Should you buy or rent ecommerce shopping cart software

If you have an ecommerce website, you cannot do without a shopping cart. It is the shopping cart program that enables your customers to select the products and place them appropriately for payment. Without the shopping cart, your customers will face problems completing their transaction and that will impact your ecommerce initiative severely.

The question is whether you would want to buy one or take one on rent. This article examines the advantages and disadvantages of buying versus renting out a shopping cart.

Buying a shopping cart

When you purchase the shopping cart, you have total ownership, control over how you wish to customize the software to suit your requirements. You can tweak the software to include or delete features. This is of course assuming that you possess the necessary knowledge and expertise to do so.

However, the flip side is that when you buy such software, you need to keep paying for any upgrades that the software may undergo. If you wish to do the upgrade your self, it may not be possible and in the process if you end up making changes to the software, you will stop getting the after sales support from the company you bought the software from.

Renting the shopping cart

When it comes to renting, there are limitations as well. You will not be able to do any customization since you do not own the software and have to make do with the features it already possesses. The only solace is that you are not making a bulk one time payment but paying it over several months and this may come back to haunt you as time passes. The advantage is that you can get started with your business and contribute to the rent per month from the profits you start making in your ecommerce business. If the business starts doing well, you always have the option of buying out the software with the additional cash it has generated for you over time.

The positive aspect of renting the shopping cart is the fact that you can get free upgrades and avail of the benefit of any improvements made to the software without paying anything. You need to check this out when you do rent out the shopping cart with your host. Also make sure that you will have access to regular service help when required so that you are not left high and dry when there is a problem.

Your decision to buy a shopping cart or rent it out thus depends on how technically savvy you are or whether you have access to such a person and what is the importance you wish to accord to customization. If you cannot provide for your own support system and do not attach much importance to customization, then renting out the shopping cart software would be ideal for you. If you are one of those who does not wish to pay a bulk amount upfront, then renting is the right option.

Many web hosting companies do offer such shopping cart software in their monthly hosting package and that is one way you can start using the software without making a huge payment upfront.

However if you wish to buy it outright, you need to always remember that the cost will increase depending on the features you decide to have on it.

Ultimately as mentioned, it is your business requirements that will decide whether to rent or buy the shopping cart software.

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