It's only natural to want to get the best deal possible when looking for a shopping cart. You also need to get a shopping cart that fits your business and has all the features that are going to make you successful (otherwise what's the point?). If you want to get the most out of your ecommerce solution, then you might want to consider focusing on features, endorsement, support, and value. Keep in mind, if you want to do this right, you might be embarking on a long journey, but it takes time to do something right, and you could be with your shopping cart solution for good long time if you make the right selection.
This is where you start. What features do you want/need in a shopping cart? Do you need a hosted solution, or a licensed one that you can host on your own site? How much business do you do? How many products do you carry? This will determine how much storage and bandwidth you need. Do you place a lot of emphasis on your social media presence? If you already have a lot of friends on Facebook (or better yet, a "business" page for your business) and a Twitter account established for your business, you are definitely going to want a shopping cart solution that supports those efforts. Even if you don't have these things, you may want to diversify your operation to include them. Start by just brainstorming a list of features for your cart. Divide them into "needs" that you can't negotiate on and "wants" that you can live without if it comes down to it.
No one can pick your shopping cart for you, and it would be foolish to make your decision based on someone else's website, but turning to sites you know and respect first can be a great way to narrow down your selections. Find other sites in your market, and/or your level of activity, and/or that you just trust and isolate what you like about them. Desirable sites are easy to use, display product information neatly and easily, and usually have functionality beyond the core site. Examples of this include Facebook "Like" buttons, or the ability to send product information to an e-mail address so that other people can see what you are looking at (or just so that a user can e-mail an item to his or her own e-mail address for later). If you have any friends or connections who are already in the ecommerce world, consider contacting them for a sit-down meeting about their shopping cart solution. Why did they pick that solution? A few minutes with an established ecommerce professional can add some perspective to your own journey.
You don't need to go it alone in your ecommerce journey. The support staff at your shopping cart solution will be there to guide you as you get set up, and with the various issues that will no doubt come up as you go forward. You can't put a price tag on good customer service. The best way to figure out if the shopping cart solution you want has good customer service is to sign up for a free trial and start setting up a store. Then call up customer service and take them through every possible process that you need (or could need) help with. Many of the higher-quality ecommerce software companies link each new customer with a dedicated representative. In this case, "dedicated" means that you can directly contact this representative instead of waiting through a customer service queue and ending up with someone who doesn't really know you or what you need. Again, if you know anyone with an ecommerce store already, you might strongly consider asking them how they rate their customer service. Also consider when you will most likely be working on your store and need assistance. Many e-ntrepreneurs don't work a standard 9 to 5 schedule, but unfortunately, some customer service departments aren't open the late night/weekend hours when you may need them.
One common mistake that many new (or even experienced) ecommerce professionals make is thinking that all "entry-level" packages are the same. Most ecommerce software companies lay out their shopping cart solutions in a grid or table, with the cheapest solution at the left and progressively more expensive options with more bandwidth and items to the right. If this is your first ecommerce solution, focus only on the two least expensive packages offered by every service. You almost certainly won't need more than that much bandwidth or product space when you are just starting out (and if you did suddenly expand, then you could just upgrade your service, so don't be frightened). Isolate the first two tiers of whichever shopping carts you want to compare and plug the data for your desired elements into a table. Bandwidth, number of items, social elements, SEO control, etc. Don't be intimidated by the number of features that each cart has -- remember that you are focusing on only those features that matter to you. Once you have tightened your focus onto the elements you care about, you can weigh all your options evenly. If you don't have time to compare the features of each shopping cart side by side, consider reviewing our shopping cart comparison chart.
