Which E-Commerce Premade Cart Website Package Should I Use

A common question, when considering an osCommerce-type integrated website, shopping cart, database, and management, package is which one should you choose. There is no easy answer to that question and, unfortunately YOU are the only person that can ultimately provide that answer. There are many such packages out there. These integrated packages are often called just shopping carts which is an unfortunate misnomer as they are much more than that and should not be confused with individual shopping cart packages like Mal's Cart or Cool Cart for example.

It is difficult question to decide which package, if any, to use for your website. Not only are there many packages to choose from but, of course, they all say they are the best. And the may well be. But only ONE will be best for YOUR needs! There are advantages and disadvantages to each package as well as a wide range of features offered in each. All the well-known carts offer customer and product management functions, a variety of payment and shipping functions, order and other emails, and support for SSL (secure socket layer) security for order processing. At a minimum you will also want to consider these issues which will vary from package to package:

• ease of installation
• ability to modify the look of the site
• time and skill required to work with the package
• templates, often called skins, available
• initial cost (many are free or offer a basic version free of charge)
• on-going cost (are there monthly fees involved)
• available modules to extend basic features
• WYSIWYG editing of product descriptions and other content
• ability to import/export from/to a spreadsheet
• direct interface with popular accounting packages
• both retail and wholesale (reseller) pricing support
• programming language (ie: PHP or ASP)
• server support (ie: Windows or Linux)
• database support (ie: MySQL, etc.)
• is this an open source project
• is there a support forum where you can get answers

All of this is important information you will likely need at one time or another. Some is more geeky, and some may not be needed to make an initial choice, but you should understand the consequences of having, or not having, the various features or functions. It may be an enormous task to change from one package to another at a future date.

To help you make your choice we have already included articles on most of the popular sites and will add an article on any other site you suggest. Please use the contact form from the Contact OSA link above to do this.