If you are starting an E-store, one of the things you must decide is how to choose an online shopping cart for your E-store. If you have already selected a Web host, you may have made that decision after a comparison of the features provided by the host.

Many Web hosts offer a package of inclusions along with a subscription to their services. By staying with the same Web host, you can be assured that the shopping cart will operate seamlessly.

Determine What Features You Need

The types of things that you should have of your list of features for a shopping cart include both ‘must haves’ and ‘nice to haves’. You may need to have the ability for customers to search for numerous products and check out just once.

You want a shopping cart that doesn’t show up as a negative URL to search engines. If you must track tax obligations to numerous jurisdictions and you have very limited computer skills it should be on your features list.

The programming language of the website will drive some of the shopping cart features. Similarly, the size and type of your e-commerce business will determine whether you need some shopping cart features.

If you don’t sell many products on your website, a full-size product search component may be overly complex for your customers and be more complicated to install.

Once you have determined the features that you want in a shopping cart, you can ruthlessly cross off those shopping carts that do not contain the necessary features from your list.

Determine What Your Customers Will Find Helpful

If you find things irritating when using a particular shopping cart on the Internet, chances are good that your customers will be put off by the same things. Some of the positive features that customer like to see is the ability to shop for more than one item at a time.

If the customer wants to add items or remove items from the cart, it should be easy to do. The customer should be able to keep track of shipping costs through the purchasing process and not be in for a surprise when the credit card is charged.

Check your Shopping Cart Products

Your next step is to create a list of possible candidates for your e-commerce store shopping cart. Use a search engine and shopping cart review to determine what features are available in each product on your list. If a shopping cart doesn’t provide all the necessary features, cross it off your list and move on to the next one.

Looking at shopping cart reviews will help you to determine how well the various shopping carts rank on some statistical type features. Does a shopping cart have a good record of minimum down time?

Of course, ensuring that a review is legitimate and unbiased is important in deciding whether or not to accept the statements in the review.

Drive a Test Model

When you have a short list of two or three top candidates that meet all the ‘must have’ criteria, it is time to make contact with the shopping cart company personally. Try out a demo copy of the cart using various configurations. Will a demo work on other computers?

Your final step in deciding how to choose an online shopping cart for your E-store is to determine how the customer service and technical support departments respond to questions and concerns.

Does the customer service department of the shopping cart owner treat you right? Are they courteous, knowledgeable and available at all times? After all, if you have an e-commerce business, you will be getting customers 24/7.