Shopping cart systems are valuable tools that every online businessman should not overlook. They are very helpful in converting visits to sales, since a ready cart icon can encourage visitors to click on it and make a purchase. This makes it easy and convenient for the visitor to buy from you, and thus increase your sales rate.
Today, in a high-tech world where everything is "instant," ready-made software, and in this case a ready-made shopping cart system is very much available. This option allows you to do away with the fact that you need to hire an expensive web developer to make you a shopping cart system. There are, however, certain benefits that you can get when you make use of a custom made shopping cart. Below is an outline of the pros and cons of both custom made and a ready-made shopping cart.
Pros and Cons of a Custom Made Shopping Cart System
The first benefit of a custom made shopping cart system is that the results come out exactly as you envisioned it to be. After all, that is why it is called custom made. You can have the icon designed creatively if you want to, but most importantly you can choose the different features that you want to be added in your cart software. You can have a landing page for your visitors if you want to, you can have it automatically collect and store emails, and so much more. You can even have tracking codes and cookies installed in order for your cart to take note of new and returning visitors. This goes without saying that custom made carts provided you with a whole lot of room for flexibility, unlike a pre-made shopping cart system.
Another advantage of a custom made shopping cart system is added security. Since the cart system is yours and yours alone, you are not sharing the program with millions of other e-commerce sites out there. For example, say you bought an off the shelf cart system, who knows how many other people before you bought it or are already using it already? How many people will buy it in the future? Imagine sharing a single program with these people. Aren't the risks of getting hacked or the program crashing a lot higher if that were the case? Would you risk your whole online business that way?
The only flaw of a custom made shopping cart system is that it can cost a little bit more than its counterpart. However, with all the benefits of a custom made shopping cart system, you can be sure that it's worth it.
Pros and Cons of a Ready-made Shopping Cart System
Ready-made shopping carts are also advantageous to some degree. For one, they are relatively cheap, basically because they are considered the "generic" type of software. The prices of these things usually range between fifty dollars and a hundred.
Another benefit of a ready-made shopping cart system is that since they are pre-made, you can start using them immediately after you purchase them. Just hit the install button, and after a few minutes (or so, some programs take a lot of time to install, especially those that keep on asking a lot of questions like personal details and "would you like to…" options) you can have the program up and running.
The disadvantage of using these types of shopping cart systems, though, is that not all of them offer technical support after the purchase is made. This is something that you need to consider heavily because you wouldn't want to have a broken shopping cart software in your online store for long, would you? Another is that ready-made shopping cart systems are quite dangerous, as you are not sure how many people are using them right now, and how many people have actually hacked into them already.
In conclusion, both a custom made and ready-made shopping cart have their own advantages and disadvantages, and it is generally up to you to make the decision – whether to go for quality or quantity. Remember though, before you make any decision, that the type of shopping cart software will greatly affect your online business, so choose carefully.
