Home-based e-business - an option for the
self-employed?
• Carting system
It is desirable for online shops to have some sort of carting system that allows prospective items to be added so that the total price including shipping is calculated. On completion of the order, the merchant will then be notified of it by e-mail. The orders can then be downloaded into the merchant's database. Besides calculating the total costs, some carts offer other features such as discount coupons, mailing list, and affiliate tracking. Although not essential for sites selling a small number of items, it is nonetheless highly desirable and is obligatory for sites for selling a larger number of items. There are two types of carting systems available; first party and third party carts.
• First Party – The cart software resides in the same server as the web site. The cart software is either purposefully written for that particular web site or purchased from a third party. Examples of which include Miva Merchan, Actinic OS Commerce, and X-cart Many of these proprietary carts come with a shop-front (online catalogue) system that allows the webmaster's to display his products easily in a professional manner, thus making the design process of the web site much easier. Many of these shop-front packages are offered as a TURNKEY approach that includes web hosting, shop-front/cart.
• Third Party - The cart itself is hosted at a remote third party hoster. Examples of third party carts include 1shoppingcart.com [40] and Mal's e-Commerce (mals-e.com) [27]. One has to sign up and pay a subscription fee for the service.
The vast majority of online shops opt for first party rather than third party carts. In general, first party carts are more difficult to set up (except for TURNKEY solutions) but there are usually no recurring charges once the cart had been set up. Third party carts are usually easier to set up and are more flexible. However, the merchant would be very dependent on that system; should the servers of the third party cart goes down, the cart would be inoperable. The author consulted several web hosting companies in Hong Kong and it appears that cart software tend to be purposefully written for a particular web site. This is probably the most inflexible and expensive approach and would make the merchant totally dependent on the web hosting company.
Comparison of (4) Different Carting System:
|
3 rd Party |
1 st Party |
TURNKEY Storefront |
Custom Designed
|
Examples |
1shoppintcart.com
Mal's e-commerce |
Dansie Cart [8]
Clickcartpro[5] |
Clickandbuild [4]
Worldpay [37] |
Large shopping sites such as Amazon.com |
Ease of set up
|
Easy |
Medium |
Very Easy |
Difficult |
Flexibility
|
Very |
Medium |
Low
|
Low |
Catalogue display of products
|
No |
Yes/No |
Yes |
No |
Expense
|
Medium |
Low |
High |
Very High |
Dependence on hosting company
|
No |
Yes/No |
Yes |
Yes |
Dependence on third party server
|
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
(Exhibit 18)
Source: researched and analyzed by the Author
|
