Building a Shopping Cart for Beginners

30th Jul 2013 | Posted by Eko S. | No Comments

Having an eCommerce site requires a good shopping cart. If you have an online store, you don’t need to be a web designer or a technology guru to create an easy shopping cart. There are multiple templates for online stores and shopping carts that are easy and accessible. They’re also quite inexpensive to design, and are easy enough to set up for those without a lot of tech knowledge. Not only do your shopping carts need to be easy for you to administer yourself, but they should be user-friendly for your customers too.

Picking Your Template

First, you’ll need to pick a theme or design that fits the product or service you are selling. Remember, your online store should be a welcoming site to your customers, and it should be easy for them to use. Try not to make your customers spend too much time searching for what they want and how to buy it. Your site and shopping cart should be easy to use and reliable. There are several eCommerce hosting site such as Shopify and GoDaddy that can provide what you need to set up shop. Don’t worry about staffing a developer to manager your shopping cart, with these sites you’ll be fine on your own.

When picking a template from the eCommerce hosting site, make sure it has the ability to manage your online catalog. You want to be able to set up your online store, and then not have to do a large amount of maintenance to keep it working for you. It should essentially keep your inventory online. GoDaddy shopping carts are quite easy to use, and require very little maintenance.

Make Sure It’s Mobile Friendly

More and more eCommerce sites are seeing traffic and buyers from mobile devices. This is a growing market that will only get bigger. That being said, having a mobile-friendly website and shopping cart should be one of your business’s top priorities. If your website and shopping cart don’t work well with mobile devices, you stand to lose customers. People and shoppers are busy, and they are expecting to have the services and goods that they need provided to them on their mobile devices.

Free vs Paid

You can find free shopping cart templates online through sites like Shopify, but they are limited. While they still look good, the applications a vendor will need to optimize your site and shopping cart are definitely not free. Keep in mind, that while you may have to shell out a little bit of money in the beginning, it won’t be much, and it will definitely be cheaper than hiring a software developer to design and maintain it for you. If you build a great site that is visually appealing, and you are selling a product that people want, you will easily make the money that you have to pay up front.

Building a shopping cart is easy enough for beginners if you find a good template and hosting site that is easy to manage and is reliable for both you and your customers.