Here’s another excerpt by Randy Charach on MybizKit

How to Pick a Shopping Cart System

Here are some criteria that are important when it comes to picking a shopping cart:

Integrated Autoresponders

Sequential autoresponders are one of the most powerful sales tools on the Internet today. They send follow-up emails to customers and prospects to keep your sales messages going out automatically. This service is virtually never seen integrated with a shopping cart system. You usually have to contract out with a separate company and somehow get the shopping cart and autoresponder company to work together. Only the most advanced carts would have this function integrated.

Even when integrated in very high end shopping systems you have the problem of an autoresponder sequence being delivered to sell a product that the customer has already purchased. This makes you look foolish and irritates the customer. The most advanced systems would have autoresponders available for each product and a special feature called “unsubscribe on purchase.” This automatically takes the customer off the autoresponder when they purchase the item. It can also then put them into a different autoresponder to continue to try to sell some other product.