E-Commerce Software - Add-on shopping cart functionality

E-commerce software or shopping cart systems enable you to add on a ready made solution to your existing site enabling you to trade on the World Wide Web.
There are over 60 products of this type on the market covering all price brackets and offering a varying degree of control and functionality. Before making any decision regarding e-commerce software we recommend that you speak to a eBusiness Advisor, who will be able to offer advice regarding implementation and other considerations that you may have to take into account prior to adopting any e-commerce solution.
The packages come in three main categories:

A completely Hosted Solution - this offers a web interface to enter all your products and control your on line shop. The site is owned and operated by the solution company. Some of these systems can be a very low cost entry into the e-commerce field but bare in mind that if the company goes bust (not uncommon on the net) then you lose your e-commerce facility and will need to start again. Some providers work on a commission basis therefore if you don't sell you don't pay.
Drawbacks - Other than the risk mentioned above limited choice of site templates and no back office integration.

Examples*

Mal's E-Commerce - CybershopUK - ShopCreator

Locally Held/ Hosted solution - similar in some respects to the above but with software that runs the site sitting on your own PC and being uploaded to the providers web site. The functionality is again sitting on the providers site and you are normally charged a monthly or annual fee over and above the cost of the software.
Drawbacks - As above limited templates and functionality

Examples*

Mamut - BT Internet Trader

Shopping Cart Software - This is the category in which most of the e-commerce solutions appear. The cost varies from as low as £60 up to the markets leaders in the £850.00 area. They tend to be one off cost products that you can host anywhere including your current site and are aimed at the DIY market. To get the most out of some of the cheaper solutions you need to have some basic HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) skills to alter the templates to integrate with your current site.
The top end of this market offers a tremendous range of functionality including integration with databases and accounting software packages such as Sage and Quickbooks.

Examples*

High End Products - Actinic - Erol - Astrosell - JShop Server

Medium Range - ShopFactory - Shopassistant DB

Entry Level - Midicart - Shopfitter - JShop Pro

Many of the e-commerce packages available have been created specifically for the US market and may only offer pricing in US dollars. We have tried where possible to only list UK companies to avoid this type of issue. It is worth bearing this in mind when conducting your own research into this market. We would recommend that you consider a solution that offers pricing in at least UK Sterling, Euros and US Dollars although this would be dictated by your target market.
We would also recommend that you avoid systems which rely on browsers passing the referring site address or URL to the e-commerce server as these can be blocked by customers firewall software and can only be corrected by the customer reconfiguring their firewalls  

*The links on this site are offered for information purposes only and are not an endorsement nor recommendation by HIE Argyll and the Islands of any of the software products featured. Neither are we responsible for the content found on these sites.