order total?

Order Form

How are orders retrieved securely by the merchant?

Is a digital certificate provided by the ASP or hosting service, or must it/may it be purchased separately?

Is a customer registration enabled to record customer information in an online database?

How sophisticated is tax calculation? Multiple states? VAT taxes? Tax on either order total or total without shipping?

Can you easily charge for optional gift-wrapping?

Can customers include a gift message?

Can customers use coupons to obtain discounts?

How sophisticated are shipping features? UPS, FedEx, USPS plugins? By weight, price, number of items?

Can you ship to multiple recipients on the same order?

Is a single-page order form available, or does it require many screens?

Can a customer order multiple items as part of a "package" with a single order button?

Can custom ordering scripts used in the program?

Will it fax orders to the merchant?

Can it transmit orders to the merchant via XML?

International

Does the ordering system allow complete translation into another languages? Single-bit or double-bit (Chinese, etc.) languages?

Can another currency than dollars be used?

Payment System

Does it require the merchant to have a merchant account?

Does it require a separate payment gateway or is one included?

What types of payment are allowed?

Marketing

Does the program assist in search engine registration?

Can you send e-mails to your customer list?

Does it have a built-in affiliate program, or does it support a third-party affiliate system?

Does it allow you to see site traffic and site sales statistics? How detailed are logfiles?

Does it have a gift register feature?

Accounting

How easy is it to export order data to a desktop accounting program?

Does it allow vendors to view sales and inventory levels?

Order management

Does it e-mail the customer upon ordering AND upon shipping?

Can customers track their own order progress through a password-protected web interface?

How sophisticated is the order management system?

Does it contain features required for B2B sales?

Does it allow you to manage vendors for each product?

Fees

Is there a one-time or annual licensing fee?

Is there a one-time set-up fee?

Is there a monthly fee?

Is there a separate payment gateway fee?

Are there separate merchant account fees?

What is the discount rate of an included merchant account?

Are there any miscellaneous fees? Is there a percentage-of total-order-charge?

Miscellaneous

Can your ordering system and product catalog be used as an auction interface with eBay, Yahoo! Auction, or other auctions?

Is there a customer rating system available?

Does the system offer a forms-to-email program to allow customers to send questions or comments?