All ecommerce businesses can choose between either implementing a free or a hosted shopping cart. The shopping cart is an integral part of an online retail store. Customer orders depend on an efficient and reliable cart software to sum up the total amount of products, calculate the cost, accept customer credit card information and process the payment. A website shopping cart is just one part of an ecommerce solution, which also includes hosting, web store design and other functions that are needed to create an ecommerce store. The free or open source solution can be downloaded and used by anyone that already has a web site with hosting.
Many people prefer using a free website shopping cart for their site, because the fact that it costs nothing is very appealing. Another main benefit is its flexibility, this type of cart can be completely customized. There are several features available, which are just like that of the hosted shopping cart. It's becoming a popular solution for people looking to start an e-commerce business without a lot of money to spare.
There are also several disadvantages for selecting a free over a hosted shopping cart. Here are just a few obvious disadvantages:
- Programming knowledge and technical skills are needed to set up and customize the website shopping cart to resemble the look and feel of your e-commerce store
- Web site must already have hosting
- Upgrades are not always guaranteed and if there are upgrades available, you might be charged for it in addition to added features
- Very little support, you have to look for the answers to your problems on support forums
- Servers are often overloaded with numerous sites, which can lead to slow performance or even downtime
- No automatic security updates
There is a much higher percentage of people who decide to go with an ecommerce solution with a hosted shopping cart service. There are a number of good reasons for doing this, the most important among them are security and reliability. Customers get a lot more support from an ecommerce solution and new upgrades and features are enabled automatically. There are a lot more features that can directly help your online store, especially if you plan on expanding and growing your business. Unlike using a free cart, you do not have to have much technical knowledge. In fact you can build your site in only a few minutes using pre-made storefront templates that are usually provided by the e-commerce solution.
If you can't decide between either using a free or hosted website shopping cart, you need to try out both
shopping carts software solutions. The free version has to be downloaded and installed on a website that already has hosting. You can also try the hosted version free of charge for a limited time period depending on the ecommerce solution.
