Hey all!

Last week I sat on a panel on online marketing and e-commerce and one of my panelists was Ross Lasley, @ross-lasley.

Ross consults with all size companies on their e-commerce needs. He helps them find the right platform, solution, etc., for any type of business who wants to sell online.

He also does a great job of explaining e-commerce with great metaphors that make it easy for anyone to understand the important concepts.

If you have any questions about adding e-commerce to your site, which platform might be right for you, how it integrates with social media, etc., please, let Ross know!

Oh, and just a reminder: use @ross-lasley so Ross can more easily find and answer your questions.

Hi John,

Both Clickbank and E-Junkie are solid well known platforms – and they serve their niches very well.
In general both of those platforms do what they say they do on their feature list (no known bugs/deficiencies) and neither has any product development roadmap issues (like planning to shut down) that I am aware of.

I really like that you asked if there is anything “better” as that speaks directly to a common problem in Platform shopping – needs analysis.
It is fair to say that some platforms plain suck, and it is fair to say some platforms are a bad idea for almost everybody – but beyond that “better” is 100% about doing a careful needs analysis. 

Carefully deciding what you need before considering platforms prevents you from getting sucked in by a “neato” feature that – while cool – is really just icing on the cake you may not really need.

When you make a needs list I recommend three buckets:
-Must Have
-Expect to Have
-Nice to Have

If a platform doesn’t include one of the musts it gets scratched from your consideration list. It gets major dings for not having an expect, but largely ignore the nice.

With a good list in those three buckets you can literally score (provide a point if they have it) all the platforms you might be considering and then you’ll really know what is “better” for you.

All the best,

Ross

Welcome, Ross, so glad to have you and your brain/experience with us on SME! My question: How can a merchant guarantee security of information to customers? There are spammers out there who would love to get their fingers on important numbers. Is there a safe guard or a best processing service to recommend? @ross-lasley

@ryrussell Thanks for your question.

Volusion is a solid system – with my definition of solid being that it basically functions as advertised and doesn’t have any horrible known issues.

To choose a cart you need to think about 10 things:
1. Your Products: do you have any weird needs beyond small, medium, large? 
2. Data Bridge: does your shopping cart need to talk to your other systems and what are those?
3. Design: What do you need your site to look like / do design wise and will the cart support that?
4. Updating: how do you plan to update your site? Do you need a content management system or not?
5. Backend: what specific backend (order processing and customer ommunication/management) stuff do you need?
6. Features: Are there any specific cart features that you must have? What about those you’d like to have?
7. Payment: how do you intend to be paid / what gateway will you use?
8. Browsers: Compatibility across browsers, this is also where we deal with your mobile needs / plan.

9. Analysis: what are your analysis needs? For many folks the answer is two words – Google Analytics.
10. Security: how will we make sure you are fully PCi compliant? What “level” merchant are you (that’s based on volume). 

All that being said if you want a shoot form the hip platform suggestions…

Magento.
1shoppingcartYahoo store (better than you’d think)Zen cart
Each of the above has pros and cons – there are folks that will tell you they love/hate every one of the above.

If there is a single principle of shopping cart selection it is this: there are more carts than can reasonably be evaluated or known. 
As a result careful needs analysis and making some decisions (like do you want to own or rent it) is really the best place to start.
All the best,
Ross

@misscindyld Thanks for your question about Wordpress cart plugins – there sure are lots of them. 

Here is a list: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tags/shopping-cart

I’ve seen folks use many of the popular ones and you run right into what makes a cart “best” and the answer that you really need to make that question “best for whom” – please see the 10 considerations above.

Cart66 is solid and popular.
MiniCart is enjoyed by those with very simple needs.
For serious needs consider the Magento connectors. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/magento-wordpress-integration/
All the best,

Ross

@dhsllc I’d agree – Magento is a great system but it definitely requires some heavy geek lifting in spots.
I think they’ve largely solved the documentation problems in the last year or so. The “Enterprise’ (15K a year) edition is designed to solve the support problem and it does do so – but most folks can get a certified magneto developer to do everything they need on community for less than 15K annual.

That’s a good threshold for buying enterprise – when your geek bill exceeds 15K then buy it direct from Magneto.:-) What a lovely problem to have.

If you like my vibe Cynthia please consider signing up for my weekly newsletter Web Enlightenment. 
All the best,

Ross

thanks, Ross, appreciate it @ross-lasley