If you’ve made the decision to make money online by selling your products online, then you’ve made a smart decision. Many consumers are now shopping online on a regular basis, and some are even using their mobile devices (phones and tablets) to browse for merchandise and complete purchases while on the go. By offering your products online, you’re opening yourself up to the opportunity to significantly increase your potential sales.

Once you’ve chosen your desired online shopping cart software, such as this cart software package from 1ShoppingCart.com, it’s time to set about configuring your cart! It’s recommended that you first have a list of the products you’d like to add to your online store, as well as high quality, professional-level-quality photographs to use in conjunction with those photos. You’ll also want to have descriptions and some keywords to use for each of your product listings, but you can add those in later, so if you don’t have them on hand now, that’s okay.

But before you add any products to your online store, it’s best to first login to the back-end, and browse through the available configurations. There should be documentation either within the settings page, or included separately with the cart package, that will explain each setting and give recommendations on the options to choose.

Take a look at the available payment settings, and choose the ones you’d like to have for your customers to use. You will want to, without a doubt, accept credit card payments. But you can also accept payments via Authorize.net, Google Checkout, and PayPal. These three may require separate registrations, certificates, and fees, but the benefit to offering at least one of these alternative payment methods is being able to retain more customers.

If you ever run into issues with setting up or managing your shopping cart, the vendor can provide you with support. Generally they offer 24/7 support via email or an online help desk, and some vendors even offer forums where the community can come together to help one another. Premium support may also be available, so if you’re really desperate for a solution, this should be considered as well.