Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

With my website I have an `shopping cart/autoresponder` combined product which costs $79 per month.

I use the autoresponder product for individuals who sign-up for my `free` services. I could supply this by just continuing to use the autoresponder product only ($29 per month). So I am paying $50 per month for the shopping cart, which I think is expensive.

I am thinking of changing the shopping cart product to prestosell.com (which I have come across in other postings here in SUN). Prestosell costs $10 per month so I would be saving $40 per month.

All makes sense?

Does anyone use any other products or have any other advice?

Thanks.

I`m not an expert on shopping carts or shopping cart integration, but if you`re looking for a way to eliminate your monthly cost on your shopping cart feature of your website, you can go to www.comersus.com  They have a free downloadable and functional ASP shopping cart.  I believe it is compatible with Authorize.net, Paypal Pro and a couple of other payment processors.

May be something you might take a look at with your webmaster.  It is probably very basic, but I`m not sure how robust of a system you are looking for.


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Oliver Mupas
United Bank Card
866-207-6007 ext 303
omupas@ubcnetworkonline.com

If you are paying $79 a month for these things for an entire year ...

You could have paid off a developer who made you a site that used your own services by now.

And after that year, you`d only be paying $5 per month in hosting for your entire site.

Have you considered using the paypal shopping cart or something like Mal`s ecommerce Shopping Cart, both are free? Paypal shopping cart can also take recurring payments and it is pretty easy to set up.  And most email hosting companies provide free autoresponders and surveys with your regular domain package, so you might also want to look to see if your hosting company offers that if you want to save another $360/year.

I think I know which $79 shopping cart you are talking about and I know a lot of online marketers who use this program and swear by it  for the convenience of managing all of their programs through one system.  Being able to track everything through one control panel helps a great deal if you want to be able to measure your true ROI and metrics on various ad campaigns. Of course if you do not use those features, then I suppose that program is of little value.

Hope this helps a little.

Having just come through the development side for our form on PrestoSell, I`d encourage anyone who`s contemplating the use of a shopping cart to consider their product AND its pricing structure.

I mean to say that if your product lends it self to conventional pricing, that can easily be broken into categories and units, then there are all sorts of great options out there.

But if you have a product that needs someone to explain in some detail what it is they want from you, then go with a custom-designed shopping card.

When I say "explain what they need," I don`t mean you have an obscure, or bizarre product. Rather, that you have something that includes many configuration options. For example, you might both rent and sell boats.

In this boat example, consider that people need to tell you if they want to buy or rent. Is it a powerboat or sailboat? How long will the rent be, if they rent. How can you trap for mistakes where someone asks to rent, then pays to buy? Which length boat, and what will be theirs and your obligation during the rental. On the other hand, if they buy, what are the obligations, and how does the pricing change?

The point is that many types of businesses require a lot of information from the buyer, and that information can be mistaken, an error, or simply the wrong thing. If your business does not fall into that category, cheap and simple is definitely the way to go. Otherwise....not.

It appears with prestosell to use the customer data, you have to download it?

If that`s the case, you should think about how you want to use customer information - newsletter, email...etc and how prestosell may or may not be able to meet your needs like another ecommerce solution.

 

~Roland

 

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Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter

PrestoSell gives you a comma delimited file, which of course, you can bring into whatever.

They make mandatory fields for customer name and address, plus email. They`re an invoicing company, not a shopping cart (per se). They do have Presto...something (Biz? Store?) for a full storefront. But the order form is just that, an order form.

They can be integrated with an existing merchant account, or they work with PayPal, so someone can click a "Pay with PayPal" in their confirmation email. Otherwise, the customer gets an email notification that they ordered something, and you get the notification as well (to whatever email address you define).

Thanks to all the wonderful advice from you guys. I shall have to carry out some research! However,  the overriding factor is I am paying too much for my shopping cart!!!

I`d let you know what I decide.

Thanks again.

 

Andrew

Honestly,

I recommend using an open source shopping cart such as osCommerce. I`ve gone the paid route (monsterCommerce), as well as the free route, and I have discovered many more technical problems with the non open source ones.

Man, I remember for a month or two, any transaction made through me via a macintosh computer would not be processed correctly because monstercommerce had a glitch with linkpoint, my payment processor.

If such a thing were to happen with osCommerce, you would have 200 people coding their own fixes and adding it to the community within a night or two.

Most importantly, their is very very little collective intelligence that gets passed on to you through paid cards. You think they would be setting you up with cutting edge e-commerce, given that is their job and all - but, no.

Learn alot about marketing, go with osCommerce.


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Best Regards,

Victor Wise

If you go for open source... I recommend Zen Cart over osCommerce.

I`ve used and created ecommerce sites with both programs. Zen Cart also has a better admin/back room.

~Roland

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Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter