Best Shopping Cart Software in 2024

Shopping carts, also known as e-commerce website software programs, can be a complicated purchase for businesses. Choosing the wrong shopping cart tools can result in a significant loss of your time and money. Selecting the best shopping cart tools for your launch into electronic commerce is important to the success of your online business.

This buyer’s guide can help you have a framework around the crucial factors you should consider when looking for the best Shopping Cart tools. Get info on the leading platforms in this category and do a comparison by reading our in-depth reviews of the top 10 shopping cart software. 

A wise approach to choosing the best possible shopping cart software for your company is to try out a bunch of free trial plans or demo from popular shopping cart software providers. This should let you test the list of important elements of the software before you decide if it fits your company requirements and before you invest any money in it. The smartest thing to do when looking for the best Shopping Cart software is to try tools that currently have the highest SmartScore rankings and Customer Satisfaction Rating in our shopping cart software reviews: Shopify reviews, 3dcart, Shopify Plus, Magento, PrestaShop, WooCommerce, Jimdo, Volusion, Bigcommerce, and OpenCart.

• Online businesses and brands use shopping cart software 
• Small business websites also use the software
• Online retailers and e-commerce websites make use of shopping cart software tools to facilitate sales.

The most passionate fighters in the age of online shopping are definitely large companies, as they’re always struggling to remain competitive and obtain more and more conversions. For them, it is not enough to simply motivate customers to visit their websites, but they need a smart tool that keeps those customers there and inspire them to shop. Thereof, they’re the main beneficiaries of reliable and easy-to-use shopping cart apps, as such take away some of the biggest organizational challenges. At the same time, these systems make e-stores more interactive and attractive to buyers and eliminate the need to track thousands of orders or customer purchase separately. Our detailed comparisons show that the best part about them is probably analytics, as the retailer is fully enabled to transform sales data into workable analytics, and draft reports based on it.

• Shopify: Shopify offers a range of tools and features to help businesses create and operate online stores as well as sell products in person.
• 3dcart:  3dcart gives access to e-commerce tools dedicated to online store building and management.
• Shopify Plus: Shopify Plus is a leading cloud-based enterprise e-commerce solution for high volume merchants.  
• Magento: Magento offers robust and powerful tools and features for small business organizations and online businesses to help them configure and take total control of their stores.
• PrestaShop: PrestaShop is an open source eCommerce solution that can be hosted in the cloud or downloaded from the product website.

Licensed or SaaS Based?

This is arguably the first and most important factor you need to consider when starting your research. A few years ago, many companies started offering SaaS (Software as a service), cloud-based or hosted, website, as well as e-commerce hosting solutions. There are advantages as well as disadvantages to licensed or SaaS-based solutions but, it seems that increasingly, the SaaS tools are advancing ahead of the competition.

Licensed Shopping Cart Software Solution

Advantages:

• Infinitely flexible and scalable
• Plug-ins and add-ons are usually available for plans with one-time fees
• One time cost for the software solution then you can own the code
• No limits to storage, bandwidth, or products
• Freedom to transfer hosts if needed

Disadvantages:

• Significantly more complex and longer installation and set-up
• Ongoing and consistent need to update and patch
• Much higher necessity to outsource design and development
• Generally lower quality support

Cloud-Based, SaaS, Shopping Cart Software Solution

Advantages:

• A lot of popular features, add-ons, and fast implementation
• Lower initial cost
• Hosting included
• Easier installation as well as implementation
• Some, although not all, design elements can be easily changed by novice users
• Many software vendors offer outstanding support on an ongoing basis

Disadvantages:

• Confusing pricing models
• Sometimes hard to customize your site functions if the plug-ins are not readily available
• Over time, the price can be much higher
• Many features and add-ons are additional fees on a monthly basis
• Can’t switch hosting companies if dissatisfied

These cloud-based, SaaS, shopping cart software solutions are quicker to install and maintain. Thus they are very attractive to businesses that have limited inventory as well as site needs. However, the costs can easily rise to a point where a company ends up paying several times more than they would for a product that is licensed. For users who are not designers or programmers themselves, SaaS solutions are a better choice even if the cost may be higher in the end, as the higher cost balances off against the expenses associated with an in-house IT person or staff.

For most companies, there are few reasons to buy an installed shopping cart software solution.  Unless your business has access to developers, hosting providers, and designers, the hosted tools may be the right choice. If simplicity, support, and speed, are your key priorities, then hosted solutions are the way to go.

There are various categories of features that matter to almost every business.  When looking for information about providers, make sure you consider the following features:

• Website display and promotions – This feature includes the capacity to create offers, pages, and banners easily and without the necessity for complex back-end manipulation. In your business, you would want your online store to be quick to manage and the capacity to make changes as your product inventory changes, or discounts or specials are offered, is important.
• Shipping and order management – Sometimes, this feature is overlooked when you are focusing on the overall look and feel of your site, but you should also consider how product orders are managed not only from an administrative perspective but also of the customer’s.  When you get an order, how does it look like? What tools will you use in managing the orders?  How can you send shipping or status updates to your shopping customers?  How easy or hard is it to change your message templates and email designs?  These issues become very crucial when your website is already up and running.
• Support – Support can prove to be a big factor in considering which tool is the best for your business. Many of the top shopping cart software vendors today provide various ways to get in touch with them or receive support, such as live chat features, phone and email support, video tutorials, FAQs, discussion board, and technical product documentation, among others. When researching for the right shopping cart software tool for your company, check the support platforms a vendor uses and how quick and accurate their customer responses are.
• Digital cart – lets shoppers place and remove multiple items in their cart as needed. Through the software, customers can also place multiples of an item in their cart. Most shopping cart solutions allow customers to leave items in their cart indefinitely, so customers can order these items later.
• Payment gateway integration – allows shoppers to easily pay for their orders. Most shopping cart systems let you choose your preferred payment gateways. Offering a variety of online payment systems helps make shopping more convenient for your customers while ensuring that you quickly receive payments as well.
• Inventory management – helps you manage stock in real-time. This feature lets you accurately track stock levels and automatically updates these as needed. Many shopping cart software also have features that notify you when products need to be restocked. This way, you don’t have to manually monitor stock levels.
• Shipping and tax calculators – take the hassle out of calculating the appropriate sales tax, especially since different locations charge varying tax rates. Through these calculators, customers also know up-front how much their order will cost. Automatic calculators not only ensure accuracy and transparency but also help you remain compliant with tax laws.
• Reporting tools – provides business owners with insights into store performance based on a variety of metrics, including revenue, profit, visits, and referrals. Many shopping cart software also track how visitors interact with your store and provide accurate numbers on important metrics like shopping cart abandonment rate.

• Integrations – When researching for the right shopping cart software, also consider its integration features. Do you use third-party tools in your business that you want to integrate into your shopping cart? Third-party tools include accounting programs, email marketing tools, CRM systems, shipping management, among others. Some market vendors have many of these integration features as paid add-ons while others offer them as part of their base service.  Make sure you check if there is at least an option for you to handle these data connections. Otherwise, your business will end up having to purchase for custom work later.
• Product management and upload – Creating product pages can be done manually if you are selling just a few dozen items. If you are selling more than that, then you have to consider how you can upload, edit, and manage all of those items. Almost all market vendors have the built-in capacities to handle this. However, some offer more complicated techniques than others. Some vendors likewise offer advanced features that others do not.
• Customer convenience – Shopping cart software can help you provide the easiest, most convenient shopping experience for customers. These systems ensure that your store is easy to navigate and provides an organized ordering process. These positive experiences help improve your store’s reputation and keep customers coming back.
• Centralized data – These systems make it easier for store owners to collect data on customers. Customer data is conveniently stored in one place, so you can easily access the information. The software also collects data on various customer-related metrics, such as the furthest point of purchase they reach before abandoning their cart. This data can help you finetune your ordering process.
• Easier order fulfillment – Shopping cart software helps you fulfill orders more quickly and efficiently. The software ensures that the orders you receive will have all the information you need to process them. In most cases, taxes and shipping costs will have been calculated as well. The software also automatically creates order numbers for your reference.
• Built-in marketing and SEO tools – Many of these software come with built-in tools that you can use for marketing campaigns. For instance, you may be able to create and send emails highlighting best-selling products and services. Some shopping cart software also provide SEO tools for adding metadata to your store’s pages and customizing URLs.
• PCI compliance – Shopping cart software can help ensure that you stay on the good side of PCI security standards. These standards define best practices for handling and storing cardholder data and account information online. Non-compliance with these standards may result in fines and other penalties.

Obviously, the cost can be a huge factor. It can be difficult to truly understand the upfront costs of the tool.

To address this, bucket the pricing costs into the three main categories given below and consider your needs in each category.

Software fees – Do you want to pay a one-time fee for the shopping cart software solution up front? Or would you rather prefer paying monthly costs according to your product items or storage needs? When you are thinking of expanding your product inventory over time, make sure you factor that in as hosted plans all have various limitations at different price plans. You should also remember that the licensed plans all need hosting aside from the cost of the software solution.

Design and development costs – Regardless of the platform you are choosing, you are going to have additional costs if you want anything in your site programmed or custom designed. Consider the actual artwork design feels and CSS/HTML work needed, aside from the custom development.

Integrations, plug-ins, and add-ons – Many integration features, as well as add-ons and plug-ins, are free. However, some will need programming costs, ongoing subscriptions, or one-time purchases. Make sure how your requirements can match up with your shortlist of shopping cart vendors. Check also if the vendor matches the payment gateways you are using. Before purchasing your shopping cart solution, you should also check out this issue. You also have to make sure that the payment gateway the tool is offering is compatible with the online merchant account that you have with your bank.

You will realize it is quite easy to blow your company’s budget on a shopping cart solution only to discover there are a number of other important items you did not factor in, such as a payment gateway. You may also find yourself in a situation—where to your horror—your cart software is so complicated for customers that even you have to get somebody else to help you in shopping products.

Do not be in such a hurry to choose a vendor without completely understanding what their pricing plans include, the terms of service of what they are offering, and the complete cost of working with them.  Take time to check out the information you can find on vendor websites, and engage a sales or customer service rep before making a purchase decision. You must know the support levels of their company before you sign up so you can get a full sense of how easy or hard it will be to engage them, especially if you have issues later on.

Once your company is set up and starts selling products, you would not want to be in a situation where you realize you have made a bad decision.

• Customers will opt for the lowest prices: In the case of products that can be compared easily without needing physical inspection, and can be shipped and distributed easily, customers will opt for the lowest price available. Therefore if you are not an e-tailing giant like Alibaba or Amazon, you should consider other options to make your online store viable and profitable.
• Customers will go global: More consumers will opt to buy from foreign country websites. This means domestic and local merchants need to wake up to the trend and start selling to foreign customers. They should focus on bolstering their shopping cart and e-commerce software to accommodate buyers in foreign lands.
• Voice shopping is here to stay: Voice shopping is expected to sustain its popularity, as it’s estimated to grow by 55% by 2022. This growth may be attributed to the spread of smart speakers. Products commonly ordered by voice shoppers include apparel, everyday household items, and entertainment items. Business owners can use shopping cart software to ensure that their stores can readily accommodate this new means of shopping.
• AR capabilities: More shopping cart software will offer augmented reality (AR) capabilities, allowing customers to view a product in the surroundings of their choice. For instance, through AR, online shoppers will be able to see if a piece of furniture looks good in their home or how a shirt looks on their body. The technology makes online shopping more interactive and helps boost customer engagement, which may lead to increased sales.

• Naming of the shopping cart: Some e-tailers cause confusion by naming their shopping cart something else such as basket, bookbag, etc. This can cause confusion in the minds of buyers. It is advisable to simply term the item ‘shopping cart’ and add a graphic image of a shopping cart for quick and easy access.
• Shopping Cart abandonment: Many online retailers face the issue of high rates of shopping cart abandonment. To reduce the rates and facilitate easy buying, they should make their checkout procedure simple and quick. You can provide info about delivery costs early in the process, show stock availability to let customers know whether a product is in stock, and clearly explain the different stages in the buying process and how long it will take to complete the transaction.
• Security: This is an important issue especially since online stores typically store customer information and credit card information for order processing. Shopping cart software should have robust security features to protect sensitive information. Using shopping cart software with insufficient security capabilities may result in fines and penalties, along with lost sales and customers.
• Integrations: Not all shopping cart software will have the integrations you need for your online store. For instance, some shopping cart software don’t have built-in features for selling on popular marketplaces like Amazon, Etsy, and eBay. You may also encounter problems with integrating shopping cart systems with the software you already use for analytics, CRM, and sales.

Online shopping is showing no signs of slowing down. These statistics can help you maximize profit from your online store and come up with ways to solve the long-lived enigma of cart abandonment.

• The total sales for global retail ecommerce is expected to reach $4.5 trillion by 2021.
• The online shopping cart abandonment rate for 2019 is at 69.57%. The number rises to 85.65% for mobile users.
  The value of abandoned shopping carts for online retailers worldwide amounts to $4 trillion.
• 80% of shoppers abandon carts because they didn’t like the store’s return policies.
• Slow-loading sites account for a 75% increase in cart abandonment rates.
• Cart recovery can boost your revenue by 2.5x.

Not all shopping cart software were created equal. Some of these systems, for instance, are designed as all-in-one solutions with a comprehensive set of ecommerce features. On the other hand, some shopping cart applications focus on providing one or two main features. Here are some best practices to keep in mind before making your choice:

• Consider the type of products you want to sell. Some shopping carts work best for selling physical goods, while others offer features for selling digital or virtual products. It’s best to choose a shopping cart software that can support the type of product you want to sell. This way, you won’t have problems with building your online catalog.
• Study the software’s security features. Shopping cart software’s security features are important, as these ensure that you won’t incur fines or penalties for failing to keep cardholder information safe. SSL certificates and website monitoring are some of the features you should look for in your shopping cart software of choice.
• Choose software with mobile commerce support. A mobile-friendly online store has a better chance of ranking highly on SERPs, thanks to Google’s mobile-first indexing. The best shopping cart software ensures that your online store remains easy to navigate even when viewed on mobile devices, in turn making shopping a more enjoyable experience for your customers.
• Consider the pros and cons of cloud-based vs on-premise software. Shopping cart software typically offer on-premise or cloud-based deployment. Each type of deployment has its own advantages and drawbacks. For instance, cloud-based software is easier to set up and use, but on-premise deployment gives you greater control over your data. It’s all about prioritizing features that are more important for you.
• Check the software’s integration abilities. Make sure that your shopping cart software of choice can seamlessly integrate with the applications and systems you use, including payment options, customer support solutions, and shipping carriers. You also want to check if the shopping cart software you’re looking at lets you sell on other channels as well.