As you may already know Google Checkout recently launched in the UK.  Google Checkout has actually been available in the US for just less than a year now and Hitwise have just made available some statistics showing how the take up of google checkout is going so far in the US.

The statistics show that PayPal received 67 times more of a larger share than Google Checkout did.  This is not greatly suprising given that PayPal have built up trust over a long period of time.

The statistics also revealed a huge peak in visitors around the period of time when Google launched a big promotion - $10 to $30 off purchases.  The same is likely to happen in the UK given that Google are similarly offering £10 off purchases of £30 or more.

Take a look at the graphs over at Hitwise:Google Checkout Take Up

Technorati Tags: hitwise, google checkout, paypal, ecommerce, ecommerce news
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Newsletter functionality is on almost everyone’s list when choosing their shopping cart software.

They’re a great marketing tool for engaging customers, telling them about special promotions and offers, and generating repeat business.

There’s a great article about newsletters and shopping cart software over at Practical Ecommerce - Definately worth a read!

Technorati Tags: ecommerce, business, ebusiness, online shopping, online shop, newsletters
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In my recent article Internet Shopping Carts and SEO I explained to some extent how the search engines take three factors into account when ranking pages.  The three factors were:

1. On-page SEO factors
2. Off-page SEO factors
3. Accessability SEO factors

I have stumbled upon a great article that acts as a comprehensive checklist for all on-page and accessability factors that can affect the rankings of your internet shopping cart.

Internet Shopping Carts and SEO - On-page factors continued… definately worth a read.

Technorati Tags: SEO, ecommerce, online business
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While the Ecommerce Times usually fill their homepage with product reviews, current ecommerce news and shopping cart tutorials, this week they have highlighted some popular disscussions often held by merchants in their forums.

You should find this interesting as it provides an insight into what your fellow merchants are thinking and struggling with.

It addresses using shopping PPC sites as means of advertising your ecommerce shopping carts and a popular thread where by merchants give fellow forum members the invitation to rate their site.  Definitely worth a read… Shopping Carts, Design, PPC Tips

Viart.com (http://www.viart.com/), an online company supplying PHP shopping cart software and web content management software worldwide, offers people a fully hosted 30-day trial of their ViArt Shop and integrated CMS.

Viart has put in place a free 30-day trial of their products, giving people the opportunity to test out the shopping cart software and integrated web content management software without any commitment.  Since the shopping cart is fully hosted during the trial, it removes the issue of set up for users, giving users an opportunity to test out the shopping cart software without any hassle.

The shopping cart software with integrated web content management software has been designed with flexibility at its forefront.  First time shop owners can take advantage of the free-hosted trial and build websites that include shopping carts, forums, help desks and more, and the Viart technical support team will be on hand every step of the way. 

For experienced users with PHP and HTML knowledge, the shopping cart software and integrated CMS offers all the functionality of an advanced scripting engine behind the scenes, with complete flexibility regarding design. 

“Influenced by our ever-increasing customer base, the ViArt shopping cart and CMS continues to grow in functionality each and every month. Our most recent updates have included the integration of Google Checkout, the ability to integrate Google tracking into an online shop and a call centre module.  We have aimed to create a shopping cart system capable of performing all the functions required to run an online business.  We want people to sample our scalable range of shopping cart solutions that can come complete with an integrated help desk support system and an integrated forum” Explains Mr. Birzul, Technical Director at Viart.

The fully featured hosted trial of the shopping cart software offers people the chance to assess the viart shop without any installation or commitment.  Visit http://www.viart.com/hosting_trial.php for more information.

About the Company
ViArt was established in 1999 and operate from purpose built premises based in North Yorkshire.  The company’s in-house team of e-commerce software developers whom have over thirty years experience in this arena designed the ViArt suite of products.

For more information, please contact:
Tracey Simpson
tracey.simpson@viart.com
01642 718982

Technorati Tags: shopping carts, web content management, CMS
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ViArt.com, PHP shopping cart software provider, offers users the ability to integrate Google Checkout into their shopping carts.

12 March 2007 - ViArt (http://www.viart.com) has developed their PHP shopping cart software to provide users with the ability to integrate Google Checkout into their ecommerce website.

Google checkout allows online merchants to process transactions online.  The checkout enables customers to buy from Viart shopping cart merchants quickly and securely using one single username and password. A fast, secure checkout process helps to persuade shoppers to buy online and buy more often.

To find out more about this latest update to the Viart PHP shopping cart software take a look at the full press release: Viart PHP Shopping Cart Software Integrates Google Checkout.

Viart are currently offering a fully hosted 30-day trial of their shopping cart software and integrated web content management software from: http://www.viart.com/hosting_trial.php

PayPal have recently announced an optional two-factor security key to help combat online fraud. More confident customers is surely great news for us shopping cart owners.A lot of phishing e-mails now target PayPal and eBay users, largely because they are such a huge demographic (over 123 million customers at the end of last year), but also because PayPal is designed to make it easy to move money around.Surprisingly, however, phishing is not a large financial problem for PayPal or its customers, but customers receiving phishing emails lose confidence, so PayPal’s two-factor efforts should help with some of these worries.In order to combat phishing attacks that could include questions about the new six digit code, PayPal have integrated a feature that means users have only a short time to access the account before the code changes.

Web content management software provides non-technical users the ability to add content to a website - this is possibly their main benefit and reason for implementation for most businesses. But, without any IT involvement can CMS deployment have a damaging effect to the find-ability of your content and search engine rankings?

As outlined in this very informative article at CMSWire, non-technical users can contribute to search engine friendly content and effectively build traffic to a website if a few careful decisions are made when selecting and implementing the web content management product. Amongst many factors, the software should support search engine friendly features such as search engine friendly URLs, Meta tags and effective content structuring such as search engine friendly URLs, Meta tags and effective content structuring such as < H1 >,< H2 > tags, and RSS syndication.