Ecommerce

Ubercart Shopping Cart Review

By Tinuiti Team

 

UberCart-review-LogoInterested in creating an online store or migrating your current store to a new platform? This unbiased Ubercart 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.

Ubercart Review: What kind of merchant should use Ubercart software?

Ubercart is an open-source shopping cart plugin for Drupal-based websites. It is free to download and install, but will only integrate properly with stores using the Drupal content management system (CMS). Ubercart is a basic, add-on module that offers only shopping cart and checkout functionality for already existing sites. It comes with no built-in hosting or email capabilities; these must be secured from a separate hosting provider.

Overall, Ubercart is a fairly basic shopping cart system with no extra bells and whistles. It allows you to upload products, apply attributes, and list them in separate categories – but that’s about where it ends. For other functionalities, such as SEO, advanced marketing capabilities, mobile readiness and more, you’ll need to use one of Drupal’s many other extension modules (of which there are hundreds). Additionally, your design options are limited with Ubercart. There are no included templates; you’ll need to hire a designer or programmer to alter the site’s theme files and CSS to your liking and style.

Although Ubercart itself is free of up-front charges, you’ll encounter a number of other costs along the way if you want to run an online store with it. In addition to needing a domain name, a hosting package, a programmer, and SSL capabilities, you’ll also need to foot the bill for an account with one of Ubercart’s approved payment gateways before you can begin taking payments.

If your company is on a strict budget and you simply want a way to list a handful of products quickly on the web, Ubercart may do the trick, but certainly better ecommerce plugins for better CMSs exist.

For bigger-sized Drupal stores, Drupal offers its own ecommerce platform called Drupal Commerce, which offers a number of valuable functions that Ubercart simply doesn’t have. Social media integration, more design freedom, mobile responsiveness and international currencies are just a few of the platform’s enhanced capabilities that could provide value to a larger retailer.

Ideal for: Very small retailers, companies on a budget or those only wanting to list a few products.

Good Ubercart Features

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Bad Ubercart Features

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You can view a list of Ubercart’s features here.

Ubercart Store Examples

Amplified Parts

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Ubercart Review: Bottom Line

I just can’t imagine any scenario for why I would recommend Ubercart to a retailer. For Drupal devotees, Drupal Commerce is a superior alternative and for those looking for an ecommerce plugin for a CMS solution, VirtueMart for Joomla and WooCommerce for WordPress are levels beyond Ubercart (WooCommerce is by far the best of these).

If there is such a thing as a truly ominous sign, the Ubercart site actually crashed during my research for this review. Prepare for plenty of development and customization work with Ubercart.

Ecommerce Platform Comparison Grade: D

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 WooCommerce 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.

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