// E-Commerce

Selecting a shopping cart.

It can be confusing when you want to sell online and don't know what type of e-commerce system to implement. This guide covers the pros and cons of various shopping cart platforms.

01 E-Commerce Shopping Carts

There are many different shopping carts available for your website. A comparison is essential — almost all pre-built carts differ in functionality, payment processing, and features.

For instance, your bank may only support Authorize.net but the cart you want may only support a different gateway. That's why you must do research to determine what cart fits your needs best.

Critical: The cart you choose must use a payment gateway compatible with your bank, or you won't be able to process online credit card orders in real time. Contact your bank to find out which payment gateway they use — this is the most important part of building a cart.

02 Types of Online Carts

Subscription-Based (Shopping Cart Services)

Examples: Shopify, Volusion, BigCommerce

Advantages
  • Pay by month — lower upfront cost
  • Everything is "point & click" — no HTML knowledge required
  • Some carts are very robust with continuous development
Disadvantages
  • Monthly costs can be high
  • Percentages of sales paid to the cart provider
  • Custom designing can be difficult
  • If you shut down, all is lost — nothing to "own"
  • May lack features you need

Shopping Cart Software

Examples: Zen Cart, X-Cart, WooCommerce

Advantages
  • No monthly costs or percentages beyond hosting and processor fees
  • Easier to custom design
  • You own the code and database — can restore later if shut down
  • Lower cost to build — many carts are open source (free)
Disadvantages
  • More configuration and setup than subscription-based
  • May or may not have continuous development/upgrades
  • May lack features you need

Custom Built Carts

Advantages
  • Built from scratch to your specifications
  • You only add what you need
Disadvantages
  • Cost can be very high due to production time
  • Ongoing development/upgrades may be limited

Note: Bryntel Technologies does not build custom shopping carts.

03 Shipping Options

Carriers to consider:

  • USPS
  • UPS
  • FedEx
  • Other regional carriers

Some carts support one or more of these carriers. Some offer online integration (real-time rates), while others require manual shipping tables. To use online integration, you must have a shipping account with the carrier.

Question to answer: Online integration or manual tables?

04 Payment Gateways

Payment gateways connect your cart to your bank account. Common options include:

  • Authorize.net
  • Stripe
  • Square
  • PayPal
  • WorldPay
  • 2Checkout

Important: Contact your bank first to find out which payment gateway they support. This determines which shopping carts are compatible with your business.

05 Information We'll Need

To build your cart, we'll need:

  • Company name, address, phone, email
  • Returns and shipping policies
  • Types of payments you'll accept (credit cards, COD, mail-in, etc.)
  • How many items you wish to sell
  • Whether we add all items or just a few to get you started
  • Item text descriptions with SKU numbers
  • Item photos
  • Item categories and options (if applicable)
  • Shipping locations (what countries will you ship to)
  • Shipping methods and rates (if not using online integration)
  • Whether you need QuickBooks integration

Ready to sell online?

Have your payment gateway info ready? Let's talk about which cart solution fits your business.

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