Ecommerce stands for electronic commerce and refers to the selling of goods and services via the internet. The introduction of the internet has seen an explosion in ecommerce across the world.
A shopping cart is software allowing a product or service to be sold online.
There are many shoppingcart's available both free and paid versions.
Follow the links below to some popular shoppingcarts to see key features and more information.
See Zencart Web Hosting and Cubecart Web Hosting
Reduced Time
Once a business has been set up online, the time it takes to add new products, answer customer enquiries, monitor stock, print receipts, send emails/newsletters to customers can be achieved in a much more timely manner.
Most shopping carts have automated most if not all of these processes.
Flexibility and Efficiency
Shop owners can now be more flexible with their working hours as an ecommerce shopping cart can virutally take care of itself. More time can be spent in other areas of the business enabling overall greater productivity and efficiency, leading to greater profit margins.
New markets
The introduction of ecommerce and shoppingcart's have opened new markets globally.
Instead of your market being your local suburb or town, ecommerce allows branching out into entire cities, states, countries and the world.
Payments on time everytime
The ability to trade online has also seen a major jump in the use credit cards and electronic funds transfer (such as PayPal).
Payment can be automatically detected by most shopping cart's, hence without payment, an order cannot be placed. As the shop owner
you receive payments on time, everytime.
Shop online, anytime.
Being online allows you to be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Consumers can now choose to shop when it's convenient for them, not have to rush home after work to get to local shoppingtown.
Accessibility
Users can now shop in their own homes, at work, on holidays, anytime, anywhere in the world with a computer and internet connection.
If you decide you would like to set up a shopping cart online your next step would be to
register a domain name and web hosting .
Zencart and Cubecart come recommended by both store owners and customers.
