We need to consider the following issues:

• Payment System You should study the payment system first to see whether this is something that would be practical for your existing banking / credit card processing arrangements. You might find that this is the major hurdle. We discussed this issue earlier on in the section on payment processing. 
• Secure Server  It is vital that the customer's credit card data are processed via a secure server validated by a third party such as Thawte or Verisign which encrypts their credit card information as it passes through the internet. It is also vital that the customer is visibly reassured that they are going onto such a system. (A secure server is indicated by "https" instead of "http" in the URL, and by a padlock item - in Internet Explorer this appears at the bottom of the screen in the status bar). 
• Your Transaction Fees In addition to any fees you may be paying your bank there will be fees associated with the transactions your customers carry out on the secure server. Shopfitter, and TOPS © for example, have a useful pay-per-transaction system which saves you having to meet upfront costs. TOPS © provides both systems at a very modest monthly cost and virtually no set- up costs, with a lot of hand-holding - very useful for those first timid steps! 
• What Sort of Image Do I Want to Convey? As mentioned above, various shopping cart software companies, such as Shopfitter, provide their clients with special software or online tools for building their shopping cart so you do not need the services of a web designer. Much depends on the image you want to project to your customers. If your goods are high class and top quality, the image you need is rarely going to be projected by a "build your own webshop" system with the design constraints that brings. But some homespun goods are almost better sold by a homely webshop that you have done yourself - as they say, "horses for courses". 
• Website Integration. Ideally, your webshop and shopping cart should be fully integrated with the rest of your website; this gives the prospective customer a better user experience due to consistent design and navigation. TOPS ©, for example, is a website-building system which allows you to build your webshop as an integral part of your website. However if your website is already built then you may have to do a bit of extra work to achieve integration. What is vital is that the user is not several clicks away from their shopping basket. They should be able to start adding their goods to a shopping basket on either the home page, or no more than one click away from the home page. 
• How important is it that my shopping cart is indexed by search engines? Certain kinds of shopping cart systems are not search engine friendly - for example, they use features such as javascript links, frames or are database-driven with complex query strings in the URL. (see the section on search engines which goes into more depth). Shopfitter and TOPS ©, for example, have given considerable attention to search engine friendliness in their shopping cart system. Of course, it may not be important for your cart to be picked up by search engines, because this is not the way you are promoting it, or that there is simply too much competition from other websites in the search engines for this to be relevant. 
• Friendly Image Your shopping cart needs to convey the image that you are friendly, helpful and willing to speak with your customer in person if need be. There are many shopping carts on the Internet which are too complicated to use, and there is no personal contact available to assist the customer. As a small mail order business your personal contact with your customer is much more critical than it is for a large well-established mail order business. It may be your only unique selling point. 
• Personalisation Features Another feature to consider is whether the shopping cart system allows your customers to set 'remember me', so they will not need to enter all their own details or those of the friend and family to whom they have gifted before. However research shows that customers should not be forced to register and some customers feel that "remember me" facilities are an invasion of privacy - unless they are entirely optional. Remember that most customers are irritated by having to register with a site before they can purchase something; they just want to add to cart, put in their card details, then confirm the payment. But an option to register or be remembered may be of value. 
• Gifting Facilities Another area you might consider before choosing a shopping cart system is to see whether they provide a facility for what we call "gifting". Due partially to credit card restrictions, some shopping cart software systems do not provide for goods to be sent to addresses other than that of the credit card holder. In consequence they do not provide room for a message to included with their gift either. 
• Carrier Instructions Moreover, it may be important that there is space for the customer to provide the carrier with special instructions - such as "Please leave parcel across the road with Mrs Jones if not in". If your shopping cart software provider does not allow for such a facility this could affect your ability to get your goods to your customers in time. 

TOPS © has its own shopping cart, and is also able to interface with various shopping carts, including Shopfitter, and therefore save you a lot of extra work in terms of processing the customer information that is derived from the cart. We would recommend, however, you speak to us first about your choice of shopping cart if you are going to use TOPS © software.