According to our number crunching friends at Forrester Research, US online retail sales are to reach $248.7 billion by 2014.  That’s a lot of transactions.

So whether you’re looking to start an online store, or are already running one, here’s our list of top Ecommerce resources for your shopping cart satisfaction:

Shopping Cart Platforms Ecommerce Resources:

Magento – The Magento eCommerce open source platform serves more than 110,000 merchants worldwide and is supported by a global ecosystem of solution partners and third-party developers.

Zen Cart – Zen Cart is an open source and user-friendly shopping cart. It was branched from osCommerce and includes additional features and architectural enhancements.

Znode – Znode is a highly flexible ecommerce platform enables businesses to easily build and manage rich, multi-store and multi-device ecommerce websites with a significantly higher ROI.

Email Marketing Tools Ecommerce Resources

Mailchimp:  MailChimp helps you design email newsletters, share them on social networks, integrate with services you already use, and track your results. It’s like your own personal publishing platform.

iContact:  iContact’s world-class features will help maximize your company’s revenue potential. Features include: easily create effective campaigns in minutes; post, schedule and track Facebook and Twitter messages.

Campaign Monitor:  Campaign Monitor offers everything a designer needs to run successful email marketing campaigns for themselves and their clients. You can even rebrand the interface, create sub-accounts for your clients and let them send their own campaigns.

Usability & Optimization Ecommerce Resources

Youeye:  Easy user testing, create a free user test in seconds and get rapid feedback. Watch videos of a user’s screen, webcam, and microphone. Learn what people like, dislike, or don’t understand. Quickly validate marketing copy, a new design, or the usability of a shopping cart.

Which Test Won?:  Great site for testing and optimizing.  A/B and multivariate testing can – on average – help lead generation marketers get ~40% more leads from their current Web traffic. E-commerce marketers can expect a ~20-25% sales lift if they do a round of tests.

Monetate:  Monetate has a ton of helpful features that make website optimization easier than ever, and they are powered by a core that was designed to keep delivering benefits that go far beyond anything else in this space.

Social Media & Mobile Ecommerce Resources

North Social:  North Social, a provider of Facebook applications, offers Show & Sell, which allows merchants to sell up to 10 products.

cart2mobile:  cart2mobile is a ready-to-go, flexible mobile-catalog and mCommerce system that integrates with your existing platform to provide a mobile version of your eCommerce infrastructure. Essentially, it´s a mobile channel for retailers on multiple mobile platforms.

Shopon:  Shopon is a software service that enables you to measure and optimizepurchase influence, and maximize word-of-mouth sales.  Integrates instantly with leading eCommerce platforms.

Blogs, Websites, and other Ecommerce Resources

Google Retail Advertising Blog:  A great Ecommerce Resource from a company that knows a thing or two about search, traffic, seo, among other things.

eCommerce Circle:  eCommerce Marketing Tips: Search Engine Marketing, Comparison Shopping, eCommerce Analytics, Conversion Optimizations & More.

Duct Tape Marketing:   A little love for the SMB! A great resource both for Ecommerce and general small business.

Other Relevant Reading:

5 Good Reasons to Start  and Ecommerce Store

3 Ways to Improve Business Sales for 2012

What’s the most important thing you’re NOT selling on your online store?