You can use traditional methods to sell products such as direct mail, catalogs and advertising. However, if you have a great online presence, entire world is your marketplace at a fraction of cost of most traditional methods. To easily sell to this worldwide marketplace, you need a great shopping cart system.

Choosing a shopping cart system is perhaps most important single decision you'll make in your online marketing career.

This is because:

You're stuck with decision for a long time.

If you buy into a system that isn't adequate, it can cost you money--big money- because it won't maximize amount of money spent by each visitor.

There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of off-the-shelf, free and alternative products out there vying for your money, time or both. And most of them are junk.

Don't suffer like I did I learned hard way. When I started on Internet I couldn't find a decent shopping cart program, so I took one that was highly recommended by my ISP (I now know only reason they suggested it was because it made them most money. They didn't care if it was best one for me or not). What a headache! The system wouldn't do anything but take order, but you had to have a PhD in computer science to work on it.

Here are 21 questions you absolutely, unfailingly must ask anyone trying to sell you a shopping cart. If you don't hear positive answers to majority of these questions, put your wallet back into your pocket and evaluate next option. Don't get stuck with a crappy shopping cart, even if they give it to you free.

If you have a poor shopping cart, get rid of it. I know that hurts, because you may have spent lots of time and money getting it going, but a bad one will cost you many thousands of dollars by waiting to replace it later rather than sooner.

Oh, and one more thing: if you hear shopping cart programmer answer one of questions below by saying, "Well, we could make it do that," run away even faster, because you're going to get stuck with a big custom programming bill with no guarantees that cart is going to work way you expected.

Every question below is very important when it comes to having a quality shopping cart system that gets more money out of same number of visitors.

1. Will it calculate shipping and tax?

2. Does it handle specialized shipping like FedEx and UPS?

3. Will it automatically deliver hard goods and soft goods (e- books and other digital products) in same transaction?

4. Does it offer customizable "Return to Shopping" pages without needing custom programming? This is important so you can send your customers to most likely product they will buy next. Standard carts just send customers back to main catalog, which forces them to search for related products. This is both irritating and time-consuming. Any delays in finding what they want could mean a lost sale, when they finally throw their hands up in disgust and move on to your competitor's site.

5. Does it offer customizable "Thank You" pages based on what customer just bought? These are pages where savvy marketers put affiliate links and other offers specifically related to customer's interests. When a customer clicks on one of these links and buys something from someone else, you get a commission.

6. Does it deliver receipt and confirmation e-mails automatically? The customer wants to know immediately that order went through. If he or she is unsure, you are going to have to field many wasted e-mails and phone calls letting customer know everything is OK.

7. Does it allow multiple order and dropship e-mails? In many cases, several different people in your organization and/or outside your organization need notice of an order. Again, you don't want to have to do this manually.

8. Does it have a Web-based administration page so you can work on your cart from any computer that has Internet access?

9. Does it include encryption technology and a secure server? Many companies make a fortune by sucking you in with a cheap or free cart and then make money on selling you an overpriced secure server.

10. Does it deliver easy output to your accounting software? You want to be able to import and export data easily between cart and whatever programs you have that need to share customer and sales information.

I've heard this argument before. My grade ten IT teacher assured us that within five years (and this was four years ago) we would no longer be purchasing CDs. With advent of broadband we were going to see purchases of music and movies online, streamed to computer or another device. I've always thought this was relatively unlikely. I may be in minority, but I really like CD and DVD cases. There's something a bit more tangible to them, more of a feeling of value for money. Plus they look kind of good lined up on a shelf like some new-age library.

Having thought about it for a while now I have no doubt that Internet is set to become a major distributor of media. When you think about it, it makes sense. Low to no production and distribution costs; you just provide a download location when people send you money. Cutting out 'middle man' has always been an effective way to save money, and in this case you're cutting out shop owners, couriers and manufacturers. This should lead to substantial drops in prices (and loss of jobs... but... I have no defence for that. You're just going to have to find yourselves a new career. Sorry. On positive side your entertainment costs will go down, so you won't need job quite as much...).