Shopping Cart Software - 5 Popular Choices to Consider

By Brandon R. Cornett

Shopping cart software is a key ingredient for any web-based business wanting to make direct sales through a website. But with so many choices out there, where do you even begin to shop?

The purpose of this article is to present to you five of the most popular shopping cart software. This article is a good starting point from which you can learn more about these (and other) shopping cart software packages. For each software, I will also list a website where you can learn about that particular product.

This is Not a Promotion or Endorsement

Please note: I am not promoting or endorsing any of the software products that follow. I am simply presenting some of the industry-leading applications for your further research and consideration. This article is meant to educate, not persuade or promote.

With that said, here are five of the most popular shopping cart software applications.

ShopSite Pro 7.0

ShopSite is described by its manufacturers as "an electronic commerce software for the small to medium-sized business." This software is top-rated by many software authority publications. With ShopSite, there is no HTML to learn, making the product accessible and usable to a large number of website owners.

This latest version of ShopSite Pro also adds some new customer intelligence features. Here's how the company describes it in a recent press release:

"The new ShopSite Pro 7.0 software introduces the ability to manage customer registration. With ShopSite, an Internet store will remember the customer, including their preferred forms of payment and any previous 'ship to' addresses."

* Where to learn more: www.shopsite.com

MerchandiZer Pro

This popular software won the silver award for shopping cart software at TopTenReviews.com.
The manufacturer says their product allows webmasters to "quickly and inexpensively build a secure storefront to merchandise their products, take orders online, process payments, and distribute products over the World Wide Web."

One particular feature that makes it stand out is that customers can review their orders in detail prior to submitting the order. There's also a useful login page for customers that gives them the power to view their order history and update their personal details.

* Where to learn more: www.merchandizer.com

Monster Commerce Pro

This server-based shopping cart software won the bronze award for its class at TopTenReviews.com. Because the tool is server-based, there is nothing to download or install. This is a big plus for site owners without advanced technical knowledge.

The manufacturer says their product "enables clients to cost-effectively deploy powerful ecommerce stores while avoiding the expensive, time-consuming development process."

* Where to learn more: www.monstercommerce.com

StoreFront 6 AE

StoreFront needs to be run in conjunction with Dreamweaver or FrontPage (at the time of this writing). So if you use either of those programs regularly, this tool might be worth a look. This shopping cart software also offers some nice relationship-building features. For example, you can set up price groups and assign individual customers to certain price groups (for incentive programs, customer loyalty programs and the like).

This software is sold by LaGarde, Inc., who describes StoreFront 6 as a "secure, feature-rich ... e-commerce shopping cart solution for multi-channel online sales, featuring integration with leading Accounting, Point of Sale, and Fulfillment systems..."

* Where to learn more: www.storefront.net

Mercantec Softcart

Mercantec Softcart is also a server-based shopping cart software. There's nothing to download or install, and you can access your account from anywhere through a regular Internet browser. This tool offers some nice reporting features, allowing you to generate a variety of reports configured the way you want them.

* Where to learn more: www.mercantec.com

Copyright 2006, Brandon Cornett. You may republish this article if you retain the byline, author's note, and the active hyperlinks.

About the Author

Brandon Cornett manages the Software Learning Center, a holy shrine for software geeks looking for independent software reviews and articles. Online at: http://www.LearnAboutSoftware.com

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