X-Cart Review
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- Date Established
- 2001
- Location
- Russia
Pros
- Free trial doesn’t require credit card
- Deep design customization
- Scalable
- Numerous features
Cons
- Steep learning curve
- Pricing over-complicated
- Annual fee for software upgrades
- Expensive customer support
Overview
is a licensed shopping cart that lets you sell products securely from your own server. X-Cart was launched in 2001 as the world’s first PHP shopping cart software. Since then, X-Cart has grown to support more than 38,000 stores in 111 countries. Combined, all of those stores rake in an annual gross merchandise volume of more than $3 billion.
X-Cart offers two products. The first is its open-source software, for which you can purchase a license (a free version is available) and then build your own site or marketplace from the ground up. There’s also a hosted solution that allows you to build an online store. Keep in mind that the platform is open-source and is based on PHP/MySQL, so the ideal user would have some understanding of PHP or at least the resources to hire someone who does.
Read on for a breakdown of X-Cart’s pricing and an unbiased analysis of the platform.
Table of Contents
Pricing
To begin with, X-Cart offers a free 30-day trial, with no credit card required for signing up. So you can make an account and try it out before you commit to a paid plan. There’s also a free edition: Download the open-source software and build a store yourself, and you’ll have ongoing access to upgrades and everything you need to set up an online store. Of course, with the free edition, you will be responsible for finding and paying for site hosting.
There are two basic versions of X-Cart: version 4 and version 5. It’s still possible to use version 4, although it’s not fully supported anymore. For this review, all references are to version 5.
X-Cart License
If you have the necessary coding know-how and want to build your own website, you can purchase a lifetime license and build your own website. You will need to arrange site hosting with these plans:
Free Edition: $0
You can use the entry-level version of X-Cart for free, for life. Here is some of what you’ll get:
- Unlimited products and orders
- Unlimited admin & staff accounts
- Open-source code
- Drag-n-drop layout editor
- XML sitemap
- Multiple languages
- Accept credit cards
- Two free and 50+ paid themes
- Bestsellers
- Payment and fulfillment order statuses
- Newsletters
- XSS- and CSRF-attack protection
- Lifetime access to new features and bug fixes
Business: $495
For the price, you gain a lifetime license with one year of access to software upgrades, all the features from the free edition, and these additional benefits:
- Multiple currencies
- Amazon S3/Cloudfront integration
- Product comparison, filters, & reviews
- Facebook, Google, and PayPal login for customers
- Downloadable products & file attachments
- Selling codes, activation numbers, license keys
- Bulk editing
- Messaging customers
- Wholesale prices & discount coupons
- Sale products & related products
- Two-factor authentication
Multivendor: $1,495
At this level, you can build your own marketplace with multiple vendor accounts. The lifetime license comes with one year of access to software upgrades and includes all features from the Business edition plus these:
- Warehouse operation mode
- Trusted & non-trusted vendors
- Individual commission rates for each vendor
- PayPal Adaptive with automatic commissions transfer
- Transaction history for each vendor
Ultimate: $5,995
Your lifetime license includes all Multivendor features plus:
- One paid theme
- Tree-like category menu
- Wishlists
- Shop by brand
- Infinite catalog scrolling
- Product stickers
- Paid memberships
- Hide prices for non-registered users
- Recurring payments
- Amazon Feeds
- eBay integration subscription (1 year, Large plan)
- Loyalty program
- Products carousel
- Store installation by X-Cart Team
- X-Cart technical support for one year
- X-Payments Hosted for one year
X-Cart Cloud
If you’re looking for a hosted, scalable solution that can grow with your business, X-Cart Cloud offers three flexible plans that offer tiered benefits plus an enterprise option.
Cloud Essentials: Starting at $49/month
The list of features with the basic Cloud plan is impressive. Here are some of the highlights:
- Unlimited revenue for your online store
- Unlimited catalog
- Coupons & discounts
- Shipping customization
- Multi-currency
- Newsletter
- Product ratings/reviews
- Sales
- SEO tools
- Native fraud screening
- Digital products
- Bulk inventory import/export/update
- Sales tax collection
Cloud Business: Starting at $99/month
This plan adds the following features to the Essentials plan:
- Abandoned cart recovery
- Gift wrapping
- Pop-up modals
Cloud Premium: Starting at $199/month
The top-tier Cloud plan includes all lower-level features and adds some nice new ones, including these:
- Back-in-stock notifications
- Backorder and preorder
- Coupon giveaways
- Exit offers & special offers
- Feedback solicitation
- Loyalty program
- Pop-up checkout upselling
- Stored credit cards for repeat orders
- ReCAPTCHA
- Memberships
- Order returns
- Profit reporting
- Tax exemption
X-Cart Enterprise
Offering Enterprise-level solutions, X-Cart Enterprise offers options large vendors will find attractive:
- Multivendor
- B2B eCommerce
- Retail options f0r in-person selling
- International
- Omnichannel
- Custom development
- Native apps (iOS & Android) for your website
X-Cart Enterprise offers custom pricing, and you can enter your contact information to get a quote.
Every X-Cart plans come with one year of free access to upgrades to new versions of the software. After that year, if you’d like to continue receiving the latest upgrades and developments, you’ll need to pay an annual subscription fee. Depending on the plan you choose, fees can range from $99.95 to $5,995.
Cloud-Based Or Locally-Installed
Choose a locally-installed X-Cart solution, and you will pay only once but you’ll have to maintain your own web hosting and security. Or you can choose to use a cloud-based solution and pay X-Cart for hosting. They offer plans from $29 to $399 per month. The top-tier plan includes premium online and phone support. All hosted plans include daily backup and either shared, dedicated, or EV SSL certificates. Again, you can expect to pay an annual subscription fee to access software upgrades.
Specific Size Of Business
X-Cart has plans to fit every business, from startup to enterprise. Users who select the Cloud plans will find it appropriate for any size business, even those operating a multivendor marketplace.
Hardware & Operating System Requirements
X-Cart has very specific and technical hardware and system requirements. If your system is not up to speed, the X-Cart installation wizard will let you know that something isn’t right. To start, you’ll need one of these browsers:
- Google Chrome, latest version
- Safari, latest version for MacOS X v10.8 and later, iOS7 and later
- Firefox, latest version
- Microsoft Edge, latest version
It’s worth looking into the details about installation and operating requirements before you choose X-Cart.
Ease Of Use
To launch an online store using X-Cart, you will need to be ready to handle coding duties. To use X-Cart successfully, you will need a basic understanding of PHP, CSS, and JavaScript — or know or be ready to hire someone who does. One option: Access the X-Cart installation service for $75.
However, you can get a feel for how you can use X-Cart to operate an online store by signing up for a free 30-day trial, with no credit card required. After your account is confirmed, you can follow the link you’ll receive via email to enter your store name and phone number, then answer a question about where you’re at in the eCommerce process. After that, you can use an Onboarding Wizard to walk you through a demo store. You can leave the demo products intact and explore the admin, or you can delete the demo products and start to create your own storefront. That’s what I did, and I was taken to this admin page:
Screenshot of X-Cart webpage, captured 10/7/2020
The admin panel was complete, clean, and ready to use to set up my store, manage inventory, track sales, view reports, and perform just about every function necessary to eCommerce. Compared to the admin panels I’ve worked with, X-Cart’s probably had more than the average number of functions built-in. For example, under the Marketing tab, I found links that let me link to or set up a MailChimp account, create and buy Facebook and Instagram ads, and create a link I could use to email a Buy Button or post online.
Before digging into marketing options, though, most users will want to set up their product catalog. Again, the options built-in seemed more than adequate.
Screenshot of X-Cart webpage, captured 10/7/2020
You can import files (CSV, Excel, OpenDocument, or ZIP) to build or update your catalog. Or you can enter products individually. As you add products, you can add them to membership lists, such as the default Wholesaler, set the tax class, apply global discounts, input quantity so you can track inventory, set backorder status, enter shipping weight, and more. There’s also a section devoted to SEO. You can use autogenerated meta tags, descriptions, and URLs, or you can create your own. Because SEO is so important to eCommerce, having it appear on the page where you add products seemed appropriate.
As I explored the admin, I was able to create a coupon and an exit offer, create categories for my products, and post a product review. Overall, the admin had the functions needed to create and run a store, and every element I tested worked easily and as expected. While building an online store using X-Cart does require specialized knowledge, running that store seems about as user-friendly as it gets.
Features
As stated above, X-Cart comes with impressive features out of the box, although not all features are available on every level plan. Here are some of the best, grouped by category:
Dashboard
- Order Management: Create and edit orders from the admin.
- Discounts & Coupons: Set parameters for sales and volume discounts as well as an interactive “discount roulette” wheel.
- SEO: Add your own SEO terms or edit the ones X-Cart automatically generates.
Products
- Track Inventory: Track each product by its variants so you never “sell” a product you don’t have on hand.
- Categories: Group products by type.
- Images: Add multiple images for each product.
- Reviews: Let customers rate and review your products.
Sell Internationally
- Multiple Languages: Translate your storefront and product pages into more than 40 languages
- Accept International Payment: Add up to 120 payment integrations with global payment providers.
- Access International Shipping: Get real-time shipping rates from major carriers.
- Calculate international taxes: In addition to U.S. sales tax, you can set up VAT for European sales and PST/GST/HST for Canada and Australia.
Checkout
- One-Page Checkout: Although fast lane checkout is the default, you can easily toggle to a one-page option.
- Cart TTL: Specify the number of days before a stored shopping cart should be considered abandoned.
- Automatic Tax Calculation: Set up tax classes, determine whether to use shipping or billing address for tax calculation, and set up taxes for shipments to Europe, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
- Checkout Options: Allow customers to make purchases as guests or to register for an account.
Inventory Management
- View Best Sellers & Low Stock: Get notices for products you’ll need more of.
- Bulk Import/Export: Use CSV or spreadsheets.
- Subscriptions: Share notifications for back-in-stock items and price drops.
Mobile Features
- Mobile admin: Manage your online store from your mobile device. Most platforms are supported.
- Responsive design: Use X-Cart’s mobile-responsive templates.
- Native app: Get your own iOS or Android mobile app
Marketing
- Exit Offers: Set pop-ups to entice customers to stay on your site.
- Discounts: You can offer discounts on specific categories and offer volume discounts.
- Newsletters: Integrate with MailChimp to keep in contact with customers.
- Ratings & Reviews: Inspire customer confidence with genuine customer feedback.
- Up-Sell & Cross-Sell: List and display related products.
SEO Tools
- Built-In Tools: Every time you list a product, clean URLs, meta tags, and more are automatically generated, though you can edit if you wish.
Reports & Analytics
- Order Reports: Segment orders by product, category, coupon, top customer, and more.
- Statistics: View information about all orders, best sellers, abandoned carts, and cart recovery.
Advanced Features
- Filtered Search: Customers can narrow search results using product attributes.
- Wholesale Pricing: Offer special rates to customers you identify.
- Volume Discounts: Set parameters to offer discounts by percentage or dollar amount during a certain time frame and/or to certain customers who meet minimum sales totals.
Web Design
X-Cart offers four free, basic templates with mobile-responsive designs. A new store is assigned a basic white theme, with three different colors and layouts that you can switch to. Of course, you’re probably going to want to at least check out the theme store, to see if it’s worth buying a theme — while the free themes are adequate, they’re not exactly exciting.
Screenshot of X-Cart webpage, captured 7/7/2020
On the X-Cart App store, you can search about 45 paid themes by category — there are more than 30 of those — or browsed together. Prices range from $99 to $149, and at least compared to the free options, that seems like a bargain.
Screenshot of X-Cart webpage, captured 10/7/2020
You can select one of those themes only after you purchase a license from X-Cart. Once you have paid for a plan, you can make changes to the design through the admin, using CSS and JavaScript. So you will need at least passing familiarity with CSS, or at least know someone you can turn to for help with it.
Integrations & Add-Ons
Visit the X-Cart App Store, and you’ll find thousands of integrations and add-ons in a searchable marketplace. If you have an add-on in mind, you can enter its name into the search bar, or you can search by category. Enter “shipping” for example, and you’ll see a total of 75 free and paid integrations that you can add to your store if you choose.
Screenshot of X-Cart webpage, captured 10/8/2020
It seems safe to say you can expect to find almost any integration you need to run your online store.
Payment Processing
In addition to X-Payments Cloud connector, you’ll find dozens of free and paid payment processors in the X-Cart App Store, including quite a few that enable international payments. Here are some options you may already know and love:
- Square
- Braintree
- Stripe
- PayPal
- Skrill
- Amazon Payments
- eWay
- Worldpay
- BitPay
- 2Checkout
- Opayo
- Authorize.net
- Moneris
- Converge
- Beanstream
Customer Service & Technical Support
Although you can download and use X-Cart’s open-source software at no charge, if you need help from the company, you’ll have to pay for it. X-Cart offers three levels of support:
Standard Plan: $165 per month if paid annually
- Response time up to 8 hours
- Unlimited support requests
- Minor upgrades (withing 4th digit)
Premium Plan: $250 per month if paid annually
- Response time up to 30 minutes
- Unlimited support requests
- Major upgrades (all branches)
- Performance audit
- SEO audit, annually
- Phone/chat support
- Images optimization
Custom
- Designed and priced for your individual needs
Additionally, all paid support plans include email support, logs analysis, diagnosis, store setup assistance, X-Cart installation, basic SEO audit, GDPR consultation, and security patching.
If you’d prefer to go the self-help route, you’ll find ample resources, including these:
- Help Center
- Blog
- FAQ Section
- HelpDesk
- Contact Form
- Videos
- Social Media
For what it’s worth, as I encountered a minor snag in setting up my store, I took the opportunity to call for help. My call was answered in a reasonable amount of time, and a friendly agent quickly determined that my situation required help from the support team. Although I did not have a paid account, I received an email within a couple of hours letting me know that my situation was resolved.
User Reviews
In general, customers appear to be satisfied with X-Cart. However, that doesn’t mean that they don’t have a few complaints.
Negative Reviews & Complaints
Here are a few of the negative comments I encountered online:
- Outdated Themes: X-Cart’s themes are not as appealing as they could be. For those with advanced code ability, adaptations are not out of reach, but it would be nice to have more stylish, modern options out of the box.
- Learning Curve: Developer knowledge is a big asset.
- Price: Although X-Cart’s hosting plans are in line with industry standards, an additional annual subscription for upgrades after the first year is necessary. Add on the cost of technical support, and you suddenly have an expensive platform.
- Buggy Upgrades: Although upgrades can bring new features and welcome improvements, they also can cause unfortunate issues that can be expensive and time-consuming to fix.
Positive Reviews & Testimonials
Even customers who grumbled about some aspects of X-Cart had praise for the platform as well. Here are some of the top positive comments:
- Customizability: One user reported trying to switch to other cart options “but always come back to X-Cart because it does everything and more than what I need.”
- Built-In SEO Functionality: Users who cited SEO as a positive X-Cart feature said it was “the most SEO-equipped software in the market.”
- Helpful Customer Support: It may be a case of getting what you pay for, but overall satisfaction with X-Cart’s support team was common, with users calling it “robust” and “attentive.” One user said, “They can modify the software to your needs.”
- Intuitive Dashboard: Outside of tech concern, users seem satisfied with the way they run their stores. “Products are added in a flash,” one user said. Another said, “Easy to understand the backend.”
Security
If you use an X-Cart license to create your own self-hosted site, you will be responsible for maintaining your site’s security. Among other things, that means buying an SSL certificate, which you can purchase for your X-Cart platform starting at $73/year. You’ll also need to ensure that your site is PCI compliant. You can do this by accepting payments via a PCI-compliant payment processor. Or, you can use a PA-DSS certified software (like X-Payments) to accept card numbers directly on your site.
All X-Cart Cloud plans include secure VPS hosting.
Final Verdict
As far as features go, you could do much worse than X-Cart. This eCommerce platform appears to have enough functionality (and customizability, if you have the technical ability) to handle growing businesses. What gives me pause is X-Cart’s pricing (and not just because it’s confusing). In order to keep your site up to ever-changing industry standards, you’ll have to spring for the annual subscription. Every year, you’ll have to pay 20-50% of the amount you originally paid for the platform. Compared to free, open-source solutions like Magento, X-Cart is expensive.
In my opinion, X-Cart redeems itself in pricing with the hosting plans. $199/month for a platform, hosting, and support is much more in line with other eCommerce solutions geared toward mid-size and larger businesses. If I were to use X-Cart myself, this is likely the plan I’d subscribe to. If you’re interested in X-Cart for your online store, I recommend you test it out before you take the plunge.
Kate Hoots
Writer
Kate Hoots is a writer for Merchant Maverick, taking on the topic of eCommerce. She brings a background in journalism as well as in business leadership and communication training. Kate has a degree in English Literature from Lewis & Clark College.
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Horrible buggy platform and false advertising. They claim 100% mobile friendly under Multi-Vendor and it is not. I can say we have spent over the past 6 months dealing with support and issues almost half the time. Almost on a daily basis. STAY AWAY!
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Organization Name: Bluemax Productions
I have been with X-Cart since practically their beginnings with a much more elementary, primitive actually, shopping cart. Had to ‘hand code’ much of X-Cart software, in other words. Since then, however, X-Cart has become extremely easy to configure for a shopping and in fact very intuitive like Apple’s operating system to make a comparison. Not everyone will have the same experience as mine, true, but I find the X-Cart software engineers to be extremely intelligent and highly helpful. My experience. Interestingly X-Cart’s headquarters reside in Ulyanovsk, some 400 miles east of Moscow, where the University of Ulyanovsk, School of Software Engineering, provides a majority of X-Cart’s personnel which explains to me the high quality of their engineers. Oh, and their level of English writing is superb!! This is in addition to their superb level of software programming and troubleshooting. My experience. They do offer a free version of X-Cart shopping so it certainly cannot hurt to try them. Of course, no one will have the same amount of experience with X-Cart as have I. And no one will perhaps rate them as highly as myself. But, I do indeed offer X-Cart as a shopping cart software for the beginner all the way up to expert web programmer. You will do no better. My experience! Yes! Don Saar, Relativity Physics and Science Calculator website.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Organization Name: SAFEWORLD SYSTEMS PVT LTD
X-cart is a very progressive and easy platform for the e-commerce website. The support is awsome.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Organization Name: We Fix Any Mobile
Hi Many Thanks for your Fast help support , we have 2 website run by x-cart system more than 9 years ,
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Organization Name: SkyFall Meteorites
I cannot state strongly enough how great the technical support team has been in solving a particularly difficult issue. Truly excellent work and very dedicated team to make the customer feel really great about the support subscription service.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Organization Name: Wilson Marine
X-cart has been a GREAT platform with my Business. The Customer Support Staff is superb and is always helpful. The Flexibility and options are endless. Life is Good! Thank you X-Cart and Staff!-JayMichigan – USA
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Organization Name: Spartacus
We like X-Cart because of a very friendly user and store interface, and very helpful and responsive customer support team. X-Cart is a very good choice for an e-commerce platform. We are happy with it for many years.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Glad I picked X-cart in 2009. Solid product, pricing is reasonable, and great service when I need it. We manufacture products and sell both wholesale and retail in 2 countries. I have some background in software development, coding and managing groups doing coding, but no specific experience with PHP or MySQL. I was able to install it on my ISP myself with very little help. The hosting savings have really added up over the years. Did some custom features with the X-cart team in the first few months before going live, mostly to tweak some features to align the cart to our business methods for our wholesale clients versus our retail clients. Since then when I need support for features and the evolving CC standards, the X-cart team have been there with pricing that seemed reasonable and quality support. From time to time I’ve also done some minor tweaking in PHP to customize a few things, but left it to the pros at X-cart for anything that I didn’t have confidence in myself. I’m not sure how big they are but I’ve probably interacted with 15 or more different X-cart staff over the last 10 years and they all seem like pros, with some names popping up again after a few years so I think they retain their staff well too. When doing upgrades, I have no issues giving them live access to my store and FTP access through their secure password management portal. They’ve never broken the store in upgrades. In summary, I have confidence in their product and the professionalism of their team and it has saved me a lot of money over the years compared to other products and hosting I could have picked.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Organization Name: Three Custom Color Specialists, LLC
We have been using x-cart many, many years. The tech support is phenomenal. Our issues are always solved in no time. They have some very talented people working for them!
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Organization Name: X-Cart
Hello Scot,
Thank you for your feedback!
Just wondering, what are the reasons for your 4-star rating? Should it be a 5-star rating? 🙂
—
Sincerely yours,
Sergey Fomin,
Chief support group engineer
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Organization Name: www.aaawatchclub.com - a Fotowatch site
We used to have PDG Soft Commerce 5 – but they went out of business and had their software hardcoded & password protected. With the requirement of TLS 1.2 this June 2018 we left with the task to find a new shopping cart software. I looked into several solutions from OpenCart to Prestashop and read a lot of reviews about self-hosted shopping cart software. However ONLY X-Cart provided a solution to use HTML code for adding items – exactly what we used to in the past because our shop is hard-coded HTML and not an on-the-fly solution. We decided for X-cart 4.7.9 Gold Plus as it has everything that we needed. After adding the PayPal DPM Module from BCSE we could use our PCI compliance website and process CC via PayFlow Pro. There service (Bug tracker/Helpdesk) and response time for any inquiry are excellent. Shopping cart looks good – Responsive Light skin, and one-page checkout on a desktop and mobile view.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Organization Name: Brewers Hardware
We have been using X-Cart for about 7 years and it has served our company well. Sometimes it can be frustrating or have a bit of a learning curve getting set up, but they have a plethora of addons that can help customize your website to your liking. X-cart is very flexible and adapts to what you want to do with your website. We have had times where we explain what we want an addon or feature to do, and they try and find a solution to our problem. The best part of x-cart is the customer support. Whenever we have an issue or need help installing an addon, they are eager to help and always find a solution. Thank you to the entire team of x-cart for making a great product and even better customer service!
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Organization Name: Half a Bubble Out Advertising
Ildar did a great job handling our support question and then went above and beyond to help me with a couple of other issues that weren’t on the original ticket. Great work!
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Organization Name: vine2home, LLC
I work as a contract software engineer, in test engineering. I am part owner of a couple of smaller companies. My partners selected me to maintain our company websites, when I have time. While I do possess the ability to learn and do what is required for our websites, my expertise is not within the server and website domain. My time is better spent allowing individuals who possess that ability do the work for me. To that end, 10 years ago I selected X-Cart as our shopping cart platform. Initially, the hosting platform that I selected was on a shared server. When I needed to upgrade the PHP, MySQL, etc. software on the server, the hosting company informed me that they could not upgrade the server because that upgrade would affect other companies hosted on the server. I switched to a virtual private server which gave me complete control of everything on the server. That switch reduced my annual server expenses. I did not have the time and ability to properly setup the server. Fortunately, X-Cart has competent personal that handled all the required work for me. My only work, at that point, was in maintaining the shopping cart by adding our products and handling order processing.While I am exceptional in what I do, I know my limitations. I will not work a contract for which I am not qualified to perform. As a contract software engineer, I have met many software people in my travels. Some are exceptional in their abilities while others are just trying to stay employed with little knowledge of electronics, computers, software, etc. Be careful of the kid down the street whose only experience is playing video games or trying to hack into someone’s computer. For those who are not familiar with computers, software, etc., know that the staff at X-Cart wrote the code for the product. They know how it should work and what the requirements of the server need to be. While software errors do happen, the staff at X-Cart has always corrected the issues when they become aware of them. They are not responsible when a you allow someone else to modify the code or server which causes the shopping cart to malfunction.I have worked with the staff at X-Cart for 10 years. They are extremely competent in their abilities. The staff completes the requested work in a fast and efficient manner. I have the latest version 5 business edition along with the backup module. I apply updates as they become available. I will continue to use X-Cart for our shopping cart applications.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Organization Name: AOK Inc. The OEM Parts Store
I have been using x-cart since 2009 and can honestly say that had it not been for them i doubt my business would be around today. I have dealt with specific agents at x-cart and can honestly say that they care about your business. They have often gone above the required targets. I have not been the easiest customer to deal with and yet still i am happy with their services. Especially in recent projects got to work with Ildar Nizamov and he was extremely helpful and i hope i get to work with him again. Absolute top notch.
Kind Regards,
Marc Ledder
AOK Inc. The OEM Parts Store
http://www.theoempartsstore.com
http://www.oregonpartsstore.com
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Organization Name: Logix, Inc.
Logix has been an X-Cart Business Edition user since 2006. We have always been impressed with the feature set, flexibility, and the easy setup and maintenance of X-Cart software. The X-Cart support crew has always excelled in their prompt support whenever we have questions. X-Cart also provides our hosting and email services and we’ve been extremely pleased with these services. We would recommend X-Cart to any small or medium-size business looking for an affordable, full-featured e-commerce solution. Thanks to the entire staff at X-Cart for a great product!
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Organization Name: smek digital consulting llc
X-Cart’s support was fantastic during my migration from v4 to v5. There were many details involved and they were all handled expertly.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Organization Name: Autostripe
Excellent service. Excellent company. Very professional. Very smart. We are pleased.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Organization Name: Hollywood Disc
I am a small business owner trying to make a online success which is getting more difficult day by day. But with X-Cart I got enormous help to build my online presence and make business going to right direction. Thanks to X-Cart customer service and talented engineers I am doing better day by day.I am very thankful for quality of the service they provide. X-Cart is very friendly and powerful even me without any programming skills I can work and get what I want to get. Tagging, SEO, content creation, creating a products or categories is easier than ever. The bottom line is in business language it is money making machine. So I want to thank X-Card for being there when I need them.With Love Harout Hovsepyan
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Organization Name: Spring Works Inc
X-cart 5 is very easy to navigate and make changes to. The support is mostly very good and lots of plug and play add on’s and modules.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
I know X-cart.com from 2004, whenever I needed them, the were next to me with professionalism.With their software I have created dozens of online stores and only positive feedback I have gained.Thanks Xcart
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Organization Name: iGadget Depot
I want to say few good things about our experience so far with X-Cart:1. Increase sales by integrating and synchronizing your marketplaces and ecommerce store.2. Fulfillment options, decrease operational costs by automating key workflows and processes, and it’s good for people who are not computer software experts.3. Better data visibility, easy, friendly, all users friendly, you focus on sales, because everything easy automated.4. Ecommerce website software without monthly fees, PHP shopping cart platform.5. Excellent professional service, sometimes they try to take more money for services, but you can talk to them nicely and they are coming towards their customers to help them increase business and revenue.
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Organization Name: Arcamedia Corp.
I am a seasoned owner of an 18 plus year old web design and development company. We started this client with x-cart years ago and I was always amazed at how well the site kept ticking along for years and years and the customer was always happy (with almost no issues or problems as the decade came to close). When the day finally came to move x-cart to the latest version. Version 5, we decided to work directly with X-carts team to build out a new design and implement the latest features version 5 brought to the table. A ten year old site would need to be migrated to the latest platform and a new infrastructure put in place for the server to work with the latest version. Working with the team at x-cart was a wonderful experience. They explained everything to us clearly and without any issue. They helped us map out a smart plan and put dollars and time deliverables to a clearly explained process document that allowed us to go back to the client and easily let them know next steps and stages in the build, design and implementation of the new site. The client had specific requirements for the site that admittedly were not typical of your average install. X-cart team was able to design a custom skin and code to allow those custom features to make the client not only happy but excited when they started using the new site. Its important to note in this review that x-cart is a great ecommerce solution. I have worked with Woo commerce and a couple other solutions before. And though they are different in some ways and similar in others, x-cart has one edge over the others. Its easy to mange, learn and understand. The client learning curve is not only fast, but the simplicity and logic in the layout and function of its tool build both confidence and creativity and store administrator. They allow them to not just cautiously use it to grow the store and its presence but they instead engage and invite the administrator to get involved and dive right in to the breath of options and choices within the admin. From the front end the tool shines as well. Its fast, responsive and intuitive to anyone using the store. Its checkout process is clean and simple. Beyond the tool itself its important to note the people we worked with at x-cart. People like Olga, Diana, Sergey, Igor, Alexey, and Danila all deserve a shout out. Patient, professional and responsive are three words that come to mind in describing working with them in building, maintaining and upgrading the site. They made sure all milestones were met and worked through any and all issues to my complete approval along with the clients. x-cart offers what other ecommerce solutions does not. It offers a solid reliable tool with the added bonus of a support group you don’t find at other solutions. The hands on aspect of their support staff is what makes a big difference when working with an ecommerce solution.Lastly I would like to highly recommend the x-cart hosting solution for anyones potential or existing x-cart store. We tried other hosting solutions and when we moved it to the x-cart one speed differences were extreme to say the least. 2-3 times as fast. Easy to maintain. Again excellent support and fair prices.I look forward to working with x-cart again on future projects.thanks Adam Halem 🙂
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Organization Name: Goltab Pty Ltd
We were using X-cart 4 since 2008. Recently, we upgraded this to X-cart 5 as we were advised that the version 5 has more advanced and secure features.
The transition was carried out by X-cart professionals smoothly and efficiently. During the upgrade, whenever there was a problem, the technical support provided to me was excellent and commendable.
It is a pleasure to be working with X-cart Professionals due to their professionalism and efficiency.
Chandra, Luxury Perfumes
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The premium support and Xcart hosting was implemented smoothly and effectively…very happy with the entire Xcart platform and service! Thanks to their tech support team :)Laura
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We have been with x-cart for over 10 years and use only them for all customer development. Everything and good exempt there is absolutely no QA done prior to uploading projects.
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We’ve used X-Cart of years. We started with an old flavor of version 4. It worked. Now we’re using X-Cart 5 Business Edition–hosted by X-Cart. We’ve been on version 5 for a couple years and they just brought us up to the newest dot version of everything. They provide a test area separate from your real store. We just request an update and test it when it is completed. We DON’T need to know PHP despite what the review suggests because they set it up, configured it, support it and update it. Isn’t that what we want these days?The staff at X-Cart are professional and competent. They proved themselves quite capable when asked to bring our store software up to date and when asked to change the entire look of our store. They have so many new themes to just choose from and use and lots of modules to meet the needs of a huge variety of stores. Also, if you need *anything* custom or customized they will make it for you and do so at very competitive prices. Yearly support and maintenance pricing is very reasonable.
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BEST customer support on the planet. They are very responsive, and professional. They have always fixed every problem I’ve ever had. I will never leave them
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The support has improved immensely over the past year or two. Super responsive and very helpful.Thank you!
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I’ve been using Xcart for several years now. The yearly subscription for tech support is well worth the money. They take care of all issue and not only tell me how to handle it but they actually do it for me,To upload items onto the site is easy and we have our POS updating our website hourly. Super stoked on everything. Over the past few years they’ve been improving on the platform and Im glad to be on board. David
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We have used xcart for more than a year now. It is user-friendly and easy to maintain. xcart support engineers are highly knowledgeable, efficient, friendly and quick in solving website tasks and problems. We will surely recommend xcart to our colleagues as an e-commerce software of choice.-Engr. Emmanuel L. Josue Web Designer/Developer
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The x-cart team did and upgrade for me and did a fantastic job. Not only did they do the work quickly but they stayed with the project and fixed issues that came up right away. They even fixed some custom code I had that they had nothing to do with. I definitely will be using their services again when I need any custom work or major changes to my site.
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My company has used X-Cart since 2003. It was rough a few times and things weren’t always perfect. We’re currently using X-Cart 5 and I have to say this is good software. The modules are easier to deploy, the configuration choices are numerous and the admin interface is robust.If you’re just starting out, or, if you’re running one of the World’s oldest web sites, like us, you need to look at X-Cart. We depend on it everyday.
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I have been working with X-Cart for the past year on a custom design shopping cart. (They also host my site.) They do good work, and I have been very pleased with their customer service– knowledgable, prompt, helpful and ethical. They have worked doggedly on several occasions to fix some bugs unique to my custom design. As I am new to the shopping cart world and e-commerce, X-Cart has been a valuable resource for my business. I was referred to them by another client of theirs, who is a very seasoned developer, and they have served him equally well. It`s nice to find a team who can deal with all experience levels. Their products and services continue to evolve, and they are keeping my site up to speed as e-commerce changes at light speed.
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We have been working with X-Cart for the past six months on developing our new online e-commerce site, as well as hosting through X-Cart. Everything has been a smooth process from initial design process, to our launch and everything in-between. Even though they are based out of Russia it hasn’t impacted the work flow. I can compile all of the changes and questions I have throughout my day here, and send it off before leaving for the night. By the time I get back in the next day, I have all of my questions answered and requests completed. There is also a few hours of overlap time in the morning, where I can come in and fire off a few quick responses,questions or concerns, and they will usually be able to respond to those before leaving for the night on their end (I am on PST, anyone further east would have a few extra hours in the AM than me). They also have the option to do a “hot rush” ticket, for any time sensitive issues, or questions can be answered very quick instead of the next day. So if it is the time difference that you are worried about I wouldn’t be too concerned. After switching to X-Cart we have had zero issues with website downtime and any problems get resolved in a very timely manner. I would recommend X-Cart and their hosting services to anyone looking for a stress and worry free e commerce website with great communication, customer service and very affordable pricing!
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We have a number of sites using the X-cart platform and have been using X-cart for over ten years so across the different versions and compared to Magento I feel the support is excellent the innovative and easily accessible modules a varied and pretty much cater for every requirement. On the odd occasion we have had to develop bespoke modules the service from X-cart has been outstanding.
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X Cart engineer Roman Nikiforov made a fix for my website through a great deal of determination and energy (it took a little over 2 weeks to finish). X Cart has people on hand that think “out of the box” and while a problem may be difficult, it doesn’t stop them from meeting with ultimate success. It gives me a great deal of reassurance, that when other technicians throw their hands up in the air and say “it can’t be done”, I can always turn to, and rely on X Cart engineers to find a solution.
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I agree with Robert on several issuyes, but I don’t think X-cart deserves just one star. I think it should get 50% which is 2,5 stars, but since that is not possible I will give it 3 stars rather than 2.”Tech Support could not fix the issues” – I agree. They don’t pay much attention to even simpliest things and seem to have very little knowledge even about things that average Joe knows.Their Fraud Points used to cost a reasonable $20 for 10000 Fraud Check Points. Now their pricing scheme for those points is very convoluted, unreasonable and unaffordable. They charge $50 to $100 roughly for one year of points, which means if you serve 1000 orders a ear, all you get is 1000 points for $50 to $100, which is an increase of 30+ fold or 3000% from previous pricing.”Some issues they said were not covered by Tech Support and wanted us to pay a ton of money to fix them. ” – I agree, so typical. “X-Cart Techs will blame 3/4 of the issues on your server host and try to get you to switch to their hosting.” – I agree. “In most cases you will turn in a Tech Support request and get an e-mail within the following couple days saying they need more info to work on the issue.” – I agree.”We had some support request handed to personal that were heading out of the office on vacation.” – X-cart engineers are often on vacation, that is so true,and the customer has to wait, but they offer to assign another engineer that is not familiar with your case.X-cart pricing can be very damaging to one’s pocket. To apply a patch they ask $99 and it takes them literally a minute or twpo to do that. Every simple task is divided into $99 payments each. While the basic X-cart costs $195, one can easily spend another $198 on having two tiny repairs done to it. Payment method set up each costs over a whopping $600+. Prepaid tech. support – huge cost.Now regarding dependability of the cart. To me, it worked for many years and did not create problems.So I am confident to give it at least 50% or 2 1/2 stars. Originally I was going to give X-cart 4 stars, but the costs involved and skyrocketing and some issues with their knowledgeability, causes it to drop to 2-3 stars level. Still, a very good cart and I only tested 3-4 carts so far. So I am not the best cart reviewer.X-cart is a good cart and I would recommend it, especially to those who have unlimited money to spend.
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If there were a rating higher than excellent I would use it for the team at Xcart.Everybody has their job to do there and they all do it above and beyond expectation.I’ve been with them since 2001 and I would never stray from Xcart and encourage everyone that reads this to do the same, if you’re on the fence on who to host with, pick Xcart! You will NEVER be disappointed!
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Hands down working with X-cart has been the best decision we have made for ecommerce. The staff always responds to all of our inquiries immediately and provides an extremely knowledgeable level of support.
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We have used X-Cart for about 5-6 years nowWe are very pleased with the cooperation we have with the X-Cart team – we always get done what we want – while we think that our X-Cart site are working very safely and correctly -We can only recommend X-Cart for all who want a complete and safe commerce siteJohn
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Disadvantage is that you need an expert programmer to tweak it, and a very good server to host it, but when it is up, you have full control and it runs fast. Content Management Systems that handle the tech issues for you will host thousands of sites but dont give you freedom or control, and they are down at the worst possible moments, like in the middle of you high season day. That is why x-cart is good. You have control. Site is always up. You can put anything you want on your own server.If you dont have a programmer, go with something that is easier to use.Other issues:Not most popular choice, so not as many turnkey ready modules as other platforms.Difficult to find shipping management systems that have an interface that works with x-cart. Tried 3 of them and only 1 shipping system had a module that worked. The other 2 didnt work at all.
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Hi Allan,
Thank you for your useful feedback. I love the pros you describe. These are strong sides of X-Cart indeed.
and as a software vendor rep I’m especially interested in the cons you listed ( we want to become better!). You mention that it lacks ready-made integrations with shipping management systems. X-Cart integrates with Stamps.com, ShippingEasy, ShipStation and several more. Could you please let me know which 3 ones you considered and why?
If X-Cart lacks these integrations indeed, we will think of adding them.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
We currently use Shipworks and have zero issues integrating with X cart.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
Thank you for this comprehensive overview. I have a single comment about pricing. You state that ” Every year you’ll have to pay near the same amount you paid for the platform originally. When compared to free open source solutions, like Magento, X-Cart just doesn’t make sense.”Actually, the cost of upgrades for a _commercial_ edition ( say, Business, with the original price currently equal to $495) is about 50% of the original cost (for Business edition it’s currently $247,5), and if you upgrade within one month since expiration, you will need to pay even less, about 20% of the oriiginal license cost ( for Business edition, it’s $99). Therefore, $99 is not even close to the sum you originally paid, that is $495.And this is the cost of access to upgrades which gives you not only fixes, but also new features which come out quaterly. At the same time this is not mandatory to purchase the upgrade access prolongation, if you’re happy with your current store behaviour and features set.Last but not least, all that info is about _commercial_ edition. If you’re using Free edition of X-Cart , you do have a lifetime license AND a lifetime access to upgrades for free. While I’ve heard from different developers and project managers, that the communty edition of Magento ( i.e the free one) does have issues with providing the bug fixes not only on timely manner, but with providing them at all. There’s a known bug related to checkout of Magento – Community v.1 and the developers were requesting the fix for ages, and finally they had to code a workaround. The situation is way better for the Enterprize edition of Magento, where you pay $14K -$30K or more a year, every year, but here we see absolutely different costs. Hence we can hardly speak about _free_ bigfixes of free Magento, and with this background, $99 cost of access to upgrades in X-Cart seems absolutely affordable.
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We had been running X-Cart for 3 years. Had to close our store because we had nothing but problems with X-Cart. Lots of integrity issues, Google said the Mobile Module has lots of issues such as the buttons being to closes to each other and gave it a very low ranking. X-Cart Tech Department told us to stop using the Refine Filters and Infinite Scroll Modules as they have issues. I highly suggest you don’t invest a dime in X-Cart software. We had full Tech Support and they could not fix the issues. Some issues they said were not covered by Tech Support and wanted us to pay a ton of money to fix them. X-Cart Techs will blame 3/4 of the issues on your server host and try to get you to switch to their hosting. In most cases you will turn in a Tech Support request and get an e-mail within the following couple days saying they need more info to work on the issue. It does not matter how detail you make your request. We had some support request handed to personal that were heading out of the office on vacation. Over all experience with X-Cart was a nightmare each day.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.