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Monday, January 12, 2009

Features to Decide before Selecting Open Source Shopping Cart

 

 

All open source shopping cart software offerings have unique features about them which make them more or less useful, depending on your needs as an online marketer.

The following is a list of shopping cart features that you should consider as you decide which cart to use as the platform for your online money make website.

  • Discount coupons
  • Affiliate programs
  • Gift certificates
  • Automatic postage calculations (such as with UPS, FedEx, USPS)
  • International postage calculations (in real time)
  • Order-taking options (through the website, over the phone, fax)
  • Detailed statistics (who came to the site? How did they get there?)
  • Flexibility with taxes (state, international, multiple taxes)
  • Credit card payment options (Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, etc)
  • Multiple payment options (Credit Card, PayPal, C.O.D., paper invoice, purchase order, charge to telephone)
  • Real-time credit card processing
  • Electronic gateway options (such as Authorizenet, Verisign, Bank of America,...)
  • Multiple currency displays (Selling to Canada? Show the prices in Canadian dollars)
  • Recurring billing (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly)
  • Digital delivery (for e-books and other e-files)
  • Bulk purchase discounting
  • Recognition of repeat customers and customer-sign in
  • Automatic confirmation emails
  • Automated "lost password" recovery
  • Newsletter sign-ups
  • In-site search engine
  • Detailed sales reports (to the extent of cost versus price)
  • Integration with sales software (such as Quickbooks)
  • Security issues (such as forbidding orders from a Yahoo account)
  • Gift wrapping option
  • Multiple products options (such as color, size, style)

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