Shopping cart platforms for e-commerce are growing in availability and options. The technology keeps improving and the price points keep falling – a boon for new small business owners. Many of these managed service providers offer entry-level e-commerce platforms with highly configurable shopping carts and customizable front-end designs, taking much of the hard work out of establishing your e-commerce site. There are even open source shopping cart platforms (OS Commerce) you can use for free to create your web store.

As e-commerce options evolve, selecting a shopping cart platform for your e-commerce business can be especially confusing for new business owners. Depending on the nature and needs of your particular business, you may feel the need to compare multiple platforms, even if you are a “newbie” … but where should you start? Common questions from prospective e-commerce site builders include the following:

* Which shopping platform offers the most value for the money?
* What’s a reasonable price to pay for a shopping cart platform?
* Can I control the “look and the feel” of the shopping cart?
* How much customer support will I need?

Of the literally hundreds of shopping cart solutions, we’ve highlighted a quick look at 5 of the more affordable shopping cart platforms available for prospective e-commerce site owners:

Shopify

Shopify offers a hosted e-commerce platform designed to make online selling as easy as possible. It was designed to be one of the easiest e-commerce platforms to use, ensuring that even a greenhorn can indeed sell products on the Web. With Shopify, there are no setup fees or monthly fees. Customer feedback indicates that set up is easy and purposely limited specifically to avoid confusion for the newbie e-commerce developer.

ASPdotNetStorefront

ASPdotNetStorefront is one of the more popular platforms in e-commerce today, offering an expansive array of features and plug-ins. While the platform is competitively priced, the pricing structure will keep it beyond the reach of most new site developers. AspdotNetStorefront has a large customer base and has proven to be technically innovative. One drawback to the platform (other than cost) is that newbies and developers who are still learning can struggle with configuration, making modification of the templates and the back end difficult for the newcomer to properly execute. So, while ASPdotNetStorefront is a superb platform, it’s definitely better-suited to developers that are more technically proficient and who can afford the upfront fees.

OsCommerce

OsCommerce is considered to be one of the most powerful open source shopping cart platforms, and one of the most-widely used. The osCommerce developer community is extensive with loads of documentation in their support forums and plug-ins for customization. One drawback to the osCommerce platform, similar to ASPdotNetStorefront, is that you might have to be more technically proficient with osCommerce than with other available platforms. Those without expertise may find it too difficult to use but those who have coding experience will find it to be a strong and flexible platform that, while free of charge, offers plenty of helpful resources and documentation to support your development.

BV Commerce

BV Commerce may not be as popular as other solutions but customer satisfaction is high. There are a lot of powerful features and flexibility. BV Commerce is one platform that allows you to customize your URL’s. There is also much flexibility in design code, plug-and-play add-ons, and a crisp, clean framework.

Yahoo! Store

In the managed solutions arena, the Yahoo! Store is one of the most popular shopping cart platforms with monthly costs of around $40 a month plus transaction fees. If you are just staring out and want your shopping cart issues handled for you, this may be one of the easiest solutions for you to use. The only drawback is that Yahoo! Stores are a bit inflexible, particularly for sites that start to grow rapidly. Some webmasters have found the platform to be a bit limiting and rigid with respect to customization for sites that grow quickly, but it can be ideal for small sites that don’t need much in the way of customization and don’t anticipate rapid growth right out of the box.

This, by no means, is a comprehensive view of all available shopping carts, as there are, quite literally, hundreds of shopping cart solutions currently available in the marketplace. These 5 shopping carts, however, will provide the foundation and a good starting point in your search for an affordable, effective, e-commerce platform for your new website.