What shopping cart platform do you like the best?
Right now I'm using godaddy's shopping cart system and am seeking an alternative that I can have on my actual website. I don't like that people have to go to an external link to shop. I want something that will help decrease cart abandonment that's also visually appealing. What's worked for you?
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Apr 27, 2014
I LOVE 3DCart! After using several different carts, ( Stores on-line, 1shopping cart, Get DPD as some examples), we found that 3DCart works the best when selling lots of physical products. Some of the features I like best are as follow:
• REASONABLE pricing!
• Effective RETAIL AND WHOLESALE pricing — on the same website!
• Ability to drop ship directly from vendors – with Automatic Notifications to them!
• An INTEGRATED affiliate program!
• ROBUST shipping options!
• Ability to take orders directly online for my rep clients – including multi-source shipping costs – with ONE online order!
• An integrated GIFT REGISTRY!
• An integrated Auto-Responder email system!
• Rich SEO (Search Engine Optimization) options!
• Integration with major SOCIAL MEDIA (fairly recent requirement)!
Currently, I have only one site o 3DCart, but plan to migrate two more sites to this platform this year. You can check out my site here: http://www.gemberry.com/
If you are interested in checking 3DCart out, here is my affiliate link: http://www.3dcart.com/754.html
Good luck,
Sandy
Apr 29, 2014
My choice would be Magento, Adobe Business Catalyst and Ecart.
Your choice of shopping cart really depends on how scalable you want your business to be.
I am a Magento developer so its my first choice. Magento is very powerful but expensive to develop. Magento Community Edition is free but it has no support and Magento Enterprise is very very expensive and comes with support. You can get the Magento Go version which you pay monthly but it comes with support although it cannot be customized as much as Community edition. Adobe Business Catalyst is an out of the box all in one ecommerce platform ( here is a coupon code: HOISSC ) and it comes with a blogging engine, shopping cart, crm, email marketing, gallery and more. If you have spent money on your website SEO then you would not want all the work you have done to be gone so Ecart will be your best bet but you need a developer to install it. Hope this helps.
Apr 27, 2014
I suggest you use Google to search, based upon the web platform (WordPress, Joomla, etc.) you plan to use.
Here are some reviews:
http://shopping-cart-review.toptenreviews.com/
http://www.top10shoppingcartbuilders.com
/index.php?kw=the%20best%20shopping%20cart&c=45641915223&t=search&p=&m=p&adpos=1t3&dev=c&devmod=&mobval=0&a=500&gclid=CLWr7663gb4CFaJm7AodURkA2w
http://www.ecommercefuel.com/shopping-cart/
Apr 27, 2014
I use PrestaShop and Magento, but I recommend you to make your decision based on your needs. Check the features of of each shopping cart program and see do you need them or not. Walter Wise also provided some good links that compares different shopping carts.
Apr 28, 2014
You're going to want to get off GoDaddy as soon as possible and get on one that allows you to have more control over your site. I suggest BlueHost. They make it easy to install Wordpress which is one of the most powerful and robust website engines today. Even if you're not very technical, WP gives you power and control over your entire site (and business back end) in a very user-friendly environment.
Once your on WP, I suggest the Woo eCommerce plugin. They've got a free 'lite' version which has all the options you need when just starting up your store. When you're ready, you can move to the full version (about $200). No monthly fees, you own it. It integrates with Paypal or other merchant services. You can also have money directly deposited to your bank account and you can accept checks.
Additionally, there are other plugin features that are very valuable including affiliate programs, coupons, and upsell features. All with a few seamless and clean shopping cart interface.
Apr 28, 2014
Thanks Barbara. I'm looking to get off of godaddy. I'm going to check out these options. I appreciate the feedback.
May 2, 2014
I agree with the others that you need to base your decision on your needs. I had been using a flavor of 1ShoppingCart because I have downloadable eProducts. However, their software is expensive, not terribly user friendly. Then you have InfusionSoft which I find even worse - unless you are making tons of money every month, it's very pricey, and seems more set up for a Virtual Asst to handle for you.
I just tested 3D Cart, Volution, and a bunch of others, and ended up swapping over to BigCommerce. It's a much more cost-effective means of selling downloadable eProducts with the ability to restrict number of downloads and duration of time the download link works, and offers some nice features to set up your store - you can check mine out at www.authenticallyaligned.com
The other cart I almost went with, which is FREE FREE FREE! :-) was WooCommerce - rather there is a free version that is pretty good, and then you can pay for additional features. However, it had some kinks, and they don't support the free version so well, so I decided on Big Commerce. www.bigcommerce.com
I find the key is to create a free sample account on any provider you're considering, play with it for a week, and then you will know!
Hope that helps!
- Heather
Apr 30, 2014
If you're serious about your business, then you should really only be looking at Magento.
Apr 30, 2014
Why can't you try e-Commerce Framework/Platform. Where you can get inbuilt shopping cart feature as well as checkout. If cost is a matter go with magento community edition.
There are n number of e-commerce and digital commerce exists in the market.
1. Magento Community and Magento EE
2. Deamdware
3. Hybris
These are the leading commerce platform in the market.
May 2, 2014
Hi Tamika, Magento for a large webshop with many products (expensive) and WordPress woocommerce for smaller (cheaper) both with Mailchimp for cart abandonment and one step checkout extension for magento to reduce checkout abandonment.
Thanks Sandy. Your review is really helpful. Your product options sound yummy. :)