When setting up an online shop there are many different things you have to consider. The first few choices that you make at the beginning of your venture could have a lasting impact on your future as an online merchant. Among the many tasks that you will have to complete is the research into and the purchase of a shopping software sliution for your business. There are so many options out there, and I can help you to recognise the 20 most important features that you should consider when making your decision.

• 1. You need to make sure that the software can handle a detailed search and description of your items.
• 2. Pictures of your products are also essential in most industries.
• 3. You will also need to make sure that the database can keep up to date with stock availability and illustrate this to the customer in real time.
• 4. You want a detailed level of feedback from your software program with reports regarding traffic, inventory and sales figures.
• 5. The best software will also include an order management system and will keep this updated in real time.
• 6. Hosting and website building software is normally included with the best packages these days, and if you still don’t have a website then these are essential items.
• 7. You need to make sure that your shopping software allows payment by as many methods as possible, as payment flexibility is a key issue.
• 8. Some software will also be able to adapt to location and include the relevant debit cards that may be available in specific areas.
• 9. Credit cards can either be processed in real time or not, and this should definitely be a consideration of yours when making your choice.
• 10. It is essential that you take the time to look into how a piece of software deals with security issues and what kind of fraud protection tolis it has on board.
• 11. Another consideration if you are an international business is whether the software can be localised to a specific region and include the appropriate taxes and currency conversions.
• 12. Some software has an up-sell feature to try and increase your sales, you may or may not want this feature depending on your business model.
• 13. The possibility of remembering your customers through cookie tracking or other methods is also offered by some sliutions and is definitely worth thinking about. Marketing is very important, and some software include these functions which are worth your consideration;
• 14-18. affiliate programs, email tolis, search engine submission, optimisation and gift codes - otherwise known as voucher codes or discount codes - are all part of the many marketing considerations for you to make.
• 19. Then of course there is the price, definitely worthy of your consideration. Does a package charge a one off setup fee or does it work through a recurring monthly price structure.
• 20. Last but not least, I would advise you to find a piece of software that is well designed and has a great user interface, if you can navigate around a package well then your visitors are probably able to as well.

As an online retailer you need to have a great software shopping environment for your customers to use. Shopping cart software packages come in all shapes and sizes and it is important that you find out which features are essential for your business before you make a purchase. You may not need all of the features that are out there, but how do you decide what bits and pieces are essential for you. This can be hard sometimes, and I can help by listing what I believe are the 10 most essential features of any shopping cart software solution, things that no online merchant should be without.

1. You need a package that can calculate the applicable shipping and tax charges for a location and make them known to the buyer as soon as possible in the transaction process.

2. You also need a customisable and flexible relationship between your cart and the rest of your web site. A lot of online shoppers get fed up with shopping carts that do not interact properly with a merchant’s main browsing pages. A ‘return to’ shopping cart that continually updates itself is essential for a streamlined business.

3. An automatic email confirmation feature is the third essential that I will list, as this gives a buyer a sense of confidence and automates the receipt sending procedure.

4. The fourth essential is that the software must use a respected anti fraud solution to help keep you safe, and the fifth it to.

5. use third party validators such as ScanAlert or Verisign to keep your safety in check and increase your credibility amongst your customer base.

6. The sixth essential feature in a shopping cart application is the ability for a customer to control and modify the shipping information of their purchase. Studies have shown that many transactions are abandoned because a customer is unable to find or modify the delivery information.

7. The seventh feature I will mention is to have software with the ability to use discount codes and voucher codes in the checkout process. These are an increasing promotional tool for online business and even if you are not using them now, you may be in the future.

8. The eighth feature I am listing is to have a cart which a customer can print out or email in order to keep a copy of the transaction.

The last two features I will mention may seem obvious but many free and open source shopping carts do not have them included.

9&10. A shopping cart must include credit card processing, preferably in real time, and also its own integrated payment gateway. Many cheap and free solutions do not offer this and instead use services like paypal and google for their gateway, this makes you reliant on other organisations and is much less flexible for you in the long run.

Would you like to launch and maintain a shopping cart website, but don’t have the necessary skills to install the suitable powerful software?

In this case the time has come, since as a selfless offer of the UK Webmaster Community is pleased to install Boss Cart JV on your server FREE of charge.

I’m sure, you don’t want to miss this!

Please, let me introduce you a fresh new baby in the Boss Cart ecommerce software family, called JV Series V1.1. I need to introduce one more newcomer, who is me. My name is Bagi Zoltán and joined to the Boss Cart development team some moths ago.

Returning back to the script, remaining loyal to the local traditions you may download this sopping basket system free of charge. I hope you are curious enough to have a look at the demo site.

I hope that the result of our work gains your acknowledgement, and you won’t mind if I invite you to download the installation package.

Best regards,
Bagi Zoltán

Using all the experience and feedbacks we got from Boss Cart users, we started working on Boss Cart 2.0 yesterday. The choice or version skips quite a few updates, because our last version was V1.6, this was deliberate for many reasons which includes the fact that there is a significant difference between the engine behind Boss Cart V1.xx series and the new V2.xx series.
In addition to redesigning Boss Cart from the ground up to take advantage of the new functions introduced in PHP5, the V2.XX series also use components of Web 2.0 with give the new Boss Cart an interactive user generated contents element, including ability to add products to some of the popular social book marking services direct from product description page.

Sadly, no fixed released date for Boss Cart V2.0 yet