eCommerce Shopping Cart
Frequently Asked Questions About eCommerce Shopping Cart Websites
- What e-commerce solutions does Advertising Solutions offer?
- How much do Advertising Solutions e-commerce shopping carts cost and are there any hidden fees?
- How does Advertising Solutions compare to Yahoo!, MonsterCommerce or OSCommerce?
- May I have a Advertising Solutions e-commerce shopping cart website built while my current site stays live?
- May I use my own domain (name.com) with my Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart?
- How will customers find my site?
- What makes Advertising Solutions e-commerce shopping carts search engine optimized?
- How do I know if I have a new order?
- How do I get paid for orders through my site?
- May I accept credit cards without having a merchant account or internet gateway?
- How will customers view their order status and track orders?
- Will switching to a Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart affect my current search engine listing and ranking?
- How do I calculate shipping using my Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart?
- What if I need to sell Retail or Wholesale or both?
- Will Advertising Solutions e-commerce shopping carts work with any existing accounting software packages?
- What kind of design and upgrade flexibility do I have with an Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart?
- What if the products I need to sell are electronic media that needs to be downloaded?
- What if I want to have gift certificates and coupons?
- Is there a way to upload all my products at once into an Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart?
- How can I print shipping labels and invoices?
What e-commerce solutions does Advertising Solutions offer?
Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart Solutions include everything you need to sell online. Advertising Solutions are full of features to make running and managing your online store quick and easy. With the tools included in Advertising Solutions Shopping Carts, and our Point-Click-Save, technology, you'll save time and be able to focus on selling more! Advertising Solutions is the complete solution for your online e-commerce needs. Advertising Solutions Shopping Carts range from Entry-Level carts for brand-new start-up businesses to complete online and in-store point-of-sale solutions for Enterprise-Level companies.
Because Advertising Solutions Shopping Carts are based on open-source technology, your Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart can grow and change as your business needs dictate without costly licensing or renewal fees. Advertising Solutions offers a number of upgrades and add-ons for your shopping cart needs. However, you're not limited to just our upgrades and add-ons. If your company requires special customization, your Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart can be modified as needed; there's really no limit to what can be done with an Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart Solution.
Once your site is up and live, Advertising Solutions offers services to help you get the most from your website by analyzing traffic, increasing conversion rates and more. Our professionals here at Advertising Solutions can help you with everything from custom web design, graphic or logo creation, search engine optimization, domain registration, paid search advertising, merchant accounts and more!
How much do Advertising Solutions e-commerce shopping carts cost and are there any hidden fees?
Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart Solutions start at $59.95 per month to Rent or $595 to purchase a Level 1 entry-level shopping cart solution. Our most popular solution is our Level 2 for entry to mid-level businesses at $99.95 per month to rent and $995 to purchase. Once you purchase an Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart, you own it and are not responsible for any further licensing fees if purchased outright. If purchased outright, Advertising Solutions does not charge you a monthly fee to use the cart. Whether purchased or rented, we never take a percentage of sales like many other e-commerce solutions.
Most customers choose to utilize Advertising Solutions web hosting for their new Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart. Advertising Solutions web hosting is built for secure, reliable service and all servers are located in multi-million dollar data-centers in Dallas Texas monitored 24/7 by certified technicians. If purchased, Advertising Solutions Shopping Carts can be hosted with any web host supporting PHP, MySQL, Javascript and Apache.
How does Advertising Solutions compare to Yahoo! Merchant Solutions, MonsterCommerce or OSCommerce?
Advertising Solutions has many advantages when compared to Yahoo! Merchant Solutions, MonsterCommerce or OSCommerce:
- Cost
When it comes to cost, Advertising Solutions differs from the competition in a couple major ways. First, Advertising Solutions does not charge a percentage of your store's revenues like Yahoo! Merchant Solutions or a setup fee like MonsterCommerce. In addition, if purchased, you own your Advertising Solutions site. With MonsterCommerce and Yahoo!, you have to pay a never ending, large monthly fee to use the service. This simply means with Advertising Solutions there's more money to invest back into your business for growth and additional sales! - Assistance
With Advertising Solutions Technical Support, you've always got a helping hand. We offer 24/7 support by phone or email. Our team is knowledgeable, friendly and courteous. We're used to working with clients new to the internet and are happy to answer questions and explain things in non-technical terms to better help you understand and learn. With OSCommerce, you don't have a helping hand and have to hire a developer or designer if there's ever an issue or problem with the shopping cart. - Flexibility
Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart Solutions are extremely flexible in several aspects including design, function, upgradeability, and hosting: - A Advertising Solutions site can have any custom design or layout integrated to match your company's image. (View some design examples.) Any designer familiar with PHP and HTML can make changes or edits to your website's overall design. Because PHP is open source and a main-stream preferred language, finding a developer to work with you is easy. With Yahoo! Merchant Solutions you are fairly limited to the templates provided unless you utilize their proprietary RTML programming language.
- The Advertising Solutions system is more secure and functional than any competitor to date. Advertising Solutions is built using well documented, minimal code for quick and compatible browser rendering and function; in turn this makes for an optimized site at the programming level. The security behind Advertising Solutions is second to none as our programming team builds using only the best tested and secure technologies. OSCommerce and similar shopping carts are littered with code and functions that are never used yet cluttering the system. In addition, OSCommerce is filled with so many extraneous files that upgrading or adding features can be cumbersome and costly.
- With an Advertising Solutions system, your shopping cart can be altered and modified to fit any of your company's unique and custom needs. Since Advertising Solutions is open-source, you have an unlimited source of upgrade options and are not limited to the upgrades and add-ons Advertising Solutions has listed here on the site. Most shopping cart software solutions, including Yahoo! Merchant Solutions, MonsterCommerce and OSCommerce, are built with only a couple business models in mind, thus making you the customer adapt to their cart; you don't have unlimited potential. With MonsterCommerce, you're required to host with MonsterCommerce and are limited to the upgrades and add-ons they have available. Yahoo! is similar unless you utilize their proprietary RTML programming language.
- While most customers choose to host their website here with Advertising Solutions, your shopping cart can be hosted with any company you choose that supports PHP, MySQL, Javascript and Apache. MonsterCommerce requires that you host with them and pay a setup fee, and then pay a monthly fee that will increase as your hosting requirements increase.
Contact our sales department at (888) 8-BIGADS to talk about the numerous other advantages Advertising Solutions has over any other shopping cart software.
May I have a Advertising Solutions e-commerce shopping cart website built while my current site stays live?
Yes, as long as you setup your new site on a separate hosting account from your current live site. Once your new site is ready to go live, then you can point the domain DNS to the new site and cancel the old site. If you want both sites running live simutaneously, you'll need to purchase an additional domain name for the second site.
May I use my own domain (name.com) with my Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart?
Certainly! With Advertising Solutions, you can point your domain to our servers and are not required to use a sub-domain of Advertising Solutions.
How will customers find my site?
Customers will find your site numerous ways, but most importantly through the search engines. All customers of Advertising Solutions are linked to through our site. This allows search engines such as Google to pickup your new site when they visit Advertising Solutions. Thus your site gets into the search engines faster than if it were hand submitted.
In addition, Advertising Solutions can help you sign up for Google AdWords and begin getting sales the first day you go live! Google AdWord campaigns are easy to manage and can bring in business immediately when you say 'go'. As well, Google AdWords let you set a budget to spend and don't require any commitments.
What makes Advertising Solutions e-commerce shopping carts search engine optimized?
Advertising Solutions Shopping Carts are optimized for search engines due to the extremely clean, tight, cross-browser compatible code used to build the system. Advertising Solutions doesn't use any code or functions that could potentially cause a browser malfunction and is made to work on practically any browser. Search engines such as Google factor into account whether or not the code used in a site is cross-browser compatible and how clean the code is when determining ranking in search engine results. Therefore, a site that is more compatible than another is going to get a better ranking in the search results than a site that has browser errors.
In addition, Advertising Solutions Shopping Carts are built with content optimization in mind when it comes to your dynamic navigation system and utilizing proper META TAGS for header, link, and content optimization. Many clients utilizing the Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart solution enjoy first page listings for their associated industry and search.
How do I know if I have a new order?
The Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart notifies via email both you and your customer of the order and the corresponding details.
How do I get paid for orders through my site?
Advertising Solutions allows you to utilize several built-in payment options including PayPal IPN, Authorize.net Internet Gateway, In-Store Credit Card Processing and a Default Order option. Your shopping cart can be set to use just one of these options or all at the same time. As well, additional custom options can always be added in as needed.
- PayPal IPN
With the PayPal IPN service, you simply enter your PayPal Business Account information into your Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart's Payment Preferences area and your cart is automatically linked to your PayPal Business account to allow you to accept Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, Discover and e-Checks, or PayPal Account. Your customer is not required to signup with PayPal to pay via credit card. If a customer doesn't want to signup, they simply click the button process the transaction like any other credit card transaction on any other site. Upon successful payment, PayPal would deposit the monies into your PayPal account at which point you can decide if you want it transferred to another bank account, or keep it there to earn interest. If you don't already have a free Business PayPal Merchant Account, you should signup now; there's no monthly fees or commitments and is a more cost effective option than your traditional bank's merchant account for online processing. - Authorize.net Internet Gateway
If you already have a merchant account and want to use your bank's online credit card processing services, simply tell your merchant that you want to use the Authorize.net Internet Gateway with your merchant account. Your merchant bank will sign you up with Authorize.net and provide you with the Transaction Key and Username to input into the Payment Preferences area of your Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart. Authorize.net will direct the funds to your merchant account whom in turn will pay you as per your agreed upon terms. When using this option, your website host should have an SSL Certificate installed to securely encrypt your customer data. - In-Store Credit Card Processing
If you already have a merchant account with your bank, and would prefer to manually process credit card transactions through your in-store terminal, you can use this option to secure and validate a customers credit card number at the time of order. You will be emailed with the password to retrieve the customer's credit card number and can then manually process the transaction using your in-store terminal. As per your other in-store transactions, your funds will be available as per your agreement with your merchant bank. When using this option, your website host should have an SSL Certificate installed to securely encrypt your customer data. - Default Order
The Default Order option gives you additional payment options as determined by you. Some such options could be to allow 'Payment on Account' should you have clients that you allow to order and pay later. Another option could be to allow a customer to place an order and then mail in a check. The uses are varied and completely up to you.
May I accept credit cards without having a merchant account or internet gateway?
Yes! By utilizing the In-Store Credit Card Processing option, you can capture a customer's credit card information and process the credit card using your in-store terminal.
How will customers view their order status and track orders?
For those using an Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart Level 2 or above, your customers will be able to login to their My Account Center and view Order History as well as any notes or tracking information you've given the order. For those using our Entry-Level Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart Level 1, customers can use the contact form to request order status which you can reply with via email.
Will switching to a Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart affect my current search engine listing and ranking?
Because Advertising Solutions Shopping Carts are optimized for search engines, and because your website will be increasing in size and content due to new product pages and more, your website should see a dramatic increase in search engine ranking and popularity. The more products and information you have on your website related to your industry, the better your ranking with search engines will be. Remember, a search engine gives preference to those sites that appear to be an 'encylcopedia' of information on a particular topic.
How do I calculate shipping using my Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart?
Advertising Solutions gives you the following built-in shipping options:
- Flat Rate - Every order is charged the same shipping rate.
- Base Rate + Set Price Per Item - Every order is charged a fixed rate, plus an additional charge for each item purchased.
- Variable Price Per Item - Shipping is calculated from the shipping price entered for each product. Enter the shipping price for each product in the product details area.
- Price Per Pound - Enter your Rate Per Pound, then enter the weight for each product in the product details area.
- By Total Cost of Items - Corresponds to the total price of the items in the shopping cart.
- By Total Number of Items - Corresponds to the total number of the items in the shopping cart.
- By Total Weight of Items - Corresponds to the total weight of the items in the shopping cart, measured in pounds. To use this option, you must enter the weight for each product in the product area.
- UPS Real-Time Calculated Shipping - With this upgraded shipping option, your customers will have the option of choosing from the UPS Shipping options that you specify. Your users will need to be logged in or enter their zip code in the appropriate form in order to have shipping charges calculated, as the charges are based on the destination zip code, as well as the total weight of all items in your shopping cart. You must enter weights for all items in your catalog to use UPS Shipping.
- Additional Shipping Charges - You can enter up to three additional charges that can be added to the shipping total, as well as the text describing each. Your customers will be able to check one of the three options and the additional shipping charges will be added to the overall shipping cost.
As with all Advertising Solutions shopping cart functions, new shipping features can be added as your company grows and changes.
What if I need to sell Retail or Wholesale or both?
With Advertising Solutions Shopping Carts, your pricing structure can change as your business changes. To sell wholesale or any other special pricing group, you would simply request to look at the "Price Group" Add-On Module. This module will allow you to add numerous pricing groups for any number of customers or custom pricing groups.
Will Advertising Solutions e-commerce shopping carts work with any existing accounting software packages?
As a standard, all Advertising Solutions Shopping Carts come with standard order search reports to allow you to quickly and easily see the days sales as well as products sold. Any business owner can then input their daily sales totals into any accounting program presently in use. If you would like to have your shopping cart automatically integrate with your accounting software such as Quickbooks or PeachTree, the simple addition of a database connection module can be integrated to create bi-directional feeds between your shopping cart and accounting software.
What kind of design and upgrade flexibility do I have with an Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart?
Because Advertising Solutions Shopping Carts are developed using open-source technology, your upgrade and design flexibility is literally unlimited. This flexibility is unheard of with most boxed solutions. With an Advertising Solutions solution, literally all aspects of the site can be modified to fit your business needs. With Advertising Solutions and our Point-Click-Save technology, even a novice can create a professional online e-commerce website. And for those expert coders, the expandibility of the Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart gives you unlimited capabilities for additional functions and features.
What if the products I need to sell are electronic media that needs to be downloaded?
For those selling electronic media, Advertising Solutions has an e-Media Add-On that allows you to sell electronic media for download, while keeping the download site secure from hackers attempting to steal the electronic media.
What if I want to have gift certificates and coupons?
To add gift certificates and coupons to your Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart requires the simple addition of the Gift Certificate & Coupon Add-On.
Is there a way to upload all my products at once into an Advertising Solutions Shopping Cart?
Products can be uploaded to a site using our XLSBridge via the site's database back-end all at once. To complete a back-end product upload your products will need to be listed in Excel format. We can provide an Excel template using the XLSBridge via the Admin Area.
How can I print shipping labels and invoices?
As a standard, all Advertising Solutions Shopping Carts print a standard printer-friendly invoice for inclusion with an order or shipment. As with all other Advertising Solutions aspects, any special printing formats can be customized as needed.
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