When you wish to create your own virtual shop, the best thing to do is to look for any hosted shopping cart solutions available online. Of course, if you do it by yourself, is going to be free of charge, but, in this case, you are not going to enjoy the benefits of using professional hosted shopping cart solutions. However, you should know some things before purchasing any of these solutions, especially if they are not coming along with a complete shopping cart software package.

Whenever purchasing any cart solution outside of any shopping cart software package, you always have to check the script compatibility, which shows whether the cart script is compatible, or not, with the hosting. The compatibility check means actually to confirm the formats, such as PHP, PERSL, or ASP. At the same time, if you are not able to find the same code, you should ask if the code could be changed, so all these solutions have the same look as your initial website. Usually, many of these hosted shopping cart solutions codes can be changed.

Do not forget to verify the back-up support of the files. This feature ensures the export of your information into a vast range of formats. At the same time, you should know that all these carts are able to support all kind of gateways, but you still have to check these ones, so you are not going to encounter any problems when using them. Besides this, it is better to see whether the gateways are compatible with the merchant account codes, so you are able to use them, whenever you have to accept future payments.

These solutions should also include an option to send a confirmation e-mail when there is any completed order. After you obtain the confirmed orders, the carts should also provide the shipping carriers and the possibility of tracking the shipment progress. Make sure that the program includes a large number of carriers and, at the same time that it is able to calculate, in real time, the tax of any carriers, such as FedEx, USP, USPS and others. These carts should be able to provide you with different options in SEO by auto generating thumbnails, a great feature saving time, bandwidth and web space, and administrating tools, such as adding new pages and newsletter functions, which are able to help you in promoting your website.

All these hosted shopping cart solutions should also include options on gift certificates, discounts and promotions. They have to be able to properly calculate, once a specific formula is introduced, the discounted offers or special promotions. At the same time, if you opt for a complete shopping cart software package, you should know that usually, it provides all the above-mentioned features and, as well, customer survey forms, more search engines optimization tools, different query strings able to change into static URLs, site map, affiliate module programs and banner advertising.