There are so many online shopping cart options for today’s entrepreneurs and business owners to choose from. Each week ShopTab features one online shopping cart, interviewing the featured cart’s developer to provide an opportunity to learn about why their cart may be right for your business.

This week we spoke with Cam Flanigan, the product manager at VP-ASP an online shopping cart that prides itself on unrivalled e-commerce functionality. Established in the early 90′s, it was one of the first shopping carts available in the market appaearing together with Amazon and eBay.

Five years ago Rocksalt International acquired VP-ASP and YourVirtualStore, a software development company and reseller of VP-ASP Cart. The following release of VP-ASP combined the selection of the most popular features from both systems. The version 7.00 is a full-fledged and highly secure eCommerce software package.

Q) Why did you launch VP-ASP?

A) In the 90′s demand for buying and selling online was escalating. However, there were hardly any tools available to facilitate online shopping. A few were emerging, but they were quite immature, rather “quick fixes”. We saw it as an opportunity to develop a robust innovation that would work long-term. Therefore, we designed and developed VP-ASP Cart.

Early years were challenging, but we have drawn on what we have learnt over the years. Today VP-ASP Cart is a rock-solid, time-proof solution.

Q) What is VP-ASP’s unique competitive advantage?

A) VP-ASP Cart is an open source software solution, so anyone who purchases a license can modify its code as they like.

On top of that it is extremely flexible and scalable – we set no limits to the number of products, categories or users. VP-ASP has been built to grow organically with a business.

If we compare VP-ASP with other open source solutions, its major advantage would be outstanding support services available to every client every day – no matter how much they spent with us. The fast, friendly, and helpful customer service is an ultimate priority here, and we are often praised for this by our customers.

Feature-wise VP-ASP incorporates 99% of all features found in existing shopping carts. It is indeed a very powerful tool. We do not spend much on marketing our products and that enables us to keep prices lower than in the market. That is why we are able to offer to existing customers generous discounts (up to 50%) on new products and free upgrades.

The key advantage of VP-ASP Cart is that it is truly international. It is multilingual – not only the storefront and administration but also metadata important for local search engines. It works with any currency and provides integration to over 200 payment gateways and shipping calculators. With VP-ASP Cart anyone can sell anywhere in the world.

Put it simply VP-ASP is the best value for money as you pay only for what you need.

Q) How many products will your eCommerce platform allow?

A) As I have mentioned previously with VP-ASP Cart anyone can sell virtually endless number of products and categories.

Q) How much does VP-ASP cost?

A) VP-ASP Cart has a number of packages starting from US$0 for the Lite version to US$795 for the Deluxe Pac with all features. Yes, the Lite version is free. Anyone can download it and start using it, and if they want extras – they can simply go on our website and upgrade it.

We also have add-on modules and templates (or skins) available for customers who wish to enhance their store functionality. They can buy the modules at any time to mix and match as they like.

Q) What does the future hold for VP-ASP?

A) When we started this interview we were looking into building a seamless integration with Web 2.0 technologies. Opportunities to use social networks on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace etc to leverage our customer sales were just around the corner.

Now, when we are finishing this interview we already have a ready-to-use solution for spreading a word about products in our customer stores around over 200 social networks. Customers with Twitter accounts can now display their tweets on their storefronts.

Our short-term priority is to finalize PCI compliance. The latest release, version 7.0, has been written to comply with all PCI-DSS requirements. We are in the process of being audited and are looking forward to being able to announce this as soon as everything goes through.

The medium-term plan is to launch a fully hosted solution with cutting-edge site development tools. We already have a semi-hosted version so we are only one step away. By semi-hosted I mean we offer a hybrid product that has all advantages of a license, because it is open source. Plus our team will set the software up for a customer on our servers where it will be hosted and looked after by us.

VP-ASP Cart already has all the latest features such as search engine optimization and marketing tools. It enables organic friendliness of any VP-ASP store to Google, Yahoo and other search engines.

A lot of other plans are on the agenda. We work non-stop to make VP-ASP Cart better every day. Soon we will be adding video and audio training materials to complement our extensive user manuals and guides.  And VP-ASP re-branding is in the air!

Q) How is support handled for VP-ASP customers?

A) We pride ourselves on our support and it is one of the most consistent things we are complimented on by our customers.

We offer 24 hour support Monday to Friday to our customers through our helpdesk. With each license purchase our customers receive a free support bundle to access our support team.

Q) Do you have any other comments about VP-ASP for ShopTab readers?

A) We welcome everyone to take our shopping cart for a test drive. The free Lite version is available on our website at www.vpasp.com. You can start building your store and the whole website straight away. It has a lot (but not all) of the features and easy-to-use content management system. There is no expiry trial period. If you decide you want more functionality later you can simply upgrade your free version on our website at any time.

If you have any questions or feedback, we welcome you to contact us. You can email us, calls us on our toll-free numbers or chat to us online. We are here to help.

Check out VP-ASP at http://www.vpasp.com/.  If you are currently using VP-ASP please share your experience below in the comments.

Want to have your company’s eCommerce shopping cart featured or have a Shopping Cart Recommendation for a ShopTab Cart of the Week? Contact us with your suggestion.