Online shopping gives customers a wealth of product information including the ability to compare products and services. The right shopping cart and ecommerce hosting solution can increase online sales by making product selection and checkout seamless for customers. A difficult or confusing shopping cart checkout process can drive away sales at the critical moment a customer wants to make a purchase. A shopping cart program integrated with your ecommerce hosting website enables your web visitors to access your products and related information, resulting in purchases and more revenue for your business.

This article explores what shopping cart programs do for ecommerce websites, determining the right shopping cart for your online store, and important features to take into account while considering the many shopping cart options available on the market today with ecommerce hosting companies.

What does a shopping cart program do?

A shopping cart program runs on your ecommerce web hosting server and performs three basic functions. A shopping cart program creates:

1. A storefront integrated with your website where consumers can find products or services, view product and service details and descriptions, order products and services, and purchase products and services.
2. A database that stores information about both customers and products and services, such as product information, order information, and shipping information.
3. A website administration area for you to add products and services, manage orders, and set payment options.

A shopping cart program creates product or order pages in real time based on the information the web visitor requests. Since a shopping cart program runs on the web server where your website is hosted, choosing a quality ecommerce website host is extremely important. With exceptional ecommerce hosting and the right shopping cart program, you will be able to provide web visitors, consumers, and prospective customers with a positive online shopping experience.

What are the different types of shopping carts?

The three main categories of shopping carts are: proprietary, open-source, and custom. Each type of shopping cart uses ecommerce website hosting resources. Proprietary shopping carts have pre-configured features, do not grant access to code, and range in price according to the complexity of the cart. Open-source shopping carts allow for great flexibility and customization, grant full access to source code, and are free. Custom shopping carts are built to your exact specifications, you own the code, and typically require a higher budget.

Is an open-source shopping cart right for your online business?

Ecommerce websites produce profits as a result of generating leads and converting leads into sales. Many factors in your website and the buying process affect customer behavior. The ability to modify your website, and especially the buying process, to suit your customers’ preferences leads to increased profits for your online business.

Reliable ecommerce web site hosting combined with open-source programming gives web owners the flexibility they need to customize their online business and the service and security they need for protecting vital customer data and online transactions. Ecommerce hosting provides online business owners the expertise, service, and security their stand-alone shopping cart may lack.

Important features of online shopping carts

One of the most important features of a shopping cart program is its ability to ease the selection and checkout process for customers. You may want to choose a shopping cart program with additional features to encourage web visitors to return and make additional purchases.

Features to look for when choosing a shopping cart and an ecommerce hosting solution include an easy-to-use product management system, templates with customizable options, support, and reporting features so you can keep track of customer behavior like product views and purchases. Another helpful feature is the ability to merge shopping cart order information with a bookkeeping program.

Open-source shopping carts provide you the ability to duplicate the overall look and feel of your website pages in each product and checkout page generated by the shopping cart program. The more uniform the different sections of your ecommerce website, the more comfortable people will feel making a purchase.

Unlimited shopping cart options for ecommerce website hosting success

Certified Hosting’s unlimited ecommerce hosting options include hosting for many shopping cart programs so you can select the program that meets your website’s needs. Ecommerce shopping carts available with Certified Hosting ecommerce web hosting include oscommerce hosting, cubecart hosting, buy safe hosting, zen cart hosting, magento hosting, ubercart hosting, agoracart hosting, and nopcart hosting.

To make sure your ecommerce hosting experience supports your online business in every way, the Certified Hosting support staff is available 24x7x365 to answer your ecommerce web hosting questions. In addition to unlimited support, Certified Hosting unlimited ecommerce hosting gives you fast data transmission speeds, 99.9% uptime, and top quality servers and hardware to facilitate an environment amenable to maximum sales conversions.

For more information on ecommerce shopping cart programs and the unlimited Certified Hosting ecommerce hosting solutions, visit http://certifiedhosting.com/.