Top 7 shopping cart solutions for your business

Planning to  launch your e-commerce business ? Definitely, you would require an e-commerce store that amplifies your sales effectively. You can look through the array of cart solutions available these days to pick the best e-commerce shopping cart solution that's just right for your online business. Let's take you through a tour of the top 7 shopping cart solutions to help you choose better. 

Big Commerce: It serves as an impressive solution for setting up an online store that is not merely powerful but also comes packed with useful features. It allows quick & easy store step up besides absolute control over the look & feel of the store. Even non-technical people can use it without requiring to upgrade your skills. Other prominent features include 15 days free trial, maximum web browser compatibility, support for 50+ payment gateways, SEO friendly design etc.

Volusion: Making your shopping store stand distinctive from the rest is what Volusion powers you with. Volusion has plenty of awe-inspiring features that make it ideal to base your e-commerce store upon. Its numerous professional design options enable you carve your store in the most attractive fashion. You can even integrate your Volusion store with a bunch of other websites.  Other prominent features include optimum security with PCI and CISP protection, complete variety of payment options, easy-to-understand tools, hassle-free store management etc. 

Magento: Its the incredible features this powerful shopping cart solution brings to online merchants that have made it popular in the current time. Magento has earned the trust of more than 240,000 online merchants across the globe and these figures will keep on increasing in coming time. Its enterprise-class features and thousands of useful extensions ensure that your business grows successfully. While Magento Go caters to the demands of small business forefront; Magento Enterprise Edition is for the bigger ones.

Shopify: Building & managing your shopping store becomes extremely easy with this amazing  shopping cart solution. It is a highly regarded ecommerce framework that comes with built-in Analytic tools besides fraud detection & SEO compliance features. Its store builder interface allows you create your personalized store in minutes. Moreover, HTML5 compatibility ensures that look & feel is great in mobile devices as well.

Pinnacle Cart: It provides almost everything you need for creating & maintaining small, medium or large shopping carts. Pinnacle Cart ensures easy upgrade so that you can make modifications as your store grows with time. Dealing with customer relationship management, orders, stocks etc., becomes easy like a child's play and most importantly, the pricing is highly suited to fit any pocket.

Core Commerce: An affordable, easy-to-use and comprehensive shopping cart solution, Core Commerce enables you accomplish great milestone. Its free responsive themes, advanced shipping tools, powerful SEO capability, SMO integration, mobile device optimization besides easy creation and managing of store make it a preferred pick of several online merchants across the globe. 

3D Cart: Its a top class hosted e-commerce solution that's perfect for businesses of all sizes. It allows you manage your orders & inventory through a nicely designed admin. You get 50 amazing templates to make your store's appearance incredible. You can also boost your traffic by means of SMO integration.

Trends in 2014 that dominated the eCommerce Retail Businesses : Knowing Your Shopping Cart

The driving force behind a successful business, as you all know, is a good idea. However, riches may not always be yours to achieve with a good idea. In other words, being at the disposal of several ideas through the internet is not sufficient for you, especially if you’re thinking of stepping into the eCommerce industry.

Hard work, lots of research work, constant monitoring and unwavering focus are the recipes for successful income in the eCommerce industry. Chances that your eCommerce site makes a viral presence can be unlikely, although it’s very much possible. Here is a list of essentials that you need to keep in mind to have your eCommerce site running.

Having said that, experts have already started anticipating the trends where key-people will start taking over just online specialists. Let me discuss them in details below...

• Representatives of a business who are directly responsible for business development, would start taking direct responsibilities towards the eCommerce part of the business as well. Especially people who are holding key positions in sales, marketing, promotion, sales pro-owners, directors and managers of the online store would be people who will be in charge.

• Small business owners, who have a moderate brick and mortar shop, would get inclined towards the web business in a huge manner.

• People who are responsible for generating revenue for a business like specialists, sales managers, development managers etc. will start generating strategies for eCommerce as well.

• Persons responsible for business development and implementation of strategies to increase revenue specialists. 

Shopping Cart:

In order to manage your personal online store, user friendly eCommerce website services are highly essential. Easy shopping cart applications can help you manage without the need to build and publish your own online shopping store.

All you have to do is apply the online apps and compile the products, and you could also benefit from various promotional tools that will become accessible after that. Your best bet would be to go for a web-based pre-built shopping cart solution and select features such as variants, inventory and SSL encryption security if they are not a part of the standard specification already.

• Variants: One of the most important features that you need to include in your shopping cart is the ability to include variants, such as different sizes and colors. This way, your customers do not have to select a new item every time they have to go for a new color and size combo. A successful shopping cart, if you will see, will have the feature of variants for a single product to offer greater flexibility.

• Inventory: It would be good of you to also consider having the ability to supervise your inventory. This way you will be able to monitor individual variants selected by the customers if you have the variant feature activated on your cart. Moreover, you will also be able to avoid possible goof-ups, such as not being able to offer an individual variant chosen by a customer because you failed to track the request.

• SSL Encryption Security: Now a PayPal gateway is a feature that almost every shopping cart system offers. What’s important is for you to have a file encryption security on your site so customers can enter their VISA and MasterCard details without fear. A shopping cart system that includes this security feature would be your best, and if lucky enough you might even find one that doesn't charge extra for this feature.

How Bitcoin payments are improving the conversion of eCommerce Website

Planning to hire an ecommerce developer for getting a feature-enriched online store is what almost every e-commerce business owner will look for but those who want to keep all payment related issues at bay will definitely be focusing on Bitcoin. Within the past six months, Bitcoin has actually been constantly increasing its basic mainstream process. Its a great news that stores like TigerDirect, Virgin Galactic, Overstock, Lord & Taylor, and even NewEgg have accepted this digital currency. Later when the news came that Dish Network is also accepting Bitcoin, future became more bright for this modern digital currency.

Understanding Bitcoin in Detail

Before knowing the impact that Bitcoin has made, lets look deep into what is it all about. An advanced form of digital currency, Bitcoin enables carrying out transactions without requiring need of any banks or some other middleman. Bitcoin enthusiasts process, verify and publicly record transactions from consumers wallets and the best part is that there is no transaction fees involved. 

Created by some programmer, much about whom is not known, Bitcoin debuted in the year 2009. People can purchase them, keep in their digital wallets and make their use at the time of paying for goods or services. Payment for a transaction is processed as the Bitcoins are transferred via Coinbase or Bitpay. Nowadays, one can also get the open source Bitcoin plugins for different e-commerce platforms like Magento, Prestashop, X-Cart by going online.

The Impact on Current e-commerce Industry

Despite the fact that some risks are linked with Bitcoin, it is a very dynamic and interesting technology that will have a strong impact on the way e-commerce transactions will occur in future. Its ability to serve as an innovative and viable solution has made it the heart-favorite of leading companies. Let's take a look at how Bitcoin is allowing e-commerce businesses to attain better conversions -

• Instant Gratification : Time is of great importance in every business as everyone wants everything to be done in quick time. With Bitcoin, you need not wait hours or days for a transaction to complete as it allows the person the mental peace that the payment made for the required product/service is not pending and the transaction is instant.

• Overseas Business Made Easier : People in developing countries do have problems getting access to banks or other financial institutions. However, with Bitcoin, such people can keep all such problems away. Bitcoin being a peer-to-peer service, assures that the payment will reach its specified destination safely. It also eliminates the need to go for currency conversion or making any payment for foreign fees.

• Establishing Reliance : Bitcoin always keeps the customer first unlike other banks that don't allow users total control over their finances. Due to instant confirmation of payments, you can have an updated budget. Also, as you don't require following any bank regulations, you have the full liberty to run your business in the desired manner. Bitcoin is totally secured and this increases trust in the businesses to go for it.

Top 10 tips towards Designing an Ecommerce Site that Boosts Sales

Ecommerce Changing gear to Mcommerce

The ecommerce industry has been witnessing a revival for better future in past two year. The already big industry is on the verge of taking it to new heights with the shift from social commerce to mobile commerce. Last year saw the surpassing of mobile users over desktop and this has ignited this revolutionary growth towards greatness. A look over the retail mobile commerce industry sales in the range of 2011 to 2016 by eMarketer reveals much of the story. 2011 industry worth was somewhat around $13.64 billion which has reached $52.17 billion this year. It has been predicted that by 2016 the industry will be worth $86.86 billion a 24% growth rate to be precise. To make the most of this fine situation one must be ready with all the power of delivery, be it service to architecture of the ecommerce portal. In the later part of this write-up, points which must be kept in mind while designing a successful ecommerce portal has been discussed.

The Design and Development need

The rightly designed store be it offline or online has the capacity to connect with audience. People do not like to enter a shop with clumsy showcasing of products even with huge collection. A basic human psychology is that, we never like cluttered stuffs. This applies for the case of ecommerce business too. Design is a crucial part while planning any ecommerce store as this is the feature that keeps the interest alive in the mind of the user. With right design only the user experience gets better. Functionality gets defined on the basis of the architecture and latest trends which people often are comfortable with.   

Boost sales with following design tips

As sales is the most vital thing that remains in the back of the mind of every store owner, hiring a company with right expertise over the designing of ecommerce web page and development is crucial. An authority firm takes care of all the aspects related to these two and primarily design. Following are the points which must be looked over with better care while designing to boost the sales of any eCommerce portal. 

1. Clarity in call to action buttons: This buttons are like the lifeline of any ecommerce portal, as through these only the visitors comes into the site expecting what they desire to be present. The placement of these buttons is hence very much vital in any web page. Also make sure to use the right color, design and size of the button that goes with the aesthetic of the site and at the same time grabs the attention of visitor.
2. Keep important information transparent: All the information such as shipping policy, privacy policy, terms and condition, etc must be presented in the most visible spots in web page. This builds trust and makes people buy from your store.
3. Make finding easy: With finely balanced navigation only this can be attained, hence make sure to do that. A visitor must have the freedom to navigate in all through the store with ease from any point.
4. Make images large and clear: When someone buys from your store the most attention is given over the image of the product as this s what they are buying. Keep it in high resolution and try to upload more pictures from various angles.
5. Give alternative looks of products: If your product has various versions in respect to color, etc make sure to upload all the pictures.
6. Keep space for reviews and testimonials: Consumers likes to hear what other has said about any product and so this part is crucial and must include. This helps in better decision making.
7. Let them have choice: Never try to force people with registration, this pisses off people. If someone like your product they will do that for sure prior to shopping.
8. Checkout process: This stage must be divided in stage prompting users to go to the next and very much easy to understand as buyers comes in various sizes and shapes.
9. Keep it simple: Make the form filling segment lesser in size. Unnecessary data’s must be skipped and not be made mandatory to be filled by the buyer.
10. Make it mobile: As most of the buyers are now coming from mobile platform, responsive design is a must. People should be able to access your stores mobile version.

5 Steps to Design a Custom Responsive Shopify eCommerce Theme

Shopify is a popular eCommerce platform widely used in India. Many companies in India run dedicated shopify stores to sell a wide variety of items including fashion accessories, clothing, furniture, electronic gadgets, and much more. While it can be a daunting task to set up a well designed and developed online store, the Shopify eCommerce platform helps you create an appealing store instantly!

For all those who are trying to learn the nitty-gritty of designing a custom responsive Shopify eCommerce theme, this post is worth a read! I have shared the top 5 steps that will help you come up with a great Shopify Theme.

1. Open an account on Shopify
   Open an account on Shopify by adding necessary personal information asked for. People can choose a free 14 day trial option or else directly choose any of the 4 pricing plans.
2. Enter your storeOnce you complete the sign up process, Shopify will send you a confirmation email with a link that you need to click to enter your eCommerce store’s admin page. You can log in to your Shopify store by adding your email address and password on the admin page. After you successfully log in, you will get to view the store dashboard.
3. Select a themeThere are numerous free and paid themes to choose from. Carefully choose a theme that goes best with your company and its products or services. After you select a theme, you will get to learn about the theme features including whether it is responsive or not, etc.
4. Customize the theme
   It is very easy to generate custom shopify theme by clicking on “Go to your Theme Manager.” You will need to click on the “Theme Settings” icon to do necessary customization. You can change the background color, text color, and font, add images, add your company logo, insert social media buttons, set up product page preferences, etc. After you make the additions, you can preview the page and then save the changes.
5. Use the Template Editor
   The Template Editor can be used to change HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and liquid code in your theme files as well as upload new images and such other important files to your custom responsive Shopify eCommerce theme. The Template Editor consists of theme files. All themes consist of 5 types of file:

• Assets - Here all images, JavaScript, and CSS files are stored.

• Config – In the config folder, HTML settings file is kept that helps Shopify custom theme designers easily modify or change data related to their theme.

• Layout - It contains the theme.liquid file and is used to keep all common elements of a website, including codes in one place for instant changing of a code as and when required.

• Snippets – It contains reusable codes.

• Templates – Here multiple micro templates or codes are found that can easily be inserted into the layout file.

Thus, a Shopify eCommerce theme can be easily customized to enhance the store’s look and offer a memorable, repeat visitor experience.

What to Consider While Getting an Ecommerce Software and Online Shopping Cart Solution

When the taste changes, the menu changes, this has been the rule of business from the very first day. Taking the account of ecommerce industry, Volusion shared a very nice infographics lately; the data shown in there has been collected from Forrester, eMarketer and some other authority agencies. It’s being documented that by the year 2011, 53% of the US population were very much comfortable with the concept of online purchasing. Based on this result, it has been calculated that the online sales is bound to see an increase of 62% and the net industry worth will be $327 billion in the year 2016. 

Spending $1738 per year in eCommerce Shopping

The average purchasing habit of a common citizen of America is expected to be around $1738 by the year 2016. Now, this is the data calculated with a presumption of standard environment and approaches. If you wish to be in this league, first thing that you might want to make sure is a flawless store. Let’s begin with the idea sharing now.

The Steps of Building

There are certain time-proven steps which every business owner takes for making sure that their store is flawless in every aspect. Once the strategy building part is over, much of the focus has to be shifted over the technical parts. Just hiring any firm with good repute is not always the most important task.

This is because there is no one better that the client himself who understands his own business model. Thus, along with having fine ecommerce software solutions and a certified firm handling the project, several parts like planning, execution etc., have to be looked over at every phase. In the next segment of this write-up, will try to explain those major areas.

Areas to Look for

Being an entrepreneur and especially of an ecommerce store is never an easy task. And as said earlier much of the effort has to be given over various segments which will be discussed here for your understanding.

• Aesthetic part: This is the segment which comes in the first phase of the project life cycle. A successful store must have a great UI and along with that sensible choosing of color & typography. All these together have mass effect on the user behavior while they are inside your store’s interface. There can be no jerks and all the ‘call to action’ parts have to be clearly visible. The structure of the store has to be user friendly with fine breadcrumbs and menu options so that user always gets the freedom of browsing any segment of the portal from any point.

• Shopping Cart and payment gateway experience: Much depends on this part as when someone gets ultimate experience with the store’s interface, he will surely try to buy something from there. Thus, make sure to keep a very precise shopping cart system that makes people pretty interested in the buying process. Also, a SSL is must for trust establishment when they are inside the loop of payment gateway.

There are many other points which are there for discussion, but for the beginning the above essential points around the aesthetics and the functioning of an ecommerce solution will help you a lot.

What Makes Mobile Ecommerce Interface the must-have for Every Ecommerce Service Providers

The E-commerce industry is directly connected with the most favorite habit of modern generation and i.e. shopping. The way of shopping has changed over time and now it’s time for mobile rule. With practically smartphones in every hand reaching audience has to be through mobile now for a wider reaching. There are major convenience factors too which advocate thinking E-commerce for mobile platform, like people can shop at any moment they please. All these have made the arrival of mobile E-commerce so very majestic.

The Changing Habit of E-commerce

The eMarketer, an independent survey and analysis portal, released a survey of US mobile commerce sales through smartphone and tablet for the period of 2012-2017 and the results were impressive. The sales percentage showed a rise of 56% with net value of $38.84 billion in 2013 compared with 2012. Also, it is expected that by 2017 this industry will touch valuation of $108.56 billion and that’s only of US. This tells how big the game is and why companies are investing in this concept.

India’s Contribution in the Projection

Even if you consider this whole episode from India’s point of view the rise of mobile user has been quite remarkable in the past 2 years. As per I-Cube estimates by June 2014 it is estimated that 150 million users will be from urban sector and 32 from rural. This stat shows the power of growing user base and primarily mobile user as this is the segment of the population which does make the revolution of mobile commerce such a strong phenomenon.

The Growth of E-commerce for the Mobile Platform – The Way Ahead!

Every business owner desires to reach maximum number of potential buyers and that too in the most efficient way. In the present global web industry scenario the most of the traffic comes through tablet, mobile or pad platform. The web platform had many limitations like time slot dependency and limited flexibility. 

Any general user used to sit in front of desktop on their convenient time after finishing their chores as that is placed in a fixed spot; also shopping based on instant mood is not possible due to its limited availability all round the clock. These kinds of issues have been rightly solved with the introduction of mobile commerce. 

A data sheet shared below shows that 53% of mobile users of 2014 will be more comfortable in shopping through a mobile version of e-commerce portal than a desktop version. This made the popularity reach sky high and as a result of that many mobile programmers are choosing the career of mobile commerce development.

E-commerce Platform Options for mobile

Every reputed name in the e-commerce industry are very much aware of the mobile friendliness demand of entrepreneurs and for this all the platforms are now cross-platform compatible. Names like Magento, VirtueMart, PrestaShop, CS Cart, and Zen cart are open source and have integrated interfaces meant for mobile platforms. With the utilization of various supportive modules, extensions and plug-ins and robust server of MYSQL the ruling of mobile market is set attaining new heights.