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.

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.

My choice is CS-Cart Multi-Vendor Marketplace in the Ultimate version Modern CMS for providing services to sellers of goods. One of the main advantages is convenient product management for sellers. Also, in more expensive versions, it is possible to manage the balances of goods in warehouses and display the goods of sellers on a separate storefront. For the store owner, I think the main advantage is the ability to set up flexible tariff plans for sellers and control their payment. The marketplace is built on the basis of CMS CS-Cart and therefore has similar functionality and the ability to install add-ons from third-party developers of which more than 1000. Multilingual and multi currency support, many delivery services and payment systems allow for sales outside one country. My choice is CS-Cart Multi-Vendor Marketplace in the Ultimate version. For the basic marketplace, I have not seen the best offer on the software market in the price segment.

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.

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.