Good base but requires simplification CS Cart MVE can probably be a great and satisfying product. It is just not for everyone, which should be mentioned at the very beginning of the sales process. If you know programming/have a developer on board, or you are ready to invest in hiring one, CS Cart becomes an excellent platform, opening tons of possibilities for creating a great marketplace. If you face any problem, there’s an excellent CS Cart support team, responding quickly and clearly. There's also a nice community on a forum, which is really helpful. However, if you don’t have such resources, CS Cart may disappoint you in many areas, and unfortunately it has been our case. Although we are quite tech-savyy business people, with a front-end developer on board, customizing CS Cart, so it looks at least quite modern and user friendly, has been a challenge and a really time-consuming process. Even though you get a free trial before buying, you just can’t test everything and many issues come out later. Most important pros: - great support team; - quite extensive and very helpful community on forum; - if you are ready to invest a lot in custom development, it’s probably one of the most robust platforms on the market. I also heard from professionals that it’s very stable regarding the security, but it’s hard for me to assess this; - many add-ons to choose from. Most important cons: - rather impossible to be configured by non-tech people, since it’s really complicated and non-intuitive. It doesn’t need to be a con, however it’s worth to mention it in the sales process, so there's no disappointment; - requires a LOT of custom development to become aesthetic and user friendly - even the design themes that you can buy additionally are still not very modern; - vendor panel - old-fashioned in design, and very hard to navigate for vendors. It needs add-ons or back-end works to make it at least decent; - updates don’t consider most important needs of the users - I have an impression that they are not based on users’ feedback; - be prepared that for some markets the customization (like payment provider etc.) will cost you much more that the platform itself; My overall rate is average, because it was rather disappointing for us, but I believe it can be just excellent for others.

CS-Cart offers Shopping Cart solutions CS-Cart offers solutions for those that want to run a single storefront to those wanting a multi-vendor solution to run a marketplace, like Amazon or Ebay. CS-Cart isn't an online service like Shopify or BigCommerce. Instead it is a self-hosted downloadable software that you run on your own hosting. Right out of the box, CS-Cart is packed full of 100's of features to suit even the most demanding store requirements. Most features can be individually enabled/disabled as well as configured to your liking. One of the best features we like, is the manual automatic updates system that keeps your site up-to-date with the latest CS-Cart updates and bug fixes without the need to upload files via FTP. A handful of preinstalled themes are available by default, however you’ll find over 200 third-party themes in the CS-Cart Marketplace to fit your desired look and feel. Hundreds of third-party-add-ons are also available. Making customizing easier, CS-Cart has a built-in layout editor allowing you to arrange your store using drag and drop elements. CS-Cart supports an expansive list of payment and shipping options to make it easy to integrate with what works for your business. CS-Cart has alot to offer, so much in fact since I have been using it for the past 2+ years, that it's hard to mention all it can do. My Verdict After using CS-Cart for 2 years, I have reached the conclusion that CS-Cart is overall a good storefront solution, although it can be a bit daunting for a beginner to configure initially. The software does have many great features and selling points. If I could point to a downside, some may not be so keen with continued payments for support and version upgrades, but they are not too expensive. I recommend that you go ahead and try a demo and play with the platform yourself.

CS-Cart Multi-Vendor a robust platform for online marketplaces CS-Cart Multi-Vendor, when is worth to be mentioned as one the robust platform which have been able to provide a marketplace for every entrepreneur. It is without doubt a great and satisfying platform for online marketplaces for virtually all kind of products. However, it is not for everyone in every economy. It requires a well-developed financial system especially for payment systems whether local or international which need to be mentioned at the very beginning of the sales process. One should know programming or have a developer on board to be able to develop your own add-on for adding any particular functionality. Otherwise, be prepared to spend on readily developed add-ons and which still not customized. Nevertheless, CS Cart is an excellent platform, opening tons of possibilities for creating a great marketplace. On one hand, the main highlight to mention it is that there is an excellent CS-Cart support team which responds quickly and clearly when you face any problem. On other hand, there is also a nice community on a forum, which is really helpful. However, if you don’t have enough financial resources, CS-Cart and all its add-ons may be disappointing in many areas, and unfortunately it has been our case. It is very challenging to see the platform bringing in new functionalities with a new version incompatible with existing add-ons or themes. If you accept to upgrade, you lose some of the add-ons which need to be deleted or stopped or even cause a total malfunction of the whole platform. If there is any customization and you upgrade the platform, it can be lost forever or requires you to spend more money for a new one. Furthermore, many CS-Cart third party developers their add-ons are not compatibles even when they seem to be complementary. It has been a challenge and a really time and money consuming process. Most important pros: - Great experience in the market; - Great support team; - Helpful community on forum; - Many add-ons and Themes to choose from. - The marketplace will always look professional. Most important cons: - Too much frequent upgrades causing existing customizations, add-ons and Themes not working properly as main consequence of waste of money in case you ought to hire the support teams for both CS-Cart and its third party developers; - It is very costly to integrate CS-Cart platform with any other systems (like payment provider etc.) because of its constant upgrades which go with incompatibilities. My overall rate is average, because it has been disappointing for us to accommodate all the changes within CS-Cart platform and its third party add-ons and themes.

Has a prices page without prices Has a prices page without prices, just a webmail form you know is going to result in a hard sales call! Can't stand this type of website/company. If you can't be transparent about your pricing to your potential customers, you just know they are charging more than they can justify hence the requirement for hard sales tactics!

Our first month with CS Cart Here is a short but not a complete list of issues our team had with CS Cart within the first months of work: • The server installation manuals are not just not suitable for non-IT – those are outdated. If you want the CS Cart team to fix your issues and help you to install the program onto your server – you either pay or scream at your sales manager • A huge amount of crucial information is not available neither in the manuals nor in the videos • It took us 3 weeks (!) to get CS Cart to install us the program on our server – mainly because the employees simply do not check if everything works when they are finished • Our team spends 90% of the time in communication by explaining “what else” is not working • 504 Gateway is our companion whenever we work with back-end, at any time and for no reason • The packs CS Cart offers are not coherent – if they sell you a “lifetime” upgrade of the platform with a unique theme – you get the upgrades for the scheme only for 6 months. Later you either pay or enjoy bugs when your platform gets updates and your themes does not. Moreover, the platform is developed in such a way that any external themes will need a lot of adjustment after any upgrade if you want them to work correctly • The App which is offered in premium packs is only for the basic infrastructure, any add-ons (which you will need) – you will need to pay additionally • They delete and move your login data at any point of time without a warning, you understand this when you are kicked out of the platform in the middle of your work. The general problem with access rights is that you need to ask for them each time you discover you lack rights in your own program. Generally, we wanted to work with a Russian company (CS Cart is a Russian company) to save some of our programmers the language barrier – but we expected something at least close to the American service from a company selling its product globally. From our perspective, CS Cart is not interested in supporting customers and creating a great customer experience even during the trial period – simply said, you get what you pay for.