Shopping Cart Software Survey Questions

This article contains older information. Go here for newer information on shopping carts and transactions.

Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, e-Business consultant
Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
E-Business Consultant

1. Introduction

Dear Shopping Cart Vendor,

I am preparing the second edition of my best-selling e-book The Shopping Cart Report, first published in January 2002. I am changing the format some, providing fact sheets on 25+ shopping cart programs priced for small to medium businesses.

I'll be going over each fact sheet carefully myself, but thought that since you know your product better than anyone, you could give me a start.

Please answer with strict honesty. If a particular feature isn't available yet, but is under development, please say so clearly. If a feature is planned in a future release, please provide the release number and planned release date. Don't claim features that you don't really offer, even though a work-around might accomplish part of this purpose. 

This 92-question survey will probably take you about 30-45 minutes. There are both a number of Yes/No questions and open-ended boxes that allow you to answer more thoroughly. If you'd like to view all the questions before you start, you'll find them online.

Thank you for taking time to complete the survey. I really appreciate it.

I may call you for details, so please give me your full name, phone number, and e-mail address.

God bless you,
Dr. Ralph F. Wilson

P.S. Of course, I reserve the right to edit your comments, change wording, and add my own comments. But starting with your wording gives you an opportunity to give your features a good chance of being highlighted.

* 1. Product name and Version. If you have several shopping cart "models," please fill out a separate questionnaire for each.

2. Company contact information

3. Other Contact Info. Any additional company contact information, such as other offices. (optional)

* 4. Contact Information. In case I need more detailed information or have additional questions, please give me your name and contact information. Your contact information will NOT be published; it is for my use only. However, I wll mention your name as source of some of the information in the survey.

Thanks for the contact information. Now, let's move to your product.

5. Product Type. Which best describes your product?

2. Operating Systems

6. OS. What operating systems can your product be installed on?

7. Programming Languages. What programming language(s) are used to develop, customize or implement your application?

8. Database. What online databases are needed (or may be used) to run your application?

9. Digital Certificate. Do hosting services usually allow a single digital certificate to cover several stores, or does each store require its own digital certificate?

3. Type of System

10. Cart Category Qualifications. Here, please enter any qualifications to the category you choose in the question below this one.

* 11. Cart Category. Which of these categories would best describe your product?

4. Design Features

12. Design Features. How many unique canned templates come with your system, not counting color variations on a particular template? Any other design features?

13. WYSIWYG. Does your system include a WYSIWYG webpage editor?

14. Page Preview. Can the merchant preview changes to the site before committing to the final change?

15. Custom HTML. Can merchants use custom HTML pages that fit into your catalog system?

16. Template Language. Do your system have a special template language a developer can use to match a merchant's current website? Any other design features?

5. Page Generation

* 17. Static-Dynamic. What kinds of product pages does it generate?

18. Search Engine Workarounds. If your pages are "on the fly" dynamically generated, do you have any methods to get search engines to index the product pages? (optional)

19. For cart-generated store pages can you easily add a title, description, and keyword metatags to a page? 

6. Products and Categories

20. Categories. How would you describe your hierarchical system of categories and subcategories? (if any) 

21. Product Assignment. Can a product be assigned to more than one category?

22. Live Database. Can merchants link to a "live" database for real-time information such as prices and inventory levels?  If so, how does this work?

23. Product Database Uploads. Can merchants maintain products off-line and then upload them to refresh the store? If so, how does this work?

24. Product Maximum. What is the practical maximum number of products your system can handle?

25. Product Database Export. How does one export your product database? Can you re-import this export file back into your database without change? (i.e., Does the export file contain all the fields contained in the import file?)

7. Product Characteristics

26. Product Options. Which answer best describes how your system handles option lists, such as size, color, etc.

27. Product Inscription. Does your system allow a field where the customer could enter the text of an inscription?

28. Product Cross-Selling. Please describe any system that points to related products or accessories for cross-selling or up-selling.

29. Product Descriptions. In addition to the product name, what kinds of product description fields do you provide for? (not including price, weight, SKU, etc.) If you allow merchant-defined custom fields, can they be imported and exported? Used in page layouts?

30. Product Search. Describe your product search feature, if any.

31. Product Taxable. Can individual products be set as taxable or non-taxable?

32. Product Shipping. Can individual products be set as a flat-rate shipping or at no shipping charge?

33. Product Kits. Can a customer order one kit and have each of the components of the kit placed in the shopping cart automatically?

8. Graphics and Photos

34. Graphics. How does your system handle product graphics?

35. Thumbnail Graphics. Does each product allow a thumbnail graphic in addition to the product graphic?

36. Additional Graphics. If a particular product requires 2 or 3 photos to show various functions, how could this be set up in your system?

9. Merchandising

37. Specials. If the merchant wishes to place a product on sale, are there special features to highlight sale products or put them on the front page?

38. Discounts. How does your system handle quantity discounts? Are they available by the number of products, by the price total, or both?

39. Coupons. Describe your coupon system (if any). Are coupons product-specific? Do they expire? Can they be set for a certain minimum number of items or a minimum dollar amount?

40. Gift Register, Wish Lists. Is either a gift register or a wish list available for your system? Built-in or third-party solution?

41. Merchandising and Pricing Misc. Please describe any other special merchandising, pricing, or display features of your system.

10. Customer Interface

42. Customer List. Does your system keep an online customer list?

43. Customer Access. Which of the following best describes your system?

44. Order Shipment Tracking.  Does your system provide for the merchant to update shipped orders with shipping date and tracking number for customer inquiry?

45. Member pricing. Can merchants set pricing discount levels for individual members or groups of members? If so, please explain.

11. Business to Business

46. B2B Features. What features does your system have that make it adaptable to the needs of B2B sales, wholesale product sales, etc.?

12. Digital Products

47. Digital Product Delivery. Does your system allow customers to download digital products?

48. Digital Product Handling. Describe how your system handles digital product storage, sales, and delivery.

13. Tax Calculations

49. Tax Calculation. Describe how taxes are computed in your system? How flexible is the system? Tax by ZIP code, by state, by country? Can you have two-tier taxes (sales tax plus tobacco tax)? How about VAT taxes?

50. Tax on Shipping. Does your system allow the merchant decide whether taxes are calculated on the subtotal only or the subtotal plus shipping charges?

Other (please specify)

51. Tax Plugins. Does your system allow interface with third-party tax calculation systems such as Taxware or CERTITAX? If so, which systems?

14. Shipping Calculations

52. Shipping Calculation. Please indicate which of the following shipping calculation methods can be used to determine the shipping charge (check as many as apply):

53. Multiple Shipping. Does you system have special ways to allow for (check any that apply):

54. Shipping Special Features. Does your system support a handling charge? Please describe any additional special features of your shipping calculation system.

15. Order Form

55. Ordering System Screens. From the time the shopper views his cart, how many ordering system screens must he click through before he gets to the "Thank you for your order" page?

56. Fraud Check. Does the ordering system/payment gateway system check for the following items. And if so, can it be set by the merchant to reject an order if it doesn't get a match?

No Checking

Checks

Checks, Can Reject Orders

AVS Address

      

AVS ZIP

  

CVV2

      

57. Minimum order. Can a minimum order amount be set?

58. Order System Support. At present, do you provide support for these newer systems?

59. Support Plans. If you don't support these at present, what are your plans for future support?

60. Ordering System Flexibility. Describe the kinds of changes the merchant can make to customize the ordering system.

61. Gift Wrapping. Is there a built-in way to charge for gift wrapping and allow the customer to input a gift message?

62. Auction Interface. Does your system have any way to post products to auction sites or become the payment center for auction purchases? If so, please describe.

16. International Marketing

63. Currency Symbol. Can the currency symbol be changed?

64. Multiple Currencies. Can you display prices of several currencies at once, each keyed to an updateable exchange rate?

65. Languages. What languages can the ordering system be translated into?

66. Order System Translation. Is there a way to translate the entire ordering system wording into a different language. How does that work?

67. Country Limitation. Is there a way to limit countries whose residents can order from a merchant's store? How?

17. Payment Gateway

68. Payment Gateway. Is the merchant required to contract with a third-party payment gateway to get real-time credit card authorization using your system?

69. Payment Gateway Compatibility. Please indicate which payment gateways your system is easily compatible with. (Check as many as apply.)

18. Affiliate Program

70. Affiliate Program Built-in. Does the system have a built-in affiliate system? If so, please describe it.

71. Third-Party Affiliate Programs. Which third-party affiliate programs (if any) can be set up easily without requiring additional back-end programming?

72. Thank You Page Accessibility. How easy is it for the merchant's programmer to get access to the Thank You page, to provide sales total data for transmittal to affiliate programs, ad-tracking, and other metrics programs?

73. Affiliate Program Experience. In addition to those mentioned above, what third-party affiliate programs have you found are fairly easily installed in your system?

19. Marketing Tools

74. E-Mail Newsletter. Does your system allow the merchant to e-mail regular newsletters or updates to customers?

75. Listserver. Does your system have a feature where non-customers can subscribe to an e-mail newsletter? Does this handle subscriptions, unsubscriptions, and bounces?

76. Autoresponder. Does the system have any built in autoresponders? If so, please describe the features.

77. Search Engine Registration. Does the system provide for automatic search engine registration either internally or by arrangement with a third-party service that is free to the merchant?

20. Order Management

78. Order Retrieval. Please indicate all the ways that the merchant can either be notified of or retrieve orders.

79. Customer Notification. Which of the following are generated by your system?

80. Third-Party Order Management. For which of the following third-party systems are there systems in place for easy importing of order and customer data from your system?

81. Internal Order Management. Which (if any) of the following order statuses can be set by the merchant in your system to manage orders? (check all that apply)

82. Inventory Tracking. Describe the kind of inventory tracking (if any) provided by your system. Can customers be kept from placing orders if the product is in stock? Does the inventory status show on the product page? Can inventory be tracked down to the option/attribute level? Can inventory levels be imported and exported with product data? 

83. Order Management Other. Please describe any other order management features. How easy is it to export order and customer data files?

21. Statistics

84. Statistics. Which of the following kinds of statistics are viewable by the merchant within your system?

85. Graphed Statistics. Does the system provide graphs for any of the statistics? Please describe.

22. Upgrades

86. Upgrades. Do you charge for upgrades? How difficult is it to upgrade?

22. Pricing

Pricing for shopping cart systems is set in a variety of ways. Please use the appropriate fields on this page to indicate your pricing. Then provide explanations in the space provided in question 89.

87. Licensing Fee. If you have a one-time licensing fee, enter it here.

88. Annual Fees. Please enter your annual, quarterly, or monthly fee schedule in the fields provided. If you have a monthly minimum enter it here and explain it below.

89. Set-up fee. Enter any one-time set-up fee here.

90. Per Order Fees. Please enter any discount rate or per order transaction fees in these fields.

91. Pricing Explanation. Please explain pricing here.

92. Add-on Pricing. Please explain pricing for any add-on services or products here.

Copyright © 2003, Ralph F. Wilson. All rights reserved.

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