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Not the right product features for me

For reasons that are too lengthy to put here, we decided to replace my ecart system – hence, redo the entire website. I sell custom-made products on my site so I had some pretty specific features I wanted, but not loads of money to spend on a new ecommerce system. My husband is a programmer by trade and we decided to buy x-cart because of 1)cost 2)available source code 3) features we were looking for even though some were “addons”.

We bought the product plus the magnifying and affiliates addons. Now I admit that I'm picky about how my site acts and "feels". Therefore, hubby was doing his best to customize the site to my requirements. Which was time consuming, but not too bad. But I didn't really like how the magnifying addon looked, but I was willing to put up with it. Our stumbling block came when I discovered that I had a problem adding "Options". When I input a new product I expected to be able to go to a "Global Options" tab, pulldown, popup or something and choose from a list of "Options" while I was working with that specific product. There is a "Global Options". But it requires that you create the option (OK) and the pull up your products and choose which products are to use that option. That not necessarily bad, just in my case it meant putting in the product. Leaving that area and go to the Options; finding the option and then adding the product. We did ask the company about this feature and they confirmed this procedure. However, there was an addon (with a cost) that would do what I wanted. Maybe I'm spoiled, but I should have been able to it do both ways. I really preferred kind of a "checklist" approach to inputting a new item. Not going here, there and everywhere. Between this and the magnifier and the fact that I felt that I was being pennied to death with "addons". We returned this product and are currently reconfiguring with another product. They did return our money with no problems.

Incredibly customizable, but very complex. So-so support

I use X-Cart Gold on my main site, and have for about five years.

Installing it "out of the box" was surprisingly easy. They've done a very good job of that.

Customization is really what this cart is all about. You can customize every little aspect of it. Some of it very easy, and some of it not so easy. You have full access to the PHP sourcecode and all the Smarty templates so customization is limited only by your ability to write the code. (There's no code writing needed for basic customization. )

The biggest problem we've had is that certain kinds of customizations, even some small ones, break the ability to automatically install updates. This means manual file editing and use of tools like "diff" to find out where files have changed. The good news is that the company keeps a close eye out for security issues and puts out fixes for them very quickly. The bad news is that if you have to apply those fixes manually due to customization then it becomes a big chore to keep up with the updates.

Patches aside, actual version updates are so nearly impossible on a customized cart that it's often quicker and easier to make a fresh install of the new version, re-do all your customization from scratch, and import your old data. This process is so painful that many customers stay on end-of-life versions indefinitely which opens them up to any new security threats discovered since patches aren't provided to end-of-life versions.

The tech support is iffy. Sometimes they are truly phenomenal. Other times they are truly abysmal. Where they shine is in the process of doing your customizations for you. Before they provide a quote, you give them a detailed description of what you want. They spend time analyzing every aspect of it and get back to you with an amazing amount of detail about what they will do and a list of questions on how to handle aspects of it you probably never considered. You basically enter a discussion with them that perfectly defines what you want. Then they give you a quote and a timeframe. Depending on their workload, that timeframe is sometimes depressingly long, but every once in a while surprisingly short. The rates are ... reasonable. I won't go so far as to say "good", but they are bad either. They always finish the work on time, and provide good support on it.

They have a user forum where an excellent user community has developed. Many users there are extremely helpful in providing help with every aspect of the cart. This is the first place I always go if I have a problem. Solutions flow like water there, and on numerous occasions I've even hired people from that community to write customizations for our cart. It enhances the tech support so much that I might go so far as to say that the actual tech support department is really just an enhancement of the forums.

Between the amazing flexibility, the low one-time cost, the mostly-effective support, and the excellent user community, I think this is one of the best carts out there for their target audience. (Companies like Amazon are not their target audience, and companies like that need a lot more. So I'm not saying it's the best cart in the world. Just the best for their audience. )

I should mention, though, that the affiliate software they offer to go along with it, X-Affiliate, is useless. It's so bad that an entire section of the X-Cart user forum is dedicated to people looking for alternatives because most of them can't get it to work at all, and those who do get it to work still hate it. I'm among the latter. It's terrible. Go with something like iDevAffiliate instead.

Get used to it and you will never use another shopping cart

I have been in the ecommerce biz for years and I have used every shopping cart you can think of and I have to hand it x-cart they are one of the best once you get used to the software. It has easy to use features and a lot of good templates.

It is a little hard to get used to at first, but once you get used to it you will never use another package. They also offer some good support. The forums will help you with any add ons and in today's market the froggle and rss feeds are hard to do without.

They have a free trial that you can check out, but do use it for a few weeks before you decide you do not like it. Once you figure it out you will love it.

Some Good Some Bad

I purchased X-Cart over a year ago. I like the one-time fee. It's very affordable on the front end. Adding products isn't difficult, although I found it a slow process and not terribly intuitive.

The thing that killed me, however, was the customization and installation. I used my service points to get it installed and adding PayPal and Google Checkout. But after that, just getting the logo set and doing very minor customization was a nightmare. I tried the forums and finally -- after realizing that I'd basically have to pay out the nose to get it to look like I wanted -- I abandoned it for a more customizable solution. I just didn't have time to learn smarty!

I thought it would be outdated, but I was wrong!

I wanted a faster and better checkout for my ebay listings. All of the other power sellers had them. It made buying from them more appealing. I bought this in a hurry, then I saw the date on it. I thought it had to be really lame now that 8 years passed. It wasn't. It enhanced my eBay selling abilities! I even tried to "buy from myself" with my friend on his account. It went faster than I thought possible! I love this product. I used it ever since I purchased it, and I will continue using it. I highly recommend it if you sell at all over the internet.

Great Product but quite complex customizations

As a web developer I work also with X-Cart several time. X-cart is a good and powerful e-commerce script. They're one of the pioneer on the e-commerce development. They're built good for the people that just want to "plug and play" e-commerce. But They're not suitable for someone that need lot of customizations.

Some shop are different in the way of selling the goods then other online shop. So Maybe You can consider this hardware if You won't make lot of customizations. If You're making lot of customizations I think Other Open Source will works well.

I use this everyday and I love it!

I have been using X-Cart for way to long. And my in my honest opinion, this is the best commerce ever. As a marketer you want to make sure your listings are clean and professional. This does everything you would require. It was a one time payment of $229 and I must say it is amazing. I am using it for eBay and it works perfectly. It also integrates with Craigslist if you want it to. I would highly recommend this to anyone who is a marketer because it is clean and professional. Not to mention it's un-exploitable so it's really good.

Excellent Check-Out system

I have been using X-Cart Pro on my Ebay site for about 7 months. This was due to the fact that I received many negative feedbacks from customers about how slow and ineffective checkout was via my electronic shopping cart. After purchase, it took no longer than ten minutes to install on my laptop. Thanks to X Cart Pro, my negative feedbacks have reduced significantly especially as many customers have actually commended me for how smooth and efficient the check out process was.

What I especially like about X Cart Pro is the gift registry feature, which was nonexistent in my previous program. I liked this feature because it kills two birds with one stone for me. I have been successful at enticing potential new customers with the incentive of a free gift, equally, for established customers I can get them to come back and shop again on my website if they spend more than £50. I am very satisfied with this program as my negative feedbacks have reduced to nil and received a few positive feedbacks commending my site for the free gift.

Great cart

I use X-Cart Gold on one of my websites that I sell ebooks to get paid to sites. Even though is was a one time payment of $229 it was worth it and I have surprisingly made my money back. The setup for it was real easy after purchase and I have never had any problems or complaints in anyway. it's real easy also for the person purchasing to easily make the purchase of their choice and order it within five minutes. I highly recommended to anyone who needs a good cart or checkout program for their site. A+ here I will always use their service.