Comprehensive ecommerce software to start a Marketplace I have 2 clients using CS-Cart B2C for many years. I decided to open a marketplace so CS-Cart Multi-Vendor Plus was an obvious choice. Out of the box, it is the right price for features to setup vendor plans/accounting/privileges/shipping/payment methods/promotions to be up and running in no time. Pros: Updates release regularly Comprehensive user/developer guides PHP/TPL hooks to customize source code/templates REST API Mobile app Cons: Store theme is bland. Plan to buy a third-party theme. Overall, the software gets better and better with each update.

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.

More then 5 years using cs multi-vendor… More then 5 years using cs multi-vendor platform! Excellent! Easy and quick to learn all functionality and modules! Playing myself without any programming knowledge and external help. Recommended!

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.

Best we found after lots of research After careful consideration of all of our different options we found CS Cart to give us the most functionality at a great cost. We also use Multivendor and there is not another off the shelf product that can compare. They have always been quick to respond to any of our questions and the forum helps with lots of pieces too. Worth it if you are thinking of opening your own Ecommerce store. Pros - Easy to set up, responsive and lots of functionality Cons - To make it even better you do need some language skills like HTML or similar