I took a quick peak on-line at the various Store Front Software options available. Looks like there are a ton of them out there. I want something fairly simple I can use to produce an on-line catalog. Currently I'd rather customers call before placing orders - but in the future, I would want the software to have shopping cart capabilities. I don't want to spend a ton of money - but at the same time I want something easy for both myself & potential customers to use. Have any of you ever used/purchased store front software? If so, which ones & what did you like or dislike about the software?
Thanks Ken. I'll take a look. I honestly don't know enough to know exactly what I need yet - but I don't want to put a lot of time & effort into using a solution only to find out that better ones are out there. When I do a search online I get enough results to keep me reading from now until eternity. Any suggestions to help narrow the search are greatly appreciated!!! Thanks Again!!
A few things to consider with selling online: 1. How many items do you have in your inventory? 2. Do your items have attributes associated with them (such as sizes, colors) 3. What type of payments will you accept (e-check, credit cards, PayPal) 4. How do you intend to ship your items and will you provide shipping options (such as 2nd Day, Next Day, Overnight, ground delivery)? 5. Will you accept international orders? (If so, then shipping is an even bigger question.) 6. Do you need or want the future ability to offer coupons for discounts when people buy in your online store? 7. Do you need or want the future ability to have the shopping cart "upsell" for you based on what somebody is buying? (They order a red shirt and the cart could suggest red shoes to go along with them...AND a discounted price if they include them on their order today.) 8. Do you need or want the future ability for your shopping cart to interface with accounting software you might be using? (Ability to import from the web your customer lists, sales invoices, etc.) 9. What type of technical support are you likely to need? Does the shopping cart software vendor provide for support or is there an established group of users on the web that provide support through forums, etc? The process of selecting any type of software (including online shopping carts) should always begin with reviewing how you work, and what needs to be accomplished. Once the actual tasks and features you need are identified, you can apply your list to any possible shopping cart solution and compare "apples to apples." (Never pick software first and then try to fit your business to it!) Some general comments - PayPal makes it easy to get into selling online, but if you have very many items, their solution becomes tedious to work with and maintain. Shopping carts that are based on databases (rather than static product pages) are much easier to maintain, especially with growing, ever changing, or large inventories of items. Knowing the answers will help you pinpoint what shopping cart will work best for you. Let us known if you have any questions we can help with.
