Cart of the Week: RomanCart

Sensible eCommerce counts over 300 totally different buying cart programs. On this weekly “Cart of the Week” characteristic, we profile a selected cart, asking the cart’s homeowners and customers about its strengths and weaknesses.

Right here we profile RomanCart, a U.Okay.-based hosted cart resolution, providing cart packages beginning at $89.99 a 12 months. RomanCart additionally affords a free model of its customary cart, which doesn’t embrace most of its advertising and marketing instruments. We requested RomanCart consultant Simon Leigh to clarify the advantages of his firm’s cart. We then requested Jonjoe Lewis, who makes use of RomanCart on two web sites, Digitaldogtag.co.uk and Radio-release-keys.com, for his analysis.

PeC: Please present some normal background on the cart.

Leigh: “RomanCart is a hosted buying cart and Web advertising and marketing system. Utilized by over 34,000 retailers, the primary benefit is that it makes it very easy to show any web site into a web based retailer. You design your individual Internet pages, and RomanCart offers you the ‘Add to Basket’ buttons to stick in. This implies which you can have your web site precisely as you need. There isn’t any have to depend on templates the place there is perhaps 10,000 shops trying the identical as yours. RomanCart additionally connects to all the key fee gateways, which means you may throw away the difficult integration directions they usually offer you.”

PeC: What are the cart’s largest strengths?

Leigh: “Ease of use. You actually can flip an internet site right into a retailer in beneath 5 minutes. No technical experience is required in any respect.”

“RomanCart has a lot of advertising and marketing options in-built. For instance, our ‘Welcome Again’ auto-responder. If a buyer buys from you, then doesn’t go to your retailer for, say, six months, then occurs to view your property web page, it will mechanically ping an e-mail to the shopper which you outline, then provides them to an e-mail sequence. You may say, for instance, ‘Hello there. It’s nice to see you once more. Enter ABC123 on the checkout to get free delivery.’ Merely utilizing this characteristic alone will improve your turnover if you’re not doing this proper now.”

PeC: What are a few of its weaknesses?

Leigh: The primary weak spot is that many retailers are merely not conscious of numerous the superior performance they might be utilizing and the optimistic impact that utilizing it might have on their gross sales. Nonetheless that is one thing we’re addressing with a redesigned management panel and much more screencasts, our most popular technique of explaining use the cart options.”

PeC: What plans to you might have for future cart improvement?

Leigh: “As a result of we now have the small print of hundreds of thousands of merchandise being offered by our retailers, we’re organising a portal website the place all of the merchandise are listed and may be bought by prospects by means of the service provider’s cart. This supplies one other route for purchasers to search out their merchandise and purchase from them. This might be non-compulsory, after all. We’re additionally planning nearer integration with success homes and different third events.”

PeC: How particularly would utilizing RomanCart enhance a service provider’s enterprise?

Leigh: If a service provider isn’t utilizing advertising and marketing performance equivalent to auto-responders and never at the moment monitoring their advertising and marketing utilizing options equivalent to these present in RomanCart, they need to count on to see important will increase in gross sales—supplied the service provider is promoting a product which prospects need versus merchandise they must persuade the purchasers they want.

PeC: Every other ideas for our readers?

Leigh: “When you begin promoting on-line you cease being a businessman or girl and begin being a full time marketer. It’s advertising and marketing that may resolve the amount of cash that you just make out of your retailer. Should you would not have entry to advertising and marketing options equivalent to these present in RomanCart proper now it implies that there are big untapped earnings ready for you when you begin advertising and marketing correctly.”

A Buyer’s View

Jonjoe Lewis makes use of RomanCart on two web sites, Digitaldogtag.co.uk and Radio-release-keys.com. Right here is Lewis’s analysis of the cart:

PeC: What are RomanCart’s largest strengths?

Lewis: “I looked for a easy to make use of, feature-packed, cost-effective buying cart system. I examined many carts however discovered that the one system I may use with none fuss was RomanCart. Every little thing was really easy to make use of. If I weren’t certain about one thing, I might watch their screencasts or e-mail help. Their major energy is the truth that they be sure that the service provider has the help required no matter their capacity, and help is all the time accessible to make the most of the cart to its fullest potential, making certain all our wants are met.”

PeC: What are some issues it may enhance?

Lewis: “To be one hundred pc trustworthy, RomanCart may enhance the design of their very own web site. Once I inform folks concerning the cart I take advantage of, they take a look at the house web page and since it appears so plain they suppose the cart is apparent, too. Wow, are they mistaken.”

PeC: How particularly would utilizing RomanCart enhance a service provider’s enterprise?

Lewis: “I’ve constructed two web sites. Each have RomanCart on them. I simply merely pasted in just a few strains of code, and that was it. So no matter web site you might have, RomanCart matches in properly. Don’t be fooled by its simplicity, this cart has a lot of actually helpful options. I take advantage of all of them. My prospects really feel safe, additionally. Throughout checkout, the deal with bar modifications to inexperienced because it does on eBay and PayPal. This has been commented on typically. I’ve had no issues with any funds or safety points.”

PeC: Do you intend to proceed utilizing RomanCart? Why or why not?

Lewis: “Sure. I’ll proceed to make use of RomanCart because it has enhanced my gross sales attributable to its simplicity and safety for each the shopper and the service provider.”

PeC: Every other ideas on buying carts for our readers?

Lewis: “In case you are contemplating opening an ecommerce enterprise and also you wish to settle for on-line funds, use a buying cart that has a recognizable characteristic, such because the deal with bar going inexperienced. This improves buyer belief and undoubtedly will increase gross sales.”

Different RomanCart Websites

• Tony Howell Images
• Charlie Harper Shirts