Sell online with free ecommerce template and Zen Cart

There is over 10 million people in the UK without Internet connection, what is worst is that there are also a significant number of businesses without any form of online presence. Such businesses are lost a lot of potential revenue by not selling online.  One of the reason some small businesses cited for now having online shop is the cost of selling online. The fact is that it has never been cheaper to sell online. There is a number of shopping carts one can basically install and start selling on without any cost, to make it even easier, there are free templates as well to make the free shopping cart look different from thousands of other sites that probably use the default template free ecommerce cart are shipped with.

Free ecommerce template

Velnet has just announced the release an interiors decoration themed ecommerce templates. The template was originally designed for Boss Cart premium but with basic modification, it can be changed to be a stand alone online shop template, modified and ported into other shopping cart such as Zen Cart.

Technical Specification

Though you do not need any technical skills to install the free shopping cart template but for the more technical webmaster, technical details of the free shopping cart template follows:

Sources Available: .PSD;.CPT;.CSS;.PHP
Software Requirements:
- Boss Cart 1.5.9;
- Adobe Photoshop CS+;
- Adobe Dreamweaver 8+ (or any php-editor);

The package comes compressed, to uncompress it you need:
- WinZip 9+ (Windows);
- Stuffit Expander 10+ (Mac)
- gZip (Linux/Unix)
Template Width: 955px
Colors: Gray, Blue, Green, Orange

You can download the template from here.

Buy or rent shopping cart software which is cost effective

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.

You can discuss this post by commenting at UK webmaster blog or UK webmaster forum

Google Checkout store gadget – shopping cart from Google

Given the fact that Google has been sticking its fingers in every possible pie online, its not grate surprise when Google announce the launch of their shopping cart which they call Google checkout store gadget. Google has been know to lead in online technology but with this new entry level shopping cart they are following. Google checkout store gadget and in fact the concept of Google Checkout is not unlike Paypal and PayPal shopping cart, where Google try to be different is the simplicity and ease of use.

In Google Checkout store gadget API, it is claimed you can have and online store setup and running in under five minutes without any need for coding or technical knowledge.

Google Checkout store gadget as you may have guessed run with Google Checkout so you cannot use it without signing up for Google Checkout first. The process is fairly simple once you have Google Checkout account out of the say. You just list your products in a Google spreadsheet, and then embed your new store in a website. Small, medium, and large sizes are available.

The shopping cart which is still in its beta stages is not robust enough to compare with established shopping carts online, its just away of getting more business for Google Checkout and of course other Google applications.

If you are looking for a robust ecommerce shopping cart software, application like Boss Cart its what you need, apart from giving you the flexibility of using any payment gateways you need, its fully fledged, tried and tested.

eCommerce Shopping Cart Comparison Chart

There is no better time to start online shop than now, whether you are thinking of starting an online shop from scratch,adding shopping cart facility to an existing website or just researching available ecommerce solutions.
The economic climate is quite gloomy for high street retailers but online traders large and small continue to see significant rise in sale, its time to take a serious look at ecommerce if you have not already done so.
The table below brings you brief information on some of the well know shopping basket software on the market today.

	Virtuemart	CubeCart	osCommerce	Zen Cart
Details	Free open-source shopping cart. It works as a stand alone but its at it own when combined with Joomla.	Free and paid options, robust and tested.	One of the most popular if not the most popular free shopping cart	A fork of osCommerce project.It has some features it parent does not like downloadable goods.
Advantages	Quite simple to install, may need to install Joomla to get the full benefit of some functions	Cube Cart is easy to install, support is said to be efficient.	- Easy to install, some hosting company bundle it with their control panel software.	Support is easy to access, quite nifty.
Disadvantages	* May have to trawl the web to find support. Prone to Joomla’s shortcomings.	Product review module still in development.	Does not support downloadable good, support can be difficult to access.	Can be made to be more user friendly. Said to be resource intensive.
Use it for:	A basic online shop.	Small shop, supports unlimited products.	Robust and reliable, has been around for some time.	Small online store.

There are many other shopping cart software apart from the above, perhaps in due course reviews of other shopping cart will be posted. One particular shopping cart to be mentioned at this juncture is Boss Cart, it is one of the fastest growing ecommerce shopping cart software , it support unlinited products for merchants that sell products. For online traders who sell items such as MP3, PDF files and other digital gooes, there is a module that caters for this too.

What You Should Know before Choosing Your Ecommerce Shopping Cart

As people begin to do more of their shopping online, hundreds of new ecommerce sites are popping up every day.  For this reason, a well organized and visually appealing website is vital to the success of your ecommerce business.  If you are only selling a handful of items, then accomplishing this task is fairly simple.  However, when you launch a full blown ecommerce site with hundreds or even thousands of items, a premium shopping cart service is essential to your business’ success.

Frankly, considering adding shopping cart functionality to your site when you are only offering just a handful of items might be worth consideration.   You always want to plan your business so that it is easily scalable.  In this way, you are planning for your business’ growth and expansion and will experience none of the headaches of a shortsighted business plan.

When you are searching for just the right shopping cart solution, it is easy to become confused or get sidetracked.  It may be difficult to figure out exactly what features you need.  Whatever shopping cart solution you ultimately choose, you need to be certain that you select software that is customizable to your website and that offers your customers a seamless shopping experience.

With most ecommerce business owners, one of the first considerations when deciding upon a shopping cart solution is price.  While price certainly is important, your end decision should not be based solely upon this single selling point.  It is important to find that healthy balance between affordability and the robust cart features you require.

One of the top ecommerce shopping cart solutions on the market today that may be worth considering is the Boss Cart Premium shopping cart software.  It definitely maintains that all important balance between being affordable and also offering the features you need to ensure that your ecommerce site runs smoothly.

One of the best features about this particular software is it makes it extremely simple even for those with little to no site design experience to set up the software and have it running in no time with its built in catalogue manager.  With the BossCart premium software, you can easily add and manage well over 10,000 products.

With any ecommerce shopping cart software you choose, you want to also make sure that you will have the support and guidance you need to get it properly set up and running.  Many companies will tell you that they provide support, but be careful to select a company that offers comprehensive support for their shopping cart product.

Being able to speak with someone by phone is ideal, but at the least, they should offer extensive email support.  In the event that you cannot get the software set up on your own, the company should be willing to help you install it on your server.  BossCart Premium shopping cart software extends all of these features at no extra charge to its customers.

Also, to help ensure that you are making the right decision, check out online reviews of the ecommerce shopping cart solution you are considering.  Look for positive comments about reliability and customer support.

Another thing that you should check out before making your final decision is whether the company offers any type of guarantee for their shopping cart software.  There is nothing worse than spending a hefty sum only to realize that your satisfaction is not guaranteed.  If the shopping cart software you purchase does not meet your expectations, a guarantee allows you to take comfort in knowing that you have not lost your initial investment.

Though there will be many more considerations when choosing your ecommerce shopping cart, these are some of the most important.  Before selecting any shopping cart product, make sure that you have done an appropriate amount of research beforehand.  In this way, you can be certain that the ecommerce shopping cart you ultimately choose will be the right one for your business.