More feature sets for eCommerce

Coupons / Discounts / Vouchers / Gift Certificates - Not just "do they have them", but look closely at how they work. A client may want to offer a special code for $10 off an order of one specific item if they order 3 or more. Then you find out the cart has coupon codes but they only work as a discount on the total value of the order only.

Inventory Tracking / Backorders - If inventory is important, you should look closely at how it works. You probably don't want to be writing this yourself.
One important consideration is how things behave when inventory runs out. Do you have options?

Recommended Products - Cross-selling is effective, how easy does this software
make it? Do you have specific control? Does it to it automatically based on sales?

User Reviews - Can users leave reviews of products? Is that good or bad?

Shipping Options - This probably should get it's own main section of this article because it is so important. Companies can be weird about their shipping. And just because it sounds cut and dry at first doesn't mean they won't come knocking with some curveball in how it needs to work. Here are some shipping-specific considerations:

• Calculation/Integration based on major carriers
• Weight-based?
• Quantity-based?
• Cost-based?
• Per-item-based?
• Free Shipping? (as a whole or on specific items/promotions)
• Combinations of all of the above
• Taxing of shipping?

International Support / Different Currencies - Is this store going to be based or accept orders internationally? Do you need to display prices in multiple currencies? Can users switch between currencies? Do you / Can you set different prices by hand or does it / can it happen automatically based on exchange rates?

Addresses are also formatted differently in different countries, so take care to make sure that the checkout isn't awkward for the customer in any of the countries you support ordering from. For example, a "state" shouldn't be required if the shipping country doesn't have "states", and the software should know that.

Integration with other systems & Importing / Exporting - It's nice to not feel trapped in any one particular software. Good honest software will work with open formats and allow importing and exporting of those formats. This may be of particular importance to you if you plan to integrate with other systems. For example, something like Google Product Search, which requires you to submit your product data periodically in special formats. Send a newsletter? Perhaps user signups could integrate with MailChimp or whatever other email marketing system you may use.

Search - Any CMS is likely to have search, but how good is it? If you have thousands of products, it better be pretty damn good. How much control do you have over the results? What areas does it search in? Does it match how you expect your customers to perform search (for example, by product code)?

Organizational Possibilities - How are products organized? Categories? Tags? Hierarchy? Does this match how you envision the products being organized?

Customer / User Benefits - Do users get accounts? Is that good or bad? What are users able to do? (e.g. save commonly placed orders, check order status, etc).

Statistics - What kind of reporting do you need? Analytics? Goal tracking? Sales reports? Graphs/Charts?

Checkout Process - How many steps is it? Is it intuitive feeling? Does it accomodate specific scenarios you may need? (e.g. multiple shipping locations, splitting payment across multiple cards, field for including special information, etc.). Don't underestimate this part, as this is where client curveballs can be the most painful. What seems to them like a little thing, say multiple shipping locations, can turn into a monsterous painful project from a development angle.

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