They’ve been called many names; eCommerce solutions, online store builder, or eCommerce platforms. All these are names refer to an online shopping cart experience. Online shopping carts provide your business with features that allow you to efficiently conduct online transactions. In addition to this, shopping cart solutions such as ThriveCart will include features that enable you to maintain inventory, promote your products, track sales, and at the same time ship orders. As you can see, shopping carts are much more than for selling products.

In this era, the modern consumer is informed and will be taking into account their shopping experience when transacting with your business. It is, therefore, important to ensure that you’ve invested in the best shopping cart solution. In this piece, we’ll provide you with insights and tips to choosing the best online shopping cart for small business in 2019.

1. Consider Your Business Needs

Before you decide on a shopping cart solution, it’s very important that the solution meets and suits your business needs. The fact that you’ve created an online store means that you want to make an extra buck at the end of the day. Your goals will, therefore, influence your decision. For the shopping cart to meet the demands of your online venture, there are two factors to consider, they include;

 

• Your skill level
• The shopping cart features

 

2. Self-Hosted v/s Web-Based

Shopping cart solutions come into forms; software as a service (SaaS) solutions and self-hosted solutions. As pertaining to SaaS, you’ll find that they are easy to use because they’ll be managed and serviced by your vendor. This means that you may need to part with some fees. Whereas in a self-hosted solution, you’ll only need to download from the internet and use them. In addition to this, there is no need to sign any contract with any vendor meaning that they are free. Nevertheless, it may cost you when operating your website.

When opting for the self-hosted solutions, you’ll need to factor in the need to purchase an SSL certificate which is on an annual basis and then finding your own hosting solution. Both solutions come with their sets of advantages and disadvantages. But as always, find a solution that best suits your business needs as well as improving user experience.

3. Cost

Shopping carts, depending on the solution you choose, have their own price points. If we were to for instance consider web-hosted options, you’ll find that the price may range from $10 to $250 on a monthly basis while on the hand, self-hosted options are absolutely free. However, a few factors may affect the cost of the shopping cart option, they’ll include;

• Storage
• Bandwidth
• Features
• Themes
• Support

 

4. User Experience

This is a factor the will either improve your sales or ideally bring down your business. It’s very important that before deciding on a shopping cart solution, you factor in how it’s going to affect the user experience. It’s very important for the user to navigate easily through the store options. In addition to this, they shouldn’t have difficulties when it comes to modes of paying. All these are important elements to consider when deciding on a shopping cart solution.

Online shopping platforms are not limited to time. You should invest in a shopping cart solution that runs on a 24/7 basis with the inclusion of live chat support. This way, no matter the time of day, your customers know that they’ll still find what they want from your online store.