Hi there.
I am part of the https://artisans.coop/
We currently use S****fy multivendor solutions but we are looking for something more flexible and scalable.
We would be delighted to talk to current CS Cart multivendor users to understand the limitations we might encounter if we choose that path.
We have very very little resources and can’t afford to change platforms more than once.
Thank you and all the best.
The platform has many great things - but does lack in some departments. This is something you’ll have to be very specific with to know if it’ll fit your needs. I once tried the current platform you’re using - and switched the CS-Cart in less than a month due to everything that comes with it. There are many addons you can also obtain to gain certain functionality you may require. I’ve been using the platform for several years, and I’m still learning things and facing challenges just the same!
For an out-of-the-box platform, it is pretty great all things considered!
It’s a good platform with heaps of features and there is very little you can’t do, most out of the box, but if not out of the box with add-ons. I would exercise caution with add-ons, you want to find a developer you can trust who has most add-ons you want. If you get add-ons from multiple developers you run the risk of conflicts.
I haven’t used another multivendor solution so can’t comment on the differences. What is missing for your perspective will depend on your model, you probably aren’t going to find any solution that can do everything you want out of the box, but when I looked cs-cart came the closest. For my farming focused marketplaces the shortcomings are:
- no bookings (there are add-ons that can do this though)
- no delivery by distance (again their are add-ons tha can do this)
- no ability for a customer to filter vendors or products on suppliers who deliver to them (but they can find vendors within a certain distance which does help narrow).
And in the case of ultimate if you are running multiple storefronts (e.g. domains, or sub domains for regions or different product offerings )
- web pages and blogs are shared across all storefronts (so if you had mycar.com and myfood.com all the web pages and blogs are accessible in all storefronts which may look a bit odd).
- a category must be on all storefronts or one not a selection.
- if you create a duplicate category on multiple storefronts to overcome the above limitiation you can’t tell which storefront that category belongs to in the back-end drop downs (but I was able to take advantage of the minor-mod in customer care to come up with a good solution).t
Thank you all!! Really appreciate it.
We are keen on trying the platform. We have some pending question that maybe you’d know:
- what features are built-in vs. which ones requires apps/plugins?
- whether and how we could contribute back code change if we were to buy a full license so we could self host
- if we buy the software, how to updates work? Are they included in the price? do we need to re-buy it each year to get updates?
Pretty much your questions are answered on the pricing page Prices - CS-Cart Multi-Vendor On-Premises. On premisis means you get the code. You can choose between subscription which is annual costs but come with support or lifetime licence where you choose to let the code get behind and then buy upgrades later.
On the pricing page you can expand the full feature list to see what comes with it.
RE developement coming from a background of VBA and SQL with basic PHP I find the coding very hard to get my head around. Others seem to pick it up pretty quickly. You have to follow their model and standard statements don’t necessarily work. Following the schema, picking the right hooks is key see their developer manual Developer Guide — CS-Cart 4.18.x documentation.
I have since my post come to view that content management (outside of products) is a significant weaknesses. It is an attractive feature that vendors can create their own content, but:
- I previously mentioned that all web pages and all blogs appear on all domains without the ability to not show irrelevent pages/blogs on selected domains
- Because all content is duplicated on each Domain it is not unique. Google highly rates unique user centric content.
- All hang vendor pages and blogs hang off of the marketplace root, not each vendor i.e. all content is here www.mydomain.com/all-vendor-content-root when it should be here www.mydomain.com/vendor1-store/vendor-content. Lack of structure isn’t good for anyone including search results. (each vendor can build their own structure under the root though)
The other thing to be aware of is there seems to be less effort on adding new features (see 89% decline in new features in each release from 4.13.1 to 4.18.1 - #4 by chickentwisty)
Don’t mean to sound negative, it is a good platform. There are examples of live stores available on the cs-cart site, but they don’t really demonstrate the multiple storefront feature which I think it one of the strongest advantages of cs-cart Ultimate (let down a little by the above weaknesses). See my site as an example of what can be achieved with the ultimate version (multiple storefronts allows you to target your content to different markets):
Please note that other sites better demonstrate the multi-vendor aspect. I am struggling to attract vendors but that has nothing to do with cs-cart. One strength of the cs-cart model is that when I do attract vendors I can sell them an entire storefront as part of a plan.
Developers you have my permission to link these on your sites to demonstrate why ultimate represents value! and @alexbranding (uni-theme & speed pack in practice), @ecomlabs (various add-ons), @cart-power (auction^, and payment & shipping restrictions).
^currently buggy, but they have been addressing it, will update once working
Great looking sites, by the way!!