I have found the Finder website has a real good writeup on share...

I have found the Finder website has a real good writeup on share trading platforms available.

If you don't buy and sell much, be wary of charges if you don't do the minimum number of trades per quarter or per year.

Lower cost brokers, as Bratty explained, hold your shares. Which would possibly be a problem if the share trading company got into some financial trouble.

I recommended CMC markets as a cheap standard option to my son and daughter but you do get a HIN. Downside is the CMC charts are a bit awful. CMC markets also trade options, which some low cost brokers like IG market don't.

For charts I use barchart.com (which is a good one to check when buying another parcel) or investing.com - I'm not a chartist.

For people trading spec stocks, the companies often include options when you purchase shares in a Capital Raising, so you want to be able to trade options.
Having said that for small investors, any options you get often expire worthless. MAYO is a bit of an anomaly from my experience, to be so positive for the company.

Also Zapato 1 Are we there yet? I can almost smell it.