Choosing between a hostedshopping cart service and a downloadable e-commerce application can be adifficult choice. Both have advantages and disadvantages and either could be agood fit for your online store.

Hosted Shopping Cart Service

• The service handles the technical details of running your online store so you don't need to worry about web servers and upgrades.
• You have control over the content of your e-commerce site but there may be limitations. For example, you may not have 100% control over the HTML or layout but a good service should easily let you create great looking sites.
• You don't have to worry about installing patches and upgrades but you probably won't have a choices of which features are available. In most cases you can use the web store features that the service provides but can not customize the programming.
• Most hosted shopping carts have a monthly fee and may have a one-time setup cost. However, you are paying for the your store over time so you don't have a big bill up front.

E-Commerce Software

• You have a license to the software and can host it with any company you wish. Some web hosts will fully manager your online store software and others just provide a place to park your web site with little help.
• You have full control over the content of your store including the HTML code in most cases. You may have to do more design work and friendly design tools may not be as available as they are on hosted shopping cart services.
• You are responsible for installing patches and upgrades. This gives you the option to delay patches or skip them altogether. You'll have greater flexibility but greater responsibility too.
• You can add custom features to your store through programming but it comes at the cost of tougher upgrades and patches. If you choose to add customizations you are taking on a big responsibility to ensure the code of your site remains functional. That's a big step if you're not a programmer or don't have a full time programmer to help.
• Licensed shopping cart software usually has a fairly sizable one time price and may have annual maintenance costs to obtain regular updates from the vendor. However, you have the flexibility to move from web host to web host which may give you lower monthly hosting costs than a hosted shopping cart service.