1. Shopping Cart Types
Main features,
advantages and disadvantages
Prepared by Cart2Cart Team
November, 2012
http://www.shopping-cart-migration.com/

2. Plan
1. Shopping Cart Types
● Open Source Shopping Carts
● Hosted Shopping Carts
● CMS + eCommerce Plug-in
2. Shopping Cart Pros and Cons
3. Cart2Cart Migration Service

3. Shopping Cart Types

4. Shopping Cart Types
Shopping cart is software used in e-commerce to
assist people making purchases online.
Shopping Cart Types:
1.
Open Source
○ Free
○ Paid
2.
Hosted
3.
CMS + eCommerce Plugin

5. Open Source Shopping Carts
1.
Full access to source code
+ Customizable and flexible
- Difficult to manage without programming skills
2. Free
+ Low or even zero costs
+ Big variety of extensions, modules, templates
- Support is often available for extra money
- Known for issues with upgrades, bugs and data security
3. Paid
+ Support charges are already included
+ High data security
- Paid solutions may cost up to several thousands of US dollars
- Lack of extensions

6. Hosted Shopping Carts
Turnkey solution
+ No hosting and installation issues
+ Easy to use
+ Flexible design opportunities
+ Simple upgrade process, high stability
+ High data security
+ Professional Support
- Paid
- Less customizable
- Small number of extensions (most of them are paid)

7. CMS + eCommerce Plugin
Content Management System (CMS) is the application that
allows to manage, add and modify the website content.
+ Open Source
+ eCommerce plugin inherits all the
advantages of CMS (integration with
templates, SEO, admin panel,
integration with other extensions)
- Lack of top end features (multistore, separate admin zone for
vendors, affiliate programs, Social
Media Marketing tools, etc.)

8. Shopping Cart Pros and Cons
- Founded in 2008 by Varien (USA)
- Powers over 125 000 stores
- Open source (free and paid editions)
- Recently released own hosted solution Magento GO
Advantages
Disadvantages
●
●
●
●
●
Flexible and customizable
Fully loaded with features
(product management,
inventory, marketing,SEO,etc)
Multiple storefronts,
languages, currencies, taxes
Numerous payment and
shipment options
Big community, huge number
of extensions
●
Difficult to use (even for
programmers)
●
Resource consuming (slow)
Buggy, full of errors
●
●
Official support and some
features are available only
with paid editions

9. Shopping Cart Pros and Cons
●
●
●
●
Initial release 2007 (France)
Downloaded more than 2 000 000 times
Powers 125 000 Internet shops
Open source (totally free)
Advantages
● Has all the same features as
Magento but much easier to
use
● Less resource consuming
and faster than Magento
● Large number of extensions,
modules and addons
● Support available
Disadvantages
●
Not stable after major
upgrades, buggy
●
Some important extensions
available only for additional
costs (social media,
mCommerce)

10. Shopping Cart Pros and Cons
● Launched in 2001 (Russia)
● 25 000 online stores are using X-Cart
● Open source solution, offers both hosted and self-hosted
solutions (unlimited trial period)
Advantages
●
●
●
●
●
Customizable (PHP and
WYSIWYG)
Fits any type of business
Security, shipment, payment
CMS capabilities
Almost no bugs, new editions
are stable
Disadvantages
● Advanced features available
with highly priced plans
(MailChimp, Google
Analytics, SMM)
● Lack of top end features
(multi-store, multi-vendor,
etc.)
● Requires some technical
expertize to set up

11. Shopping Cart Pros and Cons
●
●
●
●
Started in 2004 (Russia)
30 000 users
30 days free trial
Open source (only paid)
Advantages
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
Fast due to use of AJAX technology
Mobile commerce
Multi-Vendor Store
Multiple storefronts
Block management
Support main payment and shipment
gateways
Reasonably priced, support and data
security
Disadvantages
● Lack of extensions
● No SMM options
● Closed Community
Edition

12. Shopping Cart Pros and Cons
● First released in 1999 (Germany)
● Joomla native
● Open source (free)
Advantages
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
All the benefits of Joomla
(advanced CMS, user-friendly,
SEO, etc.)
Customizable
Great localization options
Feature-rich
Big number of extensions
Payment/Shipment
Coupons and discounts
Disadvantages
●
Lack of advanced
eCommerce features
●
No support
●
May not meet all the
demands of middle-large
scale business

13. Shopping Cart Pros and Cons
● Founded in 1999 (USA)
● Powers 40 000 stores
● Hosted paid solution (14 days free trial)
Advantages
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
Easy to use, intuitive
Feature rich (cross-sells,
discounts, SEO, etc.)
eBay and Facebook integration
Free templates (120)
Security and support
Reasonable pricing
No extra fees
Disadvantages
●
Has less customization
options than OS
●
No user-friendly template
editor (only HTML and CSS)
●
Small number of extensions

14. Shopping Cart Pros and Cons
● Date of inception 2006
● More than 30 000 stores
● Hosted paid solution 30 days free trial
Advantages
●
●
●
●
●
●
100+ free templates
Themes can be customized via
user-friendly editor and
CSS/HTML files
Feature rich
CMS capabilities
Mobile commerce
Security and support
Disadvantages
●
1-2% extra fee for each
transaction
●
Lack of free extensions
●
Less customizable than OS

15. Shopping Cart Pros and Cons
● Started in 2009 (USA)
● Serves 25 000 shops in 65 countries
● Hosted paid solution (15 days free trial)
Advantages
●
●
●
●
●
Intuitive and user-friendly
One of the most feature-rich
hosted carts (SEO, marketing,
product management, SMM,
mobile commerce, design, save
abandoned carts, etc.)
Security, support, extensions
Stable, no bugs
Built-in business analytics +
integration with Google Analytics
Disadvantages
●
Pricing
●
Some advanced features are
absent
●
Less customizable

16. Cart2Cart Migration Service
●
●
●
●
Automated shopping cart migration service
Launched in 2009 (Ukraine)
More than 11 000 of successful migrations
http://www.shopping-cart-migration.com
Advantages
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
User-friendly (no software to
download, no programming skills)
Allows products, orders and clients
data transfer from and to 40+
shopping carts
Sell even during the migration
Numerous additional options
Reasonable pricing
Free Demo Migration
Total data security and free
support
Disadvantages
●
Do not migrate website
design
●
Do not migrate customer
testemonials, news and other
site content

17. Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_shopping_cart_software
http://www.shopping-cart-migration.com/
http://www.shopping-cart-migration.com/useful-articles/49-volusion/5365volusion-or-big-commerce-whats-the-right-way-to-successhttp://zippycart.com/
http://shopping-cart-review.toptenreviews.com/
http://andrewbleakley.com/blog/
http://www.ecommerce-platforms.com/
http://www.shopping-cart-migration.com/useful-articles/43-prestashop/5361battle-of-the-year-prestashop-vs-magento