Shopper's Guide to Shopping Cart Programs

If you've ever struggled to figure out which shopping cart to select for your situation, here's some help at last. Here are 12 different needs. Probably one fits you. For each I suggest appropriate shopping carts, selected primarily from recipients of the Web Marketing Today E-Commerce Award of Merit recipients.

1. Cheap Start-Up. You're having difficulty obtaining a merchant account or don't want to invest in a merchant credit card account or a payment gateway at this time. You want to get your feet wet in e-commerce without making a big investment until you see how it will work for you.
2. Softgood Sales. You want to sell primarily digital products such as e-books, whitepapers, or software. You need a system that will handle sales and downloads.
3. All-in-One Tools. You want all your marketing and e-commerce tools in a single package that will do most everything rather than having to buy a multitude of single purpose tools.
4. Simple Systems. You have just a few tangible products to sell, and no need for anything fancy.
5. Comprehensive Systems. You have many tangible or digital products to sell and need a system that will handle both an ordering system but manage your product pages and website as well.
6. Programmable Systems. You need to be able to program the entire catalog management and ordering system to handle specialized needs and features. Need full control, but prefer not to start from scratch.
7. Outsource E-Commerce. You want to outsource the entire e-commerce operation to another company -- both online sales and product fulfillment -- and just receive a check every month.
8. Mall. You're a website designer who needs a system that enables you to offer shopping carts to a number of your clients without paying for a separate license for every store or setting each up from scratch.
9. B2B. You're a manufacturer or distributor that's selling primarily to other businesses. You need B2B features such as pricing by customer, quantity discounts, online customer account access, vendor access, etc.
10. Auction Interface. You sell both in auctions and in your online store and are going crazy. You need a system that will help to integrate your e-commerce and auction sales so they can be managed by a single program.
11. Members Only Site. You offer paid online content. You need a program that will handle subscriptions and access to a members-only website.
12. International Sales. You need to be able to translate your site and ordering system -- and currency system -- for sales in several countries. Or you need a system that will handle double-bit languages such as Japanese, Korean, or Chinese.