X-Cart Ecommerce Platform Review 2023: Expert Rated 4.1/5

X-Cart offers near-endless amounts of potential customization due to its flexible, open-source structure without compromising the aesthetically-pleasing elements of its templates and user experience for its more developmentally heavy elements. This technically advanced and sleek combination continues to set X-Cart apart from other e-commerce tools.

A lack of native marketing tools and limited reporting options were one of the main drawbacks of X-Cart compared to more diverse en-suite features in platforms such as Shopify or Wix. Also, on average, it’s more expensive than other choices.

You have many different options for platforms and services as you search for the perfect fit for your business, so we’ve explored many of the best and most popular platforms. Given this experience and industry knowledge, we’re confident in our recommendation of X-Cart for midsize and larger-scale businesses.

Read on and dig deep into our X-Cart review as we explore the platform’s pros, cons, and features.

What Are the Pros and Cons of X-Cart? 

X-Cart is a rising star in the e-commerce space. While many similar open-source solutions offer less functionality and more code-heavy user experiences, X-Cart walks the line of both technically advanced and easy-to-use design.

The site allows development-savvy business owners the flexibility of additional customization while serving communities of business owners and brand leaders that may be less technically skilled. Read on to learn more about the pros and cons you can expect when choosing X-Cart for your e-commerce needs.

X-Cart may be the best e-commerce platform for: Midsize businesses and larger brands looking to run their store out of a tech-forward, centralized tool.

Abandoned cart recovery

The abandoned cart recovery feature is an included add-on to Ultimate, Platform, Marketplace, Auto, and Enterprise plans. This convenient addition connects you to customers on the verge of conversion, allowing you to automate, create, and execute reminders to encourage the possibility of a purchase. “Guest” customers (who don’t have a formal account with your site) can also be positively impacted by this add-on.

Although this add-on is automation-based, you can manually toggle abandoned cart tasks from your dashboard whenever you need to, protecting your autonomy and giving your clients and team members the best possible experience.

There are customer-facing benefits to this add-on, such as one-click recovery. This level of convenience increases the chance of a possible conversion. When paired with the Coupons add-on, e-commerce store owners can also offer customized discount coupon codes for the customer’s next purchase, sweetening the deal and encouraging a purchase.

With this add-on functionality, you’ll easily track abandoned cart revenue through the Abandoned Cart area of the admin panel, which is especially helpful for revenue reporting.

Email marketing

One drawback I found of the X-Cart platform is its lack of a native newsletter tool. If you haven’t yet scaled to the point of a newsletter, or are looking for a third-party tool to assist (such as Mailchimp), you likely won’t mind this gap in functionality.

While there is no natively included editor, you can opt into the X-Cart 5 Newsletter Subscription add-on. This adds an opt-in box to the footer of your website or connects your Mailchimp account – where you can create your own personalized and branded newsletters.

Inventory management

X-Cart has a simplified dash for order statuses in the admin panel, helping you easily track the current flow of inventory in and out of your site. While it isn’t as comprehensive as tools such as Shopify with its analysis of top sellers, you can easily see what’s in transit and what’s in the queue. This is explained further by the site’s dedicated Statistics tab for an even more in-depth profit study across purchases (pictured below).

Across my study of e-commerce management platforms, it seems you either get one or the other with inventory management. You get an inclusive modular system that tracks items such as fulfillment and order statuses or a more built-out, comprehensive reporting system in the dash – which tracks both order flow and revenue incoming. X-Cart offers shop owners the best of both worlds in a clean, easy-to-read package, which is suitable for stores at every stage of development.

Mobile support

X-Cart customers have the opportunity to launch their own branded app through the X-Cart interface. This is unique, as many platforms don’t offer the functionality for this type of perk. The idea is that you can easily keep retention up and better target customers with tools such as notifications and mobile-only deals.

This app has an easy-to-use mobile checkout option that’s compatible with both Apple Pay and Google Pay, giving your customers the ease and convenience that’s needed to boost your conversion rates solidly.

One of the biggest perks of this feature is that it’s continuously syncing with your store in the background, avoiding the lag that’s normally associated with stand-alone apps until they’re optimized. It runs off of the X-Cart’s Representational State Transfer (REST) API, which can be configured to suit your site’s unique needs.

This perk is available with any X-Cart subscription purchase and can be self-developed to save on additional costs. Otherwise, you can consider hiring an outside developer for the project or an X-Cart developer for an additional cost – determined at the time of purchase with your X-Cart sales rep.

Payment processing

X-Cart connects with 100+ different shipping gateways, allowing you to boost your conversions through convenient and safe options for your customers to use. For business owners who have both in-person stores and virtual storefronts, X-Cart has rolled out a POS system for easy syncing and tracking.

While X-Cart doesn’t have as robust of a security system in place as other tools, business owners can rest assured it doesn’t offer payment processing services. Instead, the service partners with outside payment processors (such as PayPal), who are responsible for protecting and processing the payment. I appreciate this, as it eliminates a lot of the concern and risk involved with using an open-source tool for sensitive customer data – such as payment information.

There are plenty of options for international buyers and sellers too, which makes X-Cart an especially strong choice for those who have global businesses.

Product upload

You can easily build out your virtual storefront using X-Cart’s intuitive interface. Choose a manual upload process for one-off uploads, or you can create your CSV file for easy transfers. The CSV only needs two fields to function (the SKU and the product name), making this a straightforward process for newer or less technically-inclined business owners.

There are over 20 types of accepted and recognized fields that business owners can input while creating their CSV, saving hours spent with migration operations on the back end. The site has even compiled a convenient documentation article about what types of syntax are allowed when you create your CSV file for maximum convenience and accuracy. You can read up on what’s required here.

I prefer the build-your-own CSV method, as this can save more time and be more accurate than using a pre-built template that may have extra fields you don’t need – or worse – not enough to suit your product description needs.

Digital.com’s expert provides more context here:

Reporting and analytics

While I didn’t see extensive reports for areas such as marketing, social, and other auxiliary elements of business ownership in its native interface, X-Cart does offer extensive shipping and operational reports to help you to run your shop well. Areas of tracking include:

• Average order value
• Customer lifetime value
• Total sales
• Total shipping costs
• Repeat purchase tracking
• Sales by product
• Sales by category

These analytics are in addition to what is covered in the “Statistics” area (such as gross profit, queued orders, and live tracking) and the “Backordered Products” section, giving you valuable insight into the skeletal reporting you need to refine and optimize your business operations.

I appreciated how the reports remain the same across all price tiers, rather than being locked behind price walls as you’d see with other services.

SEO

Compared to other services, I was pleasantly surprised that X-Cart included SEO in its native dashboard rather than exclusively in add-on form. With other open-source platforms, you could expect to see this as an auxiliary purchase, limiting your organic reach unless you have the time and resources to toggle with it. X-Cart took it a step further, digging into XML sitemap optimization, meta work, titles, and 404 optimizations.

For newer business owners or for those who aren’t as technically inclined, X-Cart goes the extra mile and provides resources for common SEO needs, such as:

• 301 redirects
• “Clean” URLs (offering you direct access to URLs without random characters or “bulk” that hinder your performance and click-thru rates)
• URL history
• SEO optimization (general topics)

I could easily access other indirect forms of organic reach optimization, such as Google Product feed appearance settings, ads and search engine marketing (SEM), as well as Facebook and Instagram social ads.

Business owners will also appreciate the easy integration that X-Cart can facilitate with whatever Secure Socket Layer (SSL) provider you choose, as the search engine favors safe and secure sites for purchase purposes.

If you’re looking to go deeper, there are plenty of SEO add-on options in the X-Cart App Store to help you tailor the website to your unique needs.

Shipping options

I was pleasantly surprised to see how many different shipping options X-Cart includes natively, as other platforms generally require the use of add-ons or extension programs to have the same functionality. Shop owners can choose to set custom table rates based on categories for easy access, or go for carrier-calculated rate options across any of the partnered services. These include:

• U.S. Postal Service
• UPS
• FedEx
• Australia Post
• Canada Post

Additionally, the site allows for one-day, free, and local shipping options across certain zones using customer addresses. You can also select fixed-rate or free shipping over a certain purchase threshold.

Store design

X-Cart’s store design is incredibly user-friendly and is one of the most competitive I’ve seen across other e-commerce platforms. There is a block-style editor, similar to what you’d see in WordPress, minimizing effort and time spent. It’s great for those lacking technical skills, without compromising the customization options developmentally-skilled business wonders could access through custom JS and CSS coding paths.

There are plenty of options in the Template Store, both free and paid. Something unique I appreciated seeing was the possibility of a free design quote for business owners. If none of the templates work for your brand vision, X-Cart designers can support you in making something unique.

I got enough functionality to successfully launch and customize my storefront without diving deep into the code portions of the tool. However, X-Cart is a competitive choice for those with more complex design needs and extensive catalogs due to its potential for customization and adaptation.

X-Cart has inherent antifraud systems in place and does regular updates to minimize the risk of penetration. But it’s still largely on the shop owners to promote safe site environments via server setup and certificates to keep the site as safe as possible. I used X-Cart’s insight into exactly how to do that via a user-friendly security guide.

The main areas of recommendation are that store owners should host on a Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS)-friendly server to protect sensitive customer information, and invest in an SSL certificate for the site.

Customer service is a massive part of the e-commerce experience for shop owners, especially when you’re setting up or migrating. I really enjoyed the convenience and connectivity that X-Cart has across its channels. Below are the ways that you can connect with a representative in minutes:

• Chat: I used this multiple times over my store’s launch and connected to a representative in two minutes or less 24 hours per day. This was invaluable as a shop owner, and the assistant was skilled in resolving my question in a single conversation.
• Email: Generally replies took up to 24 hours as X-Cart email support runs on a helpdesk system, which is fairly average. I preferred the round-the-clock chat support feature. Onboarding over email was difficult, as I had to follow up multiple times and was asked to do a sales demo call before gaining access to a sample account.
• Phone: I had mixed results on phone calls, so I definitely recommend chat support for faster resolution.
• Community, knowledgebase, and documentation: These resources were especially helpful as secondary resources to help me to launch my store in confidence.

X-Cart now accepts digital wallets

If you use Google and Apple Pay, you will appreciate how easy the digital wallet inclusion is to set up – allowing your customers to seamlessly connect to and interact with your store. This update went a long way to potentially boost conversions, as nearly 60% of all consumers use mobile wallets to make at least one payment per week.

BNPL additions for new customer groups

BNPL structures are taking e-commerce by storm. The average number of BNPL buyers is estimated to be over 59.3 million in 2022 and may continue to rise due to pandemic-caused financial strain. Having the ability to offer BNPL in your shop can be what you need to win over customers on a budget.

Easy reorder capability for loyal, recurring customers

Similar to Amazon’s famous subscribe and save, your customers can easily use a reorder button to connect with their favorite products. This saves time and lowers barriers to conversion, making it an updated favorite for new business owners.

Customer comments and testimonials stay on-page

Social proof is more important now than ever before as more business owners join the e-commerce space. With the most recent update via X-Cart 5, customers can leave comments and feedback via Disqus for future reference – acting as evergreen testimonials. This is a fantastic addition that can be used to secure more sales, and that isn’t present across many of the e-commerce platforms available.

Features coming soon to X-Cart

While there have been no confirmed reports of what’s coming next after the most recent update to X-Cart 5, we’re confident that it will continue to update and serve the community’s most relevant needs as done up until this point.

Compare X-Cart Alternatives

X-Cart is an excellent platform for your e-commerce needs. Yet you might be looking for a less developmentally heavy and modular platform, like a cloud storefront or store-in-a-box solution such as Shopify or Wix.

We tested and reviewed each company and launched dummy stores using its services, giving you the most unbiased and accurate review currently available. Our research is designed to provide objectively accurate information for each platform, empowering you to choose the perfect fit for your business.

Read on to see how X-Cart stacks up compared to other e-commerce options and the pros and cons that the team at Digital.com uncovered during the research process.

How I Rated X-Cart

For this X-Cart review, I studied the features offered natively in-platform, without the use of add-ons or extensions from the marketplace. I explored the features offered in the current version of X-Cart 5 and accurately compared them to other e-commerce platforms for the most objective rating. Also, I launched my virtual storefront to get a true feel for what customers would experience, informing my review.

I completed a comprehensive overview, but covered some features more extensively that carry more weight with customers. These areas of implementation include scalability, price, customer support, and user experience – for both customers and business owners.

Overall, X-Cart is an extremely competitive option for mid and large-sized businesses that want a customizable way to serve their customers. While the price is higher at a minimum of $199 per month, you get more on average than other, more extension-reliant platforms. If you can hire a developer or dust off your coding skills for the initial setup and migration process, X-Cart is a great choice to consider for your e-commerce needs.