SmartCart Ecommerce Hosting FAQs

How do I get started building my ecommerce website with SmartCart?

You can begin by activating a SmartCart Free Trial account. The SmartCart Free Trial is a hosted SmartCart Ecommerce account that will remain active for 7 days. You are not required to enter payment info to start the trial and once it has expired, we will not contact you. Your information is 100% secure and remains private.

By activating a SmartCart Free Trial account, you can receive a free month of ecommerce hosting when you sign up for service. Order SmartCart Hosting service before the trial account expires, within 7 days, and your SmartCart service will be extended by 30 days. If you order monthly service, you will pay for the first month of service and the following month is free. If you order annual service, you will pay the annual rate and receive 13 total months of service.


Where do I begin once I have activated a trial account?

Log in to the SmartCart Control Panel and review and publish the System Settings (first group of Control Panel items). This includes the Company Information, Shipping Settings, State Tax Settings, Payment Options and Payment Gateway Settings, Website Design Settings (Store Template, Styles, Page Management), Default Meta Tags (just defaults - meta tags can be managed on each page), and Other Store options.

The Catalog Manager is the area that contains the tools for creating your online catalog and managing your inventory. Starting with the Department Manager, this will provide the outline for your product categories and will create the catalog index and navigation menu, as well as provide the category option selections in the Inventory Manager. Once you have published some category info, use the Inventory Manager to add your product info.

There are other settings in the SmartCart Control Panel that should be reviewed and some that require activation. Review the available options in the Control Panel and familiarize yourself with the features that are available to you and your customers with the SmartCart Ecommerce System.


Do I need to start over if my trial account expires?

No. You can reactivate any trial account by subscribing to SmartCart Ecommerce Hosting. We can restore any deactivated trial within 30 days of activation. Order service before the trial expires and you can receive a free month of ecommerce hosting.


Am I required to commit to a minimum service term?

We offer a month to month service that you can cancel at any time, no minimum commitment. We also offer an annual service term with substantial savings compared to the monthly rate.


What types of payments do you accept?

We accept Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover. Monthly SmartCart subscriptions require a credit card payment and are automatically billed each month. Annual SmartCart subscriptions can be paid with credit card, PayPal, Google Checkout, check.


What is included with SmartCart?

SmartCart is an online store builder, web site builder, secure online ordering system and order manager. SmartCart offers 3 levels of ecommerce hosting service: SmartCart Standard, SmartCart Pro and SmartCart Enterprise. The SmartCart Ecommerce Hosting options and pricing are available here.


Do you offer web design services?

Yes, we provide custom website design services. SmartCart also has a selection of pre-designed templates to use in your online store. See Template Manager in the SmartCart Control Panel.


I already have a website and I only need a shopping cart. Can I use SmartCart with my website?

Yes. SmartCart can be used with any existing website. You can place a link on your website to your Online Catalog, which can link to your SmartCart catalog. You can also link to product categories or to individual product pages.


I have a custom designed website. Can my SmartCart pages have the same look as my website?

Yes, SmartCart supports the ability to customize the website template. Some template designs may require editing of the html code to import into SmartCart and may require the services of a web designer. SmartCart's design team can assist you with importing your custom design into your SmartCart site.


I already have my own website and domain name. Do I need to register a new domain name for my SmartCart website?

If you are adding SmartCart as  the ecommerce extension to your existing website, you can use the same domain name on your SmartCart ecommerce hosting account by creating a subdomain. For example, if your website url is www.yourdomain.com, your SmartCart account can have a url like shop.yourdomain.com. The "shop" portion of the url can be any word you would like to use.

Subdomains are managed with your web hosting provider. Create an A Name record with the desired url for your SmartCart hosting and direct the address to the IP: 166.70.109.113

After this update has been made, notify a SmartCart technician to get the domain name activated on your SmartCart account.


I already have a domain name. What do I need to do to start hosting my domain name with SmartCart?

Update the DNS settings with your domain registrar. SmartCart's name servers are:
ns1.bizcom2.com
ns2.bizcom2.com

After this update has been made, notify a SmartCart technician to get the domain name activated on your SmartCart account.