# What does X-cart give me?



## thutch15 (Sep 8, 2008)

Just looking for some general info on x-cart or any shopping cart. For example if I purchased X-Cart Gold, what does that really get me. Is it just a web page that I upload my items to or is it just the "check out" portion of the site? 

Also are there any hidden cost...I have $100-$200 in the cart plus I think hosting which looked to be $40-80 a month through their site. Is there any other cost that I am going to come up on. 

Sorry for the basic questions, but I don't understand websites/hosting. I have created my own site, but it is basic....no shopping.


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

You don't have shopping now, but you intend to, right? Otherwise, xcart may not be necessary.

Why do you want xcart? What does it have that interests you?

$40-80 hosting charges are outrageous, unless they are offering something other hosting companies don't? The going rate for hosting in the market is $10 or less per month.


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## thutch15 (Sep 8, 2008)

splathead said:


> You don't have shopping now, but you intend to, right? Otherwise, xcart may not be necessary.
> 
> Why do you want xcart? What does it have that interests you?
> 
> $40-80 hosting charges are outrageous, unless they are offering something other hosting companies don't? The going rate for hosting in the market is $10 or less per month.


Yeah I have another site I am starting that would require a cart. $40-80 might include the $100 to $200 software...not for sure, because there website is to technical. I am just trying to get an understanding of the product before I go asking them questions.


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## in2infinity (Dec 8, 2009)

I have three stores running x-cart gold. They sell it in two flavors... cheap and no support ($115 I think) and less cheap with support (something in the mid-$200's I think).

For that cost you get what I think to be the best bang for the buck in the shopping cart world. You get all the source code and you can run it as a stand-alone site or as a cart attached to a site you design yourself. There are a number of open source carts out there which you can get for free. My experience with most of those has been that they either lack features I want... or are a lot of work just to get them to work. I'm quite experienced at website development and I've never found an open source cart that took less then $115 of my time to get it up and running properly. So, to me x-cart is worth the money over the open source options. I can install it and have it running in 10 minutes and have most features configured and running in less then an hour ... no muss, no fuss.

If you're going to be paying for hosting anyways, you can probably find a place that has a cart all set-up (probably even x-cart) and waiting for you to configure. You should be able to get a packaged deal for way less then $80/month AND not have to spend the $115 for x-cart. I would only buy it if you're running your own server, or if it makes some economic sense to buy it and add it yourself to your hosting package. If you go that route, you'll have the check with the provider you choose to make sure their system is compatible and that you'll have proper access/database privileges to install it and get it running.


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## plan b (Feb 21, 2007)

Here is one I use a lot they just did a major overhaul (update) and has most all you need,, they will custom program if you need something special,, you can buy it for $200 or rent it on their server for $20.00 per month,

https://www.avactis.com/order.php?start


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## maiasaura (Nov 11, 2009)

Here's a good overview of ecommerce design resources:
E-Commerce Design Resources: The Ultimate Round-Up | Graphics
Also look at Smashing Magazine Smashing Magazine

Maiasaura


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## EddieM (Jun 29, 2009)

I just took a look at x cart and avactis and i do not like eather one.

Another poster in another area here posted about a free cart system and i have been playing with it and love it.

You can turn any sites into a shopping cart site is very little time.
Ecwid: E-Commerce Widgets

The product display looks a lot nicer then both the other carts and the check out is a lot nicer and right now its free with a lot more features coming soon.


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## plan b (Feb 21, 2007)

I don't know Eddie, I like what I see but the cart resides on their servers, I think I am going to test it with a site before I make any conclusions however if it works the way it looks I think this may be a good find,, Thanks for that!!


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## maiasaura (Nov 11, 2009)

plan b said:


> but the cart resides on their servers,


You don't HAVE to have x-cart on their servers. You can self-host it. 

So far this week I've installed Zen Cart, ecommerce, wp-commerce, cs-cart, cubecart. None have been the magic bullrt I'm looking for.


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

maiasaura said:


> You don't HAVE to have x-cart on their servers. You can self-host it.
> 
> So far this week I've installed Zen Cart, ecommerce, wp-commerce, cs-cart, cubecart. None have been the magic bullrt I'm looking for.


Are your expectations realistic? What are you looking for that you can't find?


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## plan b (Feb 21, 2007)

maiasaura said:


> You don't HAVE to have x-cart on their servers. You can self-host it.
> 
> So far this week I've installed Zen Cart, ecommerce, wp-commerce, cs-cart, cubecart. None have been the magic bullrt I'm looking for.


 Sorry I was refering to Ecwid cart, after looking at the cart I believe for a simple cart this may be the best and easiest to use however if you need to have end user uploads for custom products then you are better off with a php cart and maybe as Ecwid develops these features will be included.


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## EddieM (Jun 29, 2009)

I have spent a lot of time playing with Ecwid and reading all the chat forms.

They will at some point have image uploads for products just not right now.
What should be next is a coupon system added in.

As far as it being hosted on their servers i see that as a good thing your site will load faster and you get free updates all the time.

They will have a paid $17 a month version soon that has a lot more features but the free version will still be free the way it is now plus some new features will still be added to the free version to..
Thats what they are saying n the chats

What i love about it that very few carts can do is let a customer create a custom package like this.

This is just a test but this works. I have not seen any other cart that can do this this simple.
Shopping cart | Plus Size Bride Plus size mother of the bride

I have a lot of things i have been testing on this site so its is a junk site right now..nothing more

You could do this to sell a package deal like

Pick your 
shirt color

Pick your
shirt size

Pick your **** design. See pop up images to see designs.
Design 1 
Design 2
Design 3

Pick a design Drink mug. See pop up images to see designs.
mug1
mug2
mug3
mug4

Pick a hat. See pop up images to see designs.
Hat 1
Hat 2
Hat 3

Sell more as a package deal

Also the way you can set up the check out area is super adding in what ever text you want for each item you add in and the text changes for each item the customer pickes


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

EddieM said:


> As far as it being hosted on their servers i see that as a good thing your site will load faster and you get free updates all the time.


The main concern of course, especially for a start up, is shutting down and going out of business. The internet graveyard is littered with them.

I would be reluctant to rely on the servers of any company to be in control of my income, unless it was someone like Google.


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## plan b (Feb 21, 2007)

I trust Google about as much as I trust Paypal, then again I don't trust the banks anymore so I guess its cash only and burry it in the yard....

Oh one more thing I signed up and pasted their code in a non-wordpress website making software that I have and had their display cart in and going in about 2 minutes,, for what ever thats worth


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## in2infinity (Dec 8, 2009)

EddieM said:


> What i love about it that very few carts can do is let a customer create a custom package like this.


X-Cart has product options and price modifiers built into the base program for doing this. It also handles "Wholesale" pricing where you can specify Price X for qty 1 - 10, price y for qty 11 - 50, etc. You can also get the x-configurator add on which allows you to do things like Dell or Apple's build a computer thing.

You can also specify pricing groups which allows you to assign customers to specific groups and give them special pricing.

There's a million options out there ... and no single one will be best for all applications. I have just found that for the money, it's not worth messing around with the open source options or being some wanna-be's guinea pig. I have a couple detailed posts regarding my less then positive experience with Magento in a couple other threads here. I can tell you from experience that you can invest a lot of time in one of these things only to find your efforts flushed down the proverbial eToilet. Worse yet .. you may not realize it until you're dealing with a sale gone bad - or books that won't reconcile - because you put your faith in an untrusted, untested product. I don't think I'd build my livelihood on that type of foundation.


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## plan b (Feb 21, 2007)

From what i understand is that x-cart is their core product and this is a new venture for them.


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## EddieM (Jun 29, 2009)

But what if your web host ends up going out of business it would be the same thing. Do you trust them.

(I would be reluctant to rely on the servers of any company to be in control of my income)

Unless you run your own server then you are relying on a company to control you income.

If you do run your own server then you rely on the company who provides your internet connection if they go down you are out of business to.



splathead said:


> The main concern of course, especially for a start up, is shutting down and going out of business. The internet graveyard is littered with them.
> 
> I would be reluctant to rely on the servers of any company to be in control of my income, unless it was someone like Google.


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

EddieM said:


> But what if your web host ends up going out of business it would be the same thing. Do you trust them.


I maintain hard backups of my sites. I couldn't do that with a web service.


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## in2infinity (Dec 8, 2009)

splathead said:


> I maintain hard backups of my sites. I couldn't do that with a web service.


That depends on the service you have ... you can just rent space. If you do then you just FTP your content up and maintain the work copy on your local computer. If you're using a service that only gives you access to a CMS then you'd have a problem. I don't think I'd use that kind of service since you're completely dependent on them. You're much better off just renting space ... some to store the site you build or cart you choose to use and some space in a mySQL database.

I've seen mention of running your own server .. which can be a problem. Its much more maintenance and you can spend a lot of time troubleshooting issues that you otherwise wouldn't have to. Its a real bummer when your server is down for hours before you realize it, and hours more while you fix it... especially if you're running a PPC campaign paying for clicks that go to a dead server. Running your own with a shopping cart can also open you up to PCI compliance requirements if you handle credit cards directly. On the plus side you do have much more control. Unless you love being a computer person or absolutely need the control it brings I would opt to rent space.


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