Free vs. Hosted Shopping Cart Comparison Guide

Go to http://trycorecommerce.com for an e-commerce online store free trial. Is a hosted shopping cart always better than a free version? Learn how to choose between the two for your own business. For more information on both free and hosted shopping cart, check out http://www.squidoo.com/free-vs-hosted-shopping-cart If you enjoyed this video, you might also like the other videos in our YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/elogichick1 Free vs. Hosted Shopping Cart Video Transcription: An e-commerce business must rely on a shopping cart to take a customer order and process it. There are two different types of shopping cart software to choose from, ones that are open source and therefore free and ones that come in the form of a paid monthly subscription service. There are a number of really popular free shopping cart software that can be downloaded for use by a hosted website. The advantages of using this type of shopping cart are most importantly it's free of charge, it offers great flexibilty with regards to the functions of the shopping cart, and it gives users the ability to create a custom designed cart to match the look of their e-commerce site. On the other hand, there are also plenty of disadvantages. First you will need technical or programming knowledge to be able to fully customize the shopping cart. You also need to already have web hosting. Security updates are usually not automatically applied so you will need to monitor it. Even though the software is free, you may be charged for upgrades or additional features. Some may require the use of banner space in exchange for their software. Servers for this type of service may become overloaded which may result in slow performance, and it will lack basic support which means you must search for answers to your problems in forums or across the web. Unlike free open source shopping carts, the paid monthly subscription versions includes hosting. Provides automatic upgrades and security updates. Comes with full support anytime you need it. Offers a variety of storefront templates for you to choose from, and is equipped with all kinds of maintenance and management tools. There are significantly more people who choose to use a paid hosted shopping cart over a free open source shopping cart, because it doesn't require any technical skills, it's more secure and reliable, they offer a lot more features and for all that, it only requires a small monthly investment. Core Commerce is a cost effective hosted shopping cart solution. With design tools to set up your store in minutes, a full list of growing features at your disposal and superior support, it's no wonder they are rated one of the best e-commerce solutions. Try it absolutely free for 15 days without giving them your credit card information.