Shopping Carts, Part 2
Issue 75, December 8, 2003

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Dear Friends,

Last week I sent you the first installment of Shopping Carts, Part 1 (http://www.wilsonweb.com/wct7/issue74.htm)  Here's more -- a lot more. Now I've sent you about two-thirds of an e-book that will run about 300+ pages, I expect. Of course, you'll need to get the articles from my site because of the size. In this batch:

• Detailed Survey Responses from 50+ Shopping Cart Vendors
• Shopper's Guide to Shopping Cart Programs

The latter will make shopping cart shopping easy, especially for newbies. :-)

As 2004 is about to spring forth, I've been considering my business. As my paid subscribers, I thought I'd share it with you and request your ideas. Please take a couple of minutes and let me know. I value your feedback. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=11443338323

And I value you. Your encouragement and support is really appreciated. I'm here to serve you and help your businesses do even better in 2004.

God bless you,
Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, Editor

P.S. I've written some Christmas articles and short stories that you might enjoy. http://www.joyfulheart.com/christmas/

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Detailed Survey Responses from 50+ Shopping Cart Vendors

http://www.wilsonweb.com/wct7/cart_survey_details.cfm

To complete this section, I asked about 60 to 70 developers to complete a detailed 92-question survey about their product in November 2003. A little more than 50 completed usable responses. With some I sent numerous e-mails with no response. So this survey is incomplete, but is still the best single, detailed document that lets you do point-by-point comparisons between leading shopping cart applications for small to medium businesses. Enjoy! (Note: This is a 200K zipped webpage, so be patient.) See the Survey Responses.

1 A Cart 2.4 AbleCommerce 5 Actinic Developer 6.1.3 Americart AShop Deluxe 3.6 CactuShop v5.1 CandyPress Store 2.4 Cart32 5 CatalogIntegrator Cart V 7.0 CFWebstore 5.0 Comersus + Power Pack Premium 4.36 CyberOffice Trading Mall CyberStrong eShop 4.4 Dansie Shopping Cart 3.42 digiSHOP 2.0.1 eCart Professional 2 ecBuilder Pro 6 ECmerchant 6 1ShoppingCart V2.8 Epromo's E-Store E-Store Builder GlobalWebCart Version 1.0.158 Hazel 4 iHTML Merchant 2.5 Intershop MultiSite Multi-Channel Sales Solution 5 Kagi Online Store 3.x Make-a-Store Inc Heavy Metal E-Business Suite 10.1 Mal's e-commerce Marketeer 4.05 Miva Merchant 4.2 MonsterCommerce 4

Nexternal Solutions osCommerce 2.2 PayPal Shopping Cart PDG Shopping Cart Version 2.5 Power Commerce * ProductCart 2.5 Quick Cart 2.3 QuikStore 2.12.129 redtienda 1 SalesCart PRO 5 SecureNetShop 4.5 ShopFactory 6 ShopSite Manager 6 ShopSite Pro 6 ShopSite Starter v6 SoftCart 5.1.6 StoreFront 6 StoreSense Professional 5.6.1 StoreSense Professional Plus v5.6.1 StoreSense Standard 5.6.1 StoreSense Starter Edition 5.6.1 Tek9 Pro 7 The Edge Shop 1.5 UltraCart VP-ASP Shopping Cart 5 Webcart Version 10 X-Cart Gold Shopping Cart Software 3.5.0 XSE.NET (Xtreme Shop .NET Ecommerce) 1.0.103 Yahoo! Merchant Solutions

See the Survey Responses.

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Shopper's Guide to Shopping Cart Programs

http://www.wilsonweb.com/wct7/guide.htm

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. See the Shopper's Guide.

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.

See the Shopper's Guide.

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New Ecommerce and Web Marketing Articles

Each month our team of link editors scours dozens of online periodicals and resources to find key information on e-commerce and Web marketing. With so much new literature available to you, how do you find what you need quickly and painlessly? Here's a selective and searchable database of article and resource links to help your research and keep you up-to-date in the field. (Links gathered in a given month are usually available during the second week of the following month.)

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