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A shopping cart or e-commerce program is a way to sell your products and services on-line via the Internet. These programs provide everything necessary to run a storefront, including a shopping cart that tracks the items that a customer wants to buy, payment and fulfillment tracking, inventory, and also some kind of mechanism to transfer accounting information to and from your existing accounting system.
For a customer, the experience is just like going to a regular store except without the checkout clerk. A customer looks around at the items in your on-line catalog, selects what they want and then clicks on a "checkout" button.
This starts the process of having the customer review what they wanted to buy, making any changes to their shopping list, deciding on things like shipping and gift wrapping -- and then finally paying for their purchase via credit card or PayPal.
Although we provide a variety of different e-commerce software packages, every merchant still needs to decide on what options they want to offer a customer to pay for their purchase. In the table below, we've outlined some popular choices:
| PayPal Cart | 2checkout (recommended for those just starting out) |
Revcom | osCommerce or ZenCart | Interchange | Miva Merchant | |
| Requires that a Merchant credit-card account to be set up? | No | No | No | Optional | Yes | Yes |
| Any set-up fees? | No | $49.00 | $79.00 | $10.00 | $15.00 | $25.00 |
| Transaction fees | 2.2% + 30˘ per transaction | 5.5% + 45˘ per transaction | 3.95% + $1.00 per transaction | Can use either PayPal or a separate merchant account | Separate merchant account required | Separate merchant account required |
| Cards accepted | MasterCard, Visa, Discover, & AmEx | MasterCard, Visa, Discover, & AmEx | MasterCard, Visa, Discover, AmEx, & Checks | Can use either PayPal or a separate merchant account | Separate merchant account required | Separate merchant account required |
| Separate SSL certificate required? | No, included for free | No, included for free | No, included for free | Depends on payment mechanism used | Yes ($45 per year) |
Yes ($45 per year) |
| Target market | Any small business, or on-line trader | Any small business | Any small business | Any small business | Mid-sized shopping site | Large retail shopping site |
| Website | Website | Website | Website | Website | Website |
From RedHat site: " Interchange™ is the world's leading open source e-commerce software platform. Interchange provides the functionality that leading edge companies want, while providing the flexibility and return on investment they demand. RedHat Interchange is designed to give businesses the freedom to mind their own business. The Interchange™ platform is the foundation of RedHat's unique e-commerce offerings. No other solution combines enterprise-class functionality with the flexibility, reliability, and cost effectiveness of this proven technology. "
Did you know? RedHat's Interchange™ is one of the most feature rich shopping cart software in the market. It is one of the most powerful tools available to automate and database-enable your web site or build online applications. If you've been thinking of using tools from BEA, IBM, Microsoft, Broadvision, Intershop, Blue Martini, Open Market, Mercantec, Macromedia, or Interworld to build your web site or online application, you'll be making a serious mistake if you do not evaluate Interchange before you make your decision. If you've been thinking of building a system by hand in Java, Perl, ASP, PHP, Cold Fusion, or any other environment, you should consider the time savings that building on the Interchange platform may bring you.
Interchange is well suited for a variety of purposes, including: sales, order processing, content management, customer service, reporting and analysis, and personalization. Interchange has been implemented for traditional retail sales, digital goods delivery, B2B parts re-ordering, non-commerce content management, auctions, order status checking, supply chain management, project management, online collaboration, and even an MP3 Jukebox. Interchange can be used as a completely self-contained standalone product, or as part of a larger system. It can be integrated with payment processing services, ERP systems, point-of-sale systems, accounting systems, external content management systems, Java-based application servers, sales force automation systems, customer relationship management systems, e-mail campaign management systems, and remote databases on virtually any platform.
Some web sites using Interchange are:
Some additional useful information about Interchange:
