Seeing as a lot of my readers are Internet Marketing newbies I thought this would make a great blog post.   So many of them want to start an online store to sell their stuff, but they have no idea where to begin.

And to be perfectly honest, I wanted to write this post because I’m looking for feedback and comments to help us determine the best shopping cart software.

I launched my first shopping site for a friend in 1998 and to be honest, I can’t even remember what I used for software.   I switched it to OSCommerce a few years later and have done very little with it since.  One of the reasons why I’m writing this post, is because they want to do a much needed overhaul of their site (Flagstore.com) and I’m looking for recommendations for them.

In fact, if any Shopping Cart software owners are looking for a perfect showcase site, the Flagstore.com domain could be it.  (hint, hint)

Over the years I’ve used 1ShoppingCart.com, GoldBarOne, Infusionsoft and Magento and they all have their good qualities.

Of course there are other great services like Yahoo Small Business Merchant Solutions.

I could keep rambling on about all the different ecommerce platforms and shopping cart systems, but it all boils down to one thing.

Confusion.

The average newbie has no idea…

• where to start
• how much they should be paying
• how to get a merchant account
• if they need to a hosted or self-hosted solution
• how to get up and running quickly and affordably

And to be honest, I don’t know what to tell them.

If they want a self-hosted solution I usually tell them to start by playing around with the free shopping cart software that comes with Cpanel’s fantastico, and see if that suits there needs.  Or I tell them to use 1ShoppingCart.com for a quick to setup hosted solution.

What are your thoughts an opinions on choosing a shopping cart?  Please comment below.