Free Shopping Carts or Purchased Shopping Carts
Which is Better for You?
For many people, this question really boils down to ability. Do you know how to install and manipulate a free shopping cart like osCommerce (my personal favorite free shopping cart)? It takes a working knowledge of PHP, HTML, and MySQL to do this. Sure, the programmers out there make it sound easy enough, but if you’re a total newbie, then you should think twice about it.
Then again, if you have a mind to learn these things, then a shopping cart would be a nice beginner’s project. Although, I would suggest getting comfortable with HTML before attempting PHP and MySQL self training.
Also, you could always hire someone to set up a free shopping cart for you. You would probably spend the same amount of money that it would take to purchase a shopping cart solution.
But even if you have the ability (or the willingness to learn), that doesn’t always mean that the free shopping carts are the better choice. You have a few other things to consider.
Time and Shopping Carts
Let’s start with your time. It’s worth something…and setting up any website sucks up time like nothing else. The more precious your time is, the more you should consider paying for a shopping cart. Even these will require some of your attention, but setting up a free shopping cart (especially when you need it customized) can really keep you up all night.
Hour after hour you’ll spend…making changes, debugging, and making more changes. Before you know it, it’ll take over your life.
Paid for shopping carts generally come with everything ready for use. Just give it a list of products and you’re done. Customization is often limited, so you won’t be tempted to make changes for the sake of change.
Secure Shopping Carts
There is a matter of security. You’ll be collecting and storing some pretty valuable information. Even if you use a gateway for credit card payments, you’re still collecting customers’ names and addresses. Many shopping cart solutions put some of the security issues into their hands.
Customized Shopping Carts
Again, free shopping carts are generally easier to customize. You might decide that you want specific prices for different customers…not a problem with something like osCommerce. With paid for shopping carts, on the other hand, it might not be possible.
There are thousands of other options that you might need, and free shopping carts make it possible.
Between these issues, you’ll have to find a plausible solution for your online store. You might even use a combination…or use one while you’re installing and perfecting another.
Just remember that none of them are actually “free”. It’ll either cost you your time or your money. Just decide which one you have more of at the moment.
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