- Hosted
- if a cart is hosted, the cart company will arrange for your database and site’s transmission from their servers to the internet, and typically they guarantee that the site will stay live 99.9% of the time. Typically, hosting incurs a monthly fee, and has traffic limits.
- Operating System
- Most carts have certain operating system compatibility requirements; i.e. - whether or not the cart will work with Windows, Linux, and Macintosh OS.
- Digital Download
- This function allows the Cart to automatically transmit digital products (such as software or digital photos) through a secure online connection.
Affiliate Program
Often Site owners will make deals with other sites to send them traffic. An Affiliate Program allows you to track if an affiliated website directed traffic to your site, and keeps track of the traffic so you can compensate the affiliate.
- Quickbooks Compatible
- Allows automatic upload or download of data to Quickbooks (a popular accounting software) minimizing the amount of data entry required for your bookkeeping.
- Batch Upload
- Allows user to upload an entire database of products at one time, minimizing the amount of data entry required.
- Inventory Management
- System which can track your inventory, and notifies users and site operator when items are out of stock.
- Search Engine Submit
- Function designed to notify search engines of the presence of your products and site so they appear in search results
- Spiderable
- The cart builds your product database so that it is ‘friendly’ to the search engine spider software. Ideally allows your products to appear in search results
- Product Feeds
- Formats database so that third party partners of your choosing can market your products for you with links to your site.
- Email Application
- Cart has built in email software so you can send and receive email with your website as the host in the email address (Webmaster@CompanyX.com)
- Discounts & Coupons
- Allows you to issue and customers to redeem coupons or discounts for your products
- Suggest sell/cross selling
- Refers to a function which will recognize a customers selection of items, and recommend other items that might be of interest to that customer.
- Payment Methods
- There are a variety of methods for transacting payments online. The most common are Credit Cards, Paypal, E-Checks, and Money Orders.
- Tax Calculation
- Cart can calculate different methods of taxation, either with pre-set rates, or parameters that you can set up manually.
- Multi Currency Payment
- Cart can accept multiple currencies with either dynamic exchange rate calculation, or pre-set calculation
- Shipping Cost Calculator
- Cart can calculate shipping costs based on the products purchased and give customer an immediate quote.
- Dynamic Shipping
- Cart can communicate with major shipping companies to determine cost and estimated delivery time of products.
- Support & Help
- Carts often have either telephone or email support, it can have a cost or it could be free, each cart is different.
- User Forum
- Some carts have a user forum which can be a useful tool for getting answers to FAQ or dealing with other issues that arise.
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