Martin Bergmann | Press Release: 22 Questions to Ask Before You Use Any Shopping Cart System:
You can use traditional methods to sell products such as direct mail, catalogs and advertising. However, if you have a great online presence, the entire world is your marketplace at a fraction of the cost of most traditional methods. To easily sell to this worldwide marketplace, you need a great shopping cart system.
Choosing a shopping cart system is perhaps the most important single decision you'll make in your online marketing career.
This is because you will be stuck with the decision for a long time.
If you buy into a system that isn't adequate, it can cost you money--big money--because it won't maximize the amount of money spent by each visitor.
There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of off-the-shelf, free and alternative products out there vying for your money, time or both. And most of them are junk.
Don't suffer like I did. I learned the hard way.
When I started on the Internet I couldn't find a decent shopping cart program, so I took one that was highly recommended by my ISP (I now know the only reason they suggested it was because it made them the most money. They didn't care if it was the best one for me or not). What a headache! The system wouldn't do anything but take the order, but you had to have a PhD in computer science to work on it.
Here are 22 questions you absolutely, unfailingly must ask anyone trying to sell you a shopping cart. If you don't hear positive answers to the majority of these questions, put your wallet back into your pocket and evaluate the next option. Don't get stuck with a crappy shopping cart, even if they give it to you free.
If you have a poor shopping cart, get rid of it. I know that hurts, because you may have spent lots of time and money getting it going, but a bad one will cost you many thousands of dollars by waiting to replace it later rather than sooner....
