A shopping cart is a piece of software that acts as an online store’s catalog and ordering process. Typically, a shopping cart is the interface between a company’s web site and its deeper infrastructure, allowing consumers to select merchandise; review what they have selected; make necessary modifications or additions; and then purchase the merchandise.

Now that you know what a shopping cart is, let’s talk about the advantages of implementing a shopping cart on your website.

Several years ago, most merchants didn’t use shopping carts because they weren’t all that popular.  Consumers would purchase either via the phone, fax or email.  People would actually email their credit card or check information but, it was safer back then.  Please, don’t try that now.  Because of sophisticated software, theives, hackers and the like, your information can easily be taken when there is no security involved.  Like identity theft.

There are way too many shopping carts available now to jeopardize your customers personal information and we’ll get into that a little later.

Implementing a shopping cart into your existing website allows your potential as well as existing customers to shop with ease.  The software is in a secure environment such as “https” which means:

A secure version of HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure) which encrypts data.

The potential customer now knows that they can now shop securely without the threat of their credit cards being hacked. 

How you present your products is also critical to sales.  If you’re a merchant having a shopping cart on your website will allow you to manage your sales effectively as well.

Here’s why you also need a shopping cart on your website.  I saw a very beautifully designed website today.  I can tell that the merchant took the time to search for an experienced webmaster to do the work.  The colors are fabulous and navigation is perfect!  But… there’s no shopping cart. 

Ugh!

Being a consumer, I would personally exit from that website and look for another company offering the same products BUT with an easy way for me to shop at the store by clicking “buy now” or “add to cart”, enter my payment information and I’m done.

I personally will not take out the time to email them asking how can I purchase from their website.  It takes too much time and we all know, we’re living in a fast paced “get it done now” society.

Got a question about shopping carts?  Let us know by asking here.

There are various autoresponder services available.  But before we get into listing each one, let’s define what an autoresponder is.

• An autoresponder automatically responds to anyone that sends mail to it. In other words, it’s a method of replying to an incoming e-mail instantly and automatically.   For example: Corporations use them specifically for “out of the office” notices. Like when you know you’re going to be out of the office for a day or a few days even weeks, you can set up your email so that whenever someone emails you, your autoresponder message automatically responds with a pre-formatted message that you set up specifically for this. Like, “hello and thank you for contacting me. I will be out of the office until… if you need emergency assistance please contact….
• You can also use autoresponders to send a series of messages to the person who originally sent an email to that specific autoresponder email address. For example, you may have a free ecourse for the visitors who come to your website. Once they subscribe to the autoresponder email address, they will receive a series of pre-written messages to them on any given date and time.  Autoresponders are highly used for newsletters and ezines.

I’ve compiled a list of autoresponders below:

1. Aweber (Risk Free 30 day Trial)
2. Constant Contact (Free 60 Day Trial)
3. EmailAces
4. GetResponse
5. SendFree (take a free test drive by sending a blank email to: testdrive-102840@sendfree.com you’ll receive a series of autoresponder messages of the sendfree service)
6. 1AutomationWiz

Don’t be in a hurry, take your time looking through each resource.  While I highly recommend you incorporate an autoresponder system in your business, look closely at your marketing needs, such as will you also need a shopping cart, affiliate management solution and tracking tools?  If so, look out for the post on Shopping Carts soon.