Cheap Shopping Cart Software vs Free Shopping Cart Store Software

Business people are always looking to get stuff at good value. In terms of shopping carts, they prefer affordable and cheap shopping cart software, especially those who are just starting out in ecommerce. Free shopping cart store software would be even better … or would it?

A business is an investment, and sometimes we need to spend just a little to make sure that our business is secure. We can never guarantee how our business will pan out but we need to do everything we can to make sure it has a chance of doing well. One of the ways of doing that is to sign up for a reliable as well as cheap shopping cart software solution from a reputable ecommerce solutions company (us, of course) that is feature-rich and established.

There are a few differences between a cheap shopping cart software solution and a free shopping cart software program, aside from the obvious point that one is free and the other isn’t. There are many free shopping cart store software programs that are feature-packed with almost everything a merchant would need to run an online business. If that is the case, then why would merchants still fork out US$50 a month for a cheap shopping cart software solution?

Free shopping cart programs are usually available as open source software or through companies who offer freely-hosted shopping carts but charge for upgrades and additional features. In most cases for open source shopping carts, users need to be well versed in programming in order to be able to tweak features to their liking. Open source software depends on contributions from programmers who do not get paid for their efforts so unlike with a paid solution, future upgrades are not always guaranteed.

Apart from charging users for updates and patches, free hosting shopping cart providers usually overload their servers with websites to save on cost. This slows down server performance and can lead to downtime. Some companies even place banners on web sites as part of the free hosting agreement.

Support-wise, both sources of free shopping carts are lacking when compared to paid solutions. Users of free solutions will likely have to depend on forums where they’ll need to hope that other users have experienced similar issues to theirs. Solution developers may be on hand to try to provide answers, but free solutions lack dedicated support staff.

To avoid all this hassle, why not invest in a paid shopping cart host and software? For just US$50 a month, users – especially new merchants – will have access to a reliable and cheap shopping cart software solution that’s loaded with features, is secure and is constantly updated (almost always at no additional cost). There’s a time and place for free stuff, but when it comes to your store, a small investment is the right one for your ecommerce success.

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