ZippyCart: Ecommerce Software Reviewed

The Different Shopping Carts: Shopping Cart Software vs.
a Shopping Cart Script or Payment Gateway

Running an online retail store has never been so complex! The need to exchange money securely has become increasingly important (especially with the rise of online identity theft), leaving merchants to determine how to best protect the customer and manage this process. Today two software solutions have emerged for merchants: The shopping cart "plug and play" button (payment gateway), and the full-blown ecommerce shopping cart software system.

The difference between shopping cart software and a simple payment gateway or shopping cart script, is not subtle. Full blown ecommerce shopping cart software lets you manage every single aspect of your store including design, content, products, inventory, customers, sales, promotions, marketing, and so much more. There are many great licensed or hosted shopping carts available that provide all of these benefits for a very low monthly cost. They also include all of the standard payment gateways like PayPal and Google Checkout as part of their overall solution. There are also some free shopping carts that also provide these features, but most require knowledge of code and a great deal more input to get them working properly, which is very different than a licensed or hosted shopping cart software.

Payment gateways and simple shopping cart scripts provide only one function: the ability to receive money for products your are selling. When using a payment gateway, you will have to include the script or embed code on a website you have already created. You will have to manage inventory, shipping, customers, marketing, products, and more all on your own. This is ideal for someone just selling one or two items, but for a merchant with a large portfolio of products, this can become a lot to juggle.

How to Decide Between Shopping Cart Software or a Shopping Cart Script

Deciding on a plug and play payment gateway versus a ecommerce shopping cart software boils down to three basic questions:

1. How big is your website?
2. What kind of content do you have on your website?
3. Which is better for search marketing (ranking high on important search engines like Google)?

Size does matter when making a decision around using a simple "buy now" button from PayPal™ or Google Checkout™ vs. a robust ecommerce shopping cart software. A lager site will typically go for the ecommerce solution simply given the broader functionality of the application. Ecommerce shopping cart software allows you to build and manage an entire online store, using virtual CMS (Content Management System/Software) software so that you can update and manage your store and website anywhere there's an Internet connection. There is an ecommerce shopping cart available for every level of experience and knowledge. If you are not familiar with website development and coding, then you should consider an online shopping cart solution versus a PHP cart or open source solution that you host yourself. A plug and play cart, on the other hand, may require some HTML knowledge so that you can embed the button throughout your site. This solution may be more appropriate given the size of your company and volume of product moved. Unfortunately, just adding a "buy now" button to your site that you have integrated with your PayPal account doesn't help you manage the sale from start to finish, which shopping cart software will. So, if you plan on selling enough that managing all the details will become a headache, then you are definitely the right size company to use an ecommerce solution rather than just a payment gateway on your site.

Beyond size, the type of content you have on your site and how you manage that content makes a huge difference, potentially even swaying your decision from one to the other. For example, you may have a huge site with a great deal of information, but not a high rate of online sales for your product. In these cases, it may be best to move forward with a simple "buy" button from a payment gateway or shopping cart script, and tie it to a CMS allowing you the editing capabilities without the full blown functions of an ecommerce system. On the other hand, you may be a smaller less well-known site, but have hundreds of SKUs to track. In this instance full blown ecommerce shopping cart software may be the best way to go since your need to track your products is much greater than the site in the first example.

Search marketing capabilities has also become a huge requirement for online retailers. Both a full-blown ecommerce system and a payment gateway or shopping cart script, can impact your site positively in this area by improving your organic search rankings, ultimately driving more traffic to your site without you having to spend a dime. However, although both the eCommerce shopping cart software and the simple shopping cart solution sound easy enough to implement and manage, they can have devastating impacts on your search marketing capabilities if used incorrectly or improperly (especially around parameter-laden dynamic URL’s that search engines (like Google) don’t index). One product isn’t necessarily better than the other in this area, but the impact does boil down to your ability to take corrective actions should something negative occur on your site. It's best to search for an ecommerce solution that is search engine friendly. On ZippyCart, that is one of the minimum requirements for a cart to appear on this site. We have a team of search engine experts that review each cart to ensure that it dosn't just say "search engine friendly shopping cart software", instead the shopping carts' actions actually back up their words.

Great Shopping Cart Software and Shopping Cart Scripts Out There

There are a great deal of options when it comes to shopping cart software and shopping cart scripts. Finding the best option may seem daunting, but you can review all of your ecommerce options with ease on this site. If you are considering a hosted shopping cart solution that provides all of the necessary features to manage a successful online store, review our top 10 hosted shopping carts. You will quickly see that CoreCommerce and 3dcart rank as our top two hosted shopping carts. Monthly pricing for these systems range from $14.99 per month up to $179.99 per month. Pricing changes based on server capacity and amount of products you wish to sell, but features remain the same across the different packages for each repsective solution.

If a simple shopping cart script or payment gateway is your desire, then PayPal is a great option and the most trusted source for online payments. You may want something a little more robust than PayPal that is also plug in play. If this is you, consider FatFreeCart, which is a free shopping cart script that includes a view cart button and allows for some customization.

Regardless of your choice, take some time to read about all of the ecommerce solutions reviewed on this site including shopping cart customer reviews, expert shopping cart reviews, and ecommerce software comparisons.