Ecommerce

X-Cart Shopping Cart Review

By Tinuiti Team

Feb 10 2014

Interested in creating an online store or migrating your current store to a new platform? This unbiased X-Cart review will help you learn the fundamentals of the platform, as well as your store’s fit with its features and functionalities.

Want to know how other platforms measure up? See our full list of ecommerce platform reviews here.

X-Cart Review: What kind of merchant should use the X-Cart software?

X-Cart is an e-commerce platform available via download or through a cloud-hosted solution. More than 30,000 online stores use the X-Cart platform.

X-Cart’s primary product is an open-source PHP-based platform that can be purchased, downloaded, and installed on any self-hosted site. In order to use the platform, you’ll first need to acquire a domain and outside hosting package. X-Cart actually offers hosting packages, but these come at an additional price and are not included for the downloadable version. If you’re looking for a differentiator between X-Cart and its open-source peers, it’s its more up-to-date software and better user-friendliness than such PHP-based carts like Zen Cart and OpenCart.

X-Cart also offers a hosted, Cloud version of its software called X-Cart Cloud. With X-Cart Cloud, your site is hosted on the X-Cart cloud servers, and security, installation, and set-up are all included. Both the downloadable X-Cart platform and the X-Cart Cloud include a mobile ready design, unlimited product listings, and built-in SEO tools, like customizable meta tags and titles, XML sitemaps, search engine-friendly URLs and more. They also integrate easily with all major payment gateways and shipping providers.

Unlike a lot of open-source solutions, X-Cart isn’t free. Packages for the downloadable version include: Mobile, its most basic solution ($99, can’t have soft goods), Business, designed for mid-sized and growing businesses ($495), and Business Premium, which is for larger businesses and includes SSL, additional support ,and store set-up help ($1,495). A 15-day free trial is available for the Cloud solution, while merchants can test out the open-source software until they decide to go live.

It’s Cloud packages (most comparable to a hosted platform like Shopify), range from $20 to $200/month.

Ideal for: Small to Medium sized businesses

Good X-Cart Features

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Bad X-Cart Features

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You can view all of X-Cart’s features here.

Notable X-Cart Websites

Pearls Only

Dr. Denim

Gadget Infinity

X-Cart Review: Bottom Line

Honestly, my expectations weren’t high going into this, but X-Cart has proved to be a surprisingly capable and adaptable solution for the mid-tier retailer. If any aspect of X-Cart sounds familiar, it’s because it’s very similar to CS-Cart, another modern, more high-end open-source cart. The 2 are very comparable in terms of their feature-set and customer support structure.

If I were advising a medium-sized business going through the platform migration process and it came down to these 2, I’d go with CS-Cart by a thin margin (also has strong multi-store capability). At the end of the day, make sure you have a lump sum to spend on modules and reliable, very capable development resources before diving into X-Cart (a strong relationship with you developer is key here).

X-Cart Ecommerce Platform Comparison Grade: B+

How do you think this shopping cart stacks up against the rest? Have your voice be heard and your opinion known! Email [email protected] and request to have your experience be part of this X-Cart Review.

View the master list of our ecommerce platform comparison to make the most informed choice when choosing your ecommerce platform software.

*Note: Grades are subjectively based on analysis and comparison to other ecommerce platforms, based on availability, significance, and functionality of the platform feature and overall value.