At its core, the purpose of your website is to help strangers become customers. The transaction where this formally happens on the Internet is usually in eCommerce shopping carts.

The moment a new customer pays you for the first time, that is when they are putting their money where their mouth is; they know, like, and trust you, and believe in you enough that they are willing to invest their hard-earned dollars and purchase your product, your service, or your mission.

This is a crucial transition point, because if your digital infrastructure fails them here, they may never trust you again.

What are the best eCommerce Shopping Carts for small businesses?

There are many variables that factor into selecting the best ecommerce platform for your small business. You can schedule a consultation with us to get customized recommendations on the best shopping cart for your website; generally we find that the platform you want corresponds to the level of your business.

Amateur – Gumroad
Professional – Freshbooks
Rising Star – Woocommerce
Illuminator – InfusionSoft

If you’re just starting out, don’t bother with the difficulty and challenges of internet security. Gumroad has a really simple set-up process, it looks great, and it lets you sell digital products easily.

If you’ve been doing this for a while, Freshbooks is the best online accounting and invoicing software on the market. You can add clients and send them invoices with ease, which they can pay with PayPal or a credit card.

By the time you are ready to start handling transactions on your own website, it’s time to look at WooCommerce. This extensible plugin has a myriad of integrations, and can support sophisticated shopping cart functions on any WordPress website.

When you are ready to scale, InfusionSoft provides the complicated post-purchase nurture sequences of the best marketing automation platforms. Be warned: it’s not easy to set up or use, which is why it’s nickname is ‘ConfusionSoft.’

Can I set up an eCommerce Shopping Cart myself?

The short answer is: yes, if that’s really how you want to spend your time.

There are so many perils and pitfalls, though, that most people find it best to hire an expert to handle the technical installation, SSL encryption, payment gateways, and merchant accounts.

Each one of these components could take you a week or more to figure out, and you may run into issues that take experienced programmers many hours to overcome.

If you are growing your business, your time is best spent leveraging your greatest genius. If programming shopping carts is not where your brilliance is, build your team with those geniuses – or at the very least, get some good advice.

Schedule a complimentary 30-minute consultation and we will help you figure out your next move.

“Caelan is a talented digital marketer who is always in beast mode – always zoned in, every pixel, every letter, every plugin, every line. He will help you discover the online success you’ve been hunting for.”

Andy Horner

Founder and CEO, Outstand Email Marketing Platform