Shopping Cart Software

Your shopping cart software is the program that keeps track of what people are purchasing on your website, and processes the transaction for them. If you try an online search for shopping cart software, you're going to find more results than you could possibly research in your lifetime. I've looked into some of these options, and tried some myself, and I've narrowed the field for you a bit. In many cases you will need to have a shopping cart and a merchant account to process transactions online. To find out more about merchant accounts click here.

1. 1ShoppingCart
1ShoppingCart is the best and most complete shopping cart solution on the internet. It will work with anything you want to sell, and it's very easy to use with full training videos and learning center. But that's not even the best part.

Your cart is hosted on their server, so you can use all of their services with it. They include a complete email management system with autoresponders, a complete affiliate program so you can easily sign up affiliates to help you sell your stuff, and a full set of statistics to track your ads and conversions. The look of your shopping cart is also fully customizable. There really is none better online. If you're interested in having your own shopping cart for your website, I highly recommend looking into 1ShoppingCart.

2. PayPal
PayPal is the easiest solution for anyone who's just starting out. You can start using their service right away without having to get a mechant account, or spending a lot of time and money on set-up. Eventually, if you're serious about your business, you will want to get your own merchant account to process credit card transactions, but PayPal is a great place to get started right away.

Even if you do get your own merchant account, you may want to continue to use PayPal Website Payments Pro as an alternate method of payment. PayPal is very well known and trusted and widely used on the internet. Some people prefer to pay using PayPal, so it's good to have as another option. It might just increase your sales conversions.

3. ClickBank
Clickbank is a great place to go to help you process your sales if you are selling a downloadable item, such as an ebook or software. Actually, ClickBank only allows downloadable items, but they do a great job with it because they're basically a shopping cart and merchant account all in one. Plus, they also have a complete affiliate marketplace with thousands of people willing to sell your products for you. If you don't have a shopping cart, or don't necessarily want one, then allow us to recommend trying out ClickBank to process your orders.

4. Yahoo Merchant Solutions
Yahoo Merchant Solutions can provide you with a shopping cart complete with a merchant account and hosting and pretty much eveything else you need for your website. They're a great place to go for all-in-one service. They can easily set you up with a merchant account or connect to yours if you already have one. And their transaction fees are very reasonable.

5. eBay Prostores
eBay Prostores is very similar to Yahoo in that they have an all-in-one service that includes hosting and a shopping cart. Their fees are also reasonable. eBay is also a well known and trusted name on the internet.

6. OS Commerce
OScommerce is a great service for the simple fact that it's free to use. But it also works really well and does everything any of the pay shopping carts do. The only drawbacks are that you have to have your own merchant account and you have to know some advanced programming and databases to integrate it into your website. If that isn't a problem for you, then I recommend you check them out.

7. Mal's e-Commerce
Mal's e-commerce is also a free shopping cart software system, and it's a little easier to use since it doesn't get fully integrated into your website. There is also a premium version with a few more features including better customization for very a small fee.

8. Linkpoint Cart
Linkpoint Cart is another type of shopping cart that hosts your cart on their server, but it works well with anything you may want to sell. They have an easy to use interface for creating "add to cart" buttons or checking your orders and most anything you will need to do. You can customize it in almost any way you like. You will need to know some HTML to get the most out of it, but you won't have to be an expert.