Online order tracking allows customers to instantly check the status of their orders and eases the demands on your customer service team. And an inventory management facility can automatically remove items from sale once the stock drops below a pre-determined level. Administration Ignore all the hype about setting up a Web store and then laying back and waiting for the money to roll in. Running a successful online store requires a great deal of effort. The first consideration is the method that is used for accessing and administering the store.
Some packages require that changes be made offline and then uploaded to the server.
This usually limits changes to being made from one specific PC, and this can be a tie. Next check out how easy it is to add, delete and amend product data as well as how easy it is to run special time-limited price promotions. Try and avoid solutions that require all changes to be made offline and then for the whole database to be re-loaded on to the server. Also look out for any additional marketing tools that might be provided. For example the maintenance of customer buying history and preferences, targeted e-mailing capability, and affiliate program management.