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Set up an online store in minutes to sell on a website, social media, or marketplaces.

How To Add Shopping Cart To Your Existing Website And Start Selling Online

7 min read

Whether you have a blog or website for your business, you may want to start selling your products online so you can reach a huge demographic: the Internet. Even if you prefer to focus on other, less ethereal things, like product quality, you should take some time to create a great online presence. Without one, your business could suffer. But don’t worry! Modern ecommerce platforms like Ecwid will boost your success by helping you sell online.

Having a website or blog populated with high quality content is important, but being able to sell products through your existing website will add so much more to your experience as a business owner. The best way to do that? Add ecommerce with an online shopping cart.

Shopping cart plugins give small businesses additional income streams, many of which can be automated. This way, more time can be dedicated to other important sales and marketing activities. In fact, studies have shown that streamlining the online checkout process increases conversions by up to 35 percent. And today’s shopping cart software focuses more on automation and ease of use, precisely because small businesses need cheaper, time-saving solutions.

You don’t need a tech degree or a hefty price tag to add a shopping cart to your own web server. In fact, the average website owner can set up their online business in just minutes with Ecwid.

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Why You Should Choose a Hosted Shopping Cart Plugin Over Other Shopping Cart Software

Hosted shopping cart software comes with tools for setting up your online store, including linking your shopping cart to buy now buttons. They cost less than Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) shopping carts, and can be scaled depending on sales volume and budget fluctuation.

Hosted shopping cart plugins have limited features and inventory limits, but they also make it easy to set up intuitive user interfaces. With software that fits with the base code of the ecommerce platform, you have a better chance of selling products without any hassle or technical issues. This will also lead to a better customer experience.

Regardless, hosted ecommerce solutions give your customers better shopping cart functionality, built in payment processing, and account information security. You want to provide the best and safest experience for your customers, so we recommend using hosted carts.

What to Look For In Hosted Shopping Cart Software

Once you make the decision to use a hosted shopping cart on your online store, you have to find the right solution for your business. The best SaaS ecommerce stores and shopping carts will work for both existing and developing websites. Some key features are important to consider.

Ease of setup, automation, and inventory maintenance

Your shopping cart software solution should work with your existing ecommerce site. Intuitive interfacing tools are a must for getting things up and running as quickly as possible. Shopping cart plugins and extensions for ecommerce platforms make it easier to maintain your inventory and shopping cart settings.

User-friendly ordering and checkout processes

Online consumers no longer have tolerance for a complicated checkout page, limited payment options, or a lack of security. Over 60% of consumers abandon shopping carts because of these issues. You must have a secure payment gateway and easy checkout process to retain customers. Consumers also expect more personalized service these days, which makes things like custom checkout pages even more important. By using a hosted shopping cart, all of these features are guaranteed to work well.

Options to receive sales receipts from the online store

As a business owner, your primary concern is likely where, when, and how you will receive funds from selling in your online store. The best hosted shopping carts will allow you to link your store’s merchant account, PayPal account, or other payment processing platforms and services. As customers place orders and make payments through the payment gateway, funds are sent automatically to your linked accounts.

Additional benefits with Ecwid online shopping carts

Ecwid is a trustworthy and affordable ecommerce platform, one of the best available. You can easily use its shopping cart plugin for an existing website, but you can also build an online store using our intuitive site builder. In addition to integrating your shopping cart and ecommerce website, Ecwid provides tools to automate the whole process. Examples include:

  • Internet marketing tools, including promotional pricing, discounts, and coupon codes.
  • Content management system to easily add webpages or product pages to your existing website, complete with their own buy now buttons.
  • Customize the checkout process for each customer.

How to add a shopping cart to your website

If you are new to Ecwid, start by setting up an account. When choosing your subscription plan, keep in mind that you can start with the bare essentials for your online store and scale up. You should work with your current sales volume and budget, updating as your business grows.

As you set up your Ecwid account, you will have the option to link your existing website or build a new online store. You can then set up your hosted store and shopping cart through Ecwid, or Ecwid WordPress plugin.

It’s that easy! Now you can monetize traffic through your website, with minimal time and effort. Isn’t that the dream?

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With Ecwid Ecommerce, you can easily sell anywhere, to anyone — across the internet and around the world.

About the author

Max has been working in the ecommerce industry for the last six years helping brands to establish and level-up content marketing and SEO. Despite that, he has experience with entrepreneurship. He is a fiction writer in his free time.

Ecommerce that has your back

So simple to use – even my most technophobic clients can manage. Easy to install, quick to set up. Light years ahead of other shop plugins.
I’m so impressed I’ve recommended it to my website clients and am now using it for my own store along with four others for which I webmaster. Beautiful coding, excellent top-notch support, great documentation, fantastic how-to videos. Thank you so much Ecwid, you rock!
I’ve used Ecwid and I love the platform itself. Everything is so simplified it’s insane. I love how you have different options to choose shipping carriers, to be able to put in so many different variants. It’s a pretty open e-commerce gateway.
Easy to use, affordable (and a free option if starting off). Looks professional, many templates to select from. The App is my favorite feature as I can manage my store right from my phone. Highly recommended 👌👍
I like that Ecwid was easy to start and to use. Even for a person like me, without any technical background. Very well written help articles. And the support team is the best for my opinion.
For everything it has to offer, ECWID is incredibly easy to set up. Highly recommend! I did a lot of research and tried about 3 other competitors. Just try ECWID and you'll be online in no time.

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