[Tim Hensel]

Hi,
I have been looking around at some other shopping cart software as I currently use CS-Cart 2.2.5, which has worked well for me ... and have been considering upgrading to CS-Cart 4.x. So instead of just blinding going to the latest CS-Cart, I figured I should look at the 'review' sites to compare CS-Cart to other current main stream shopping carts, it seems many times CS-Cart is not even comparable?

Here is one website comparing 22 carts:
http://shopping-cart....com/index.html

Another one reviewing popular carts:
http://www.ecommerce.../shopping-cart/

Here is one that does include CS-Cart:
http://shopping-cart...no1reviews.com/


Are these 'reviews' sites biased (set-up by certain shopping carts to make themselves seem like they are rated # 1)?

Are there any non-biased / trusted review sites that can truly and accurately compare shopping cart software?


Thanks!!!

[cscartrocks]

CS-Cart is a hidden gem. Those review sites are all about ads.

[zeero6]

And look at what is included on those shopping carts and pricing. CS-Cart owner since 2007.
Also the community support here is amazing

[lesan]

CS-Cart is very developer friendly. Other Carts maybe have better starting conditions in available Themes.
Before I have decided for cs-cart I have checked all available shopping carts (yes really all) softwares available, cs-cart was the way to go.

But all different shopping carts have pro and contras indeed. You need to checkout yourself.

[Hungryweb]

I am a developer and i must say that i love cs-cart and i am enjoy working, before i decide to stick to it i tried: os-commerce(is fast but way behind), magento(very heavy and to many server requirements), interspire(is dead) and prestashop, and i consider the WHY is not popular is because has been available only a paid version and developers cannot reach to it to develop good stuff to it.

I love cs-cart because i know where i can find every part of it and on his platform/framework i can develop any web application, sow far i did: deal aggregator, affiliate store, insurance website with connection to web service system witch get prices prom insurers companies and add to cart the insurance with the price send by insurer company, presentations websites, sms platform, museum 360° view and article browsing, educational webites, custom add-ons and allot of custom developments for customers and i can say that ANYTHING CAN BE DONE WITH CS-CART.

But now from what i see and following the trend, cs-cart will be delivered soon as a free solution and trying to get money from all paid services: twigmo, searchanise, saas and the rest of the services

Soon will be popular, after a client will taste it will love it, for sure will be some complains but this is part of growing, for sure cs-cart will need to do more optimizations to it in order to load faster and faster.

I hope people will see his power and will switch to it

PS: i never write sow much )))

Keep on smiling and do what you love,

---
Valentin
part of hungryweb.net

[Scott_C]

Hi,
I have been looking around at some other shopping cart software as I currently use CS-Cart 2.2.5, which has worked well for me ... and have been considering upgrading to CS-Cart 4.x.

We've just today migrated from 2.2.4 to Cs Cart 4. Best thing we ever did. The code is better, our pages load faster, and almost everything that was an add-on on CsC 2X is automatically included in version 4.

I too spent a lot of time looking around prior to reinvesting in CS cart (custom layout, unique business rules etc) and there really isnt anything out there at this price point that can match.

I was looking at someone German ecommerce software and spoke to my local rep. I was told they host it and its $3,000 a month. I asked the price if I want to buy the software and host it myself; $75,000 per CPU!!

[Guest_Guest_*]

Honestly I think CS-CART is the best on offer. I went from interspire, bigcommerce, cs-cart, neto then back again to cs-cart.

The reason why we left CS-CART momentarily is that there were NO templates from 3rd party suppliers and it ran like a dog. Turns out it was the hosting provider more than CS-CART.

Since we switched back the templates available are amazing and things are running really smoothly. My only fear is that they will do an interspire and close down.

Hope that helps.

[Tim Hensel]

Thank you for the feedback!

I am still a little annoyed with CS-Cart and the fact that I found bug in the live shipping rates and I had to pay CS-Cart with credits to fix the bug. This was before CS-Cart V3 was ever released when I first started using CS-Cart 2.2.x ...I think this must be the main reason why I still have not upgraded with CS-Cart.

[P-Pharma]

The bugs with CS-Cart are a major problem which causes people to move on. I really hope that the staff will continue to improve this as CS-Cart is a very advanced product with a lot of potential. The credits punishment for getting bug support feels customer unfriendly.
The community here is great and growing.

[samsam]

I use cs-cart since 2007, after trying other solutions, I remained faithful to cs-cart. My only concern is my English, but the availability of the team reinforced my choice.
I believe in the potential of this application that has a lot of possibilities.


It is also the best of the web community, modest, friendly, available and more..


Sorry for my bad english ( google translatte )

[tbirnseth]

There are 2 sides to a successful product.
1) The consumer side (in the case the merchant)
2) The 3rd party addon/modification side

They do a pretty good job with #1 but have been horrible with #2 for the full time I've been involved (beta of V2). There are always surprises and it takes continual investment to keep "products" afloat between versions. Information has improved but is still lacking. Defect tracking is a joke.

Until these shortfalls can be addressed, cs-cart will lack useful extensions/integrations and without them, will continue to be a bit-player in the market.

Support for N. America also needs to improve. 24hr delay with responses of "we'll get back to you when we have time" is unacceptable.. It can take a week or more to get an issue addressed. If it's fatal, a merchant could go out of business as a result.

On the plus side of support, they are patient, trustworthy and courteous.

[Tim Hensel]

Support for N. America also needs to improve. 24hr delay with responses of "we'll get back to you when we have time" is unacceptable.. It can take a week or more to get an issue addressed. If it's fatal, a merchant could go out of business as a result.

On the plus side of support, they are patient, trustworthy and courteous.

That's it! One of the reasons of hesitance with my on upgrading to the latest CS-Cart is just that. I always felt that the USPS shipping module is lacking...for instance many times the USPS itself will make changes to their service names, and it will always mess up the shipping module and it took many days for a simple fix to come out from CS-Cart. Just leaves me a feeling of possibly the CS-Cart staff does not really care that a major issue came up but since it in the USA, then they will fix whenever they get a chance. I could be wrong and they do that for everyone/problem that comes up.


Is CS-Cart big in the USA, or is it more popular in other countries? If there is a little customers in the USA compared to other countries around the globe, then this could explain why USA type problems are slower to get addressed?

[Rafass]

Very happy with CSCart after have tried almost all the options available.
Cscart is simply the best choice, on my opinion.

[tbirnseth]

I believe that USA is largest cs-cart market but not sure. Europe would be if not USA.
cs-cart distinguishes itself from the rest by it's multi-lingual capabilities. For Europe and all international businesses, multi-lingual is a must.

[mokeshop]

Cs cart is very simple and customizable. Some modules for other systems cost a fortune. .. so cs cart rocks

[milezone]

Been a CS-Cart user for many years now, after trying lots of those "Mainstream" carts. Aside from not the best support (luckily I have a good programmer that helps me) cs-cart to me is the best value, and best programming you can get for the price.

[ThomH]

CS-Cart is a very good solution, we are developing different add-ons for it from the beginning.
Before worked with some other shopping carts, also x-cart, the big adversair.

[lwronline]

I started using CS Cart after recommendation from an associate. I am no programmer or developer and I use CS Cart pretty much out of the box. It was easy to install, the community is great and support (when they are not busy) always deal with what you ask in a professional manner. I can change the layout of each page without any problem at all and the blocks feature I found simple to grasp. I have tried others over the years and CS Cart is my preferred by far. Marketplace is a good place to visit for addons etc and because some of the community have been here for years, I thinks a lot of them have 'got your back' when it comes to helping with security issues. As for speed, I have no problems with V4. It does good SEO wise and customers find their way around easily enough. Very pleased

[termalert]

Yes CS-Cart is the best value for money around if you happen to be part
PHP guru. There is no way I would recommend it for a businessman who
needs to focus on business and not waste hours and days trying to 'fix'
aspects by searching forums because 'support' tends to want money for
assistance that should be freely available but is becoming increasingly
difficult to find in the tangled mess euphemistically known as a Knowledge
Base. I will go as far as to say that if you follow some knowledge Base articles
then you will almost certainly go wrong.
I don't doubt it's a great piece of software but the focus is purely on new bells
and whistles where most of the time the bells don't ring true and the whistles
have sand in them.
It's such a shame because if the developers spared some time to make existing
carts more reliable they would have a world leading product on their hands.
Most users just don't need all these 'features' and just want a robust and fast
cart with a secure checkout.
It is great value if you can find 'free' help, otherwise solutions like Volusion
and Big Commerce, although appearing to cost more, are relative bargains
once you factor in time lost trying to get CS-Cart working 'as it promises to'.
Again, IF you are well versed in PHP I wouldn't hesitate to recommend CS-Cart.
If you are not then use their free version for a while and wait for CS-Cart's SAAS

[kmolchanov]

Yes CS-Cart is the best value for money around if you happen to be part
PHP guru.

Not anymore since CS-Cart SaaS, i.e. Merchium, is now available