Shopping Cart Websites: taking the next step

Published on April 19, 2011 Shopping Cart Websites: taking the next step

If you’ve been selling on auction sites and feel that it’s time to move on, what are your options?

A hosted shopping cart solution like Ozcart is a great way of selling online because it lets you focus on the business side of selling and not on the technology.

In a hosted solution, you effectively rent your site, so there’s no server to buy, no software to download and install – just a business shell waiting to be configured and used. The shopping cart software provider takes care of behind-the-scenes things like site software security (including SSL certificate installation and protecting your site against “XSS” hack attempts), file and folder permissions, write permissions, bug fixes in the code, country blocking, firewall configuration, php upgrades, PCI DSS security compliance all of the technical things that could consume a lot of your time.

As you effectively rent your site from your shopping cart provider you lower your initial outlay as well as you’ll pay only a nominal design and setup fee.

Once you have your own ecommerce website, you’ll benefit from:

• No listing fees or final value fee
• You can choose the layout for the entire website – not just a centre panel where your auction listing appears
• Make sure that your design is professional and take advantage of the latest web 2.0 design features – represent your brand the way it was intended
• You can choose from many different payment methods – including Australian bank transfer or money order, and many Australian payment gateways like eWAY, Camtech, Bendigo Bank (MIGS), Suncorp, iPay, ANZ eGate, DirectOne, St George Hosted Payment Pages, and Payment Express. Other NZ gateways and non-bank payment options like Paymate and Paypal are there to choose too.
• You can export your products to Australian shopping comparison sites like Getprice, myshopping.com.au, shopping.com, and Shopbot
• You get your competitors out of the mind of your buyers, because on your website they can’t advertise or sell their products right beside yours
• You can add as many content pages as your package space permits
• You can have as many images for your products as you like – without paying any extra
• You can feature products – the way you want to
• You can run two for the price of one specials, set category specials (20% the price of a particular category just for the weekend) or set individual specials that expire on a particular date
• You can use live calculators for your freight and postage calculations – like Australia Post, Fastway, Transdirect, eGo and Smartsend, and use many other Australian shipping options via flat rate per state, per postcode range shipping, per item, first item/next items and table rates. International shipping is also available if you’re selling overseas
• Use advanced shopping cart methods like a one page checkout and a quick-add-to-cart process to speed up the shopping experience
• You can have friendly urls on particular pages on your site – which makes it easier to list your site on directories.

The list goes on. You are in control of the content that is on the site and your cart provider takes care of security behind the scenes. It’s the best of both worlds, and lets you focus on the business of selling and marketing your website.