Looking for multi vendor shopping cart software? Find best store scripts and build marketplace like Amazon,Ebay and Etsy.
Before writing this review I have analyzed all of the available software. Even i have purchased the software which i was really recommending here with my own marketplace, you will find this script in this article in detail on which I am specifying
Multi Vendor Shopping Carts-What they really do?
The traditional shopping cart software is built to use with single vendor, which provides limited features to handle with one or more users. But with multi vendor shopping cart software the webmaster build a complete marketplace like Amazon, Ebay, where multiple vendors can sell their products on their own. Every merchant assigned with their unique access credentials where they can manage their products, shipping, taxes, invoices and much more preferences.
And the webmaster (Called root administrator) take the profits by getting the commission for every vendor product sold through his marketplace.
CS-Cart Multi Vendor
Of all the available software, cs-multi vendor cart made me much impressive than the any other software there are plenty of reasons to choose this one, but i just want to tell the special features that made in the first position here.
Photo : CS-Cart Multi Vendor Demo - Home Page View
Unlimited Vendor/merchants
This software enables unlimited vendors registration where they can list unlimited products with the marketplace. The software is scalable which lets the marketplace service available to as many merchants as you have.
Grouped Products Catalog
Like Amazon and eBay, this software lets the products are listed as grouped products catalog, which means the every products available in the specific categories from all the vendors.
Grouped catalog products will help the customers will have the opportunity to compare the products from the various merchants for the same category. This will help for increased e-commerce engagement and sales.
Note:
There are is also a feature available for merchants with the dedicated URL, where you can find all of the items from the particular vendor.
Dedicated Admin panel for Merchants
It’s also provide dedicated admin panel for merchants on which they can control their own preferences like profile, tax information, shipping costs, products information and also the regions of the products available.
The merchant account admin panel also provides the detailed information about the transaction done for their products and customer details of who purchased the product.
Receiving payments Root Administrator Account
All the transactions made with the marketplace will goes to the root administrator account, and the admin will provides the payout to the merchants who offering/delivering the product.
Its works like an in-house escrow system that which is most required for a marketplace portal as you seen with Amazon, Etsy and Ebay.
This will help to protect the interest of the buyers that, if any dispute arises due to non delivery or defects in the product the root administrator will take charge of any return requests.
Every transaction done with the portal is recorded with the reference to the root administrator so that they can better manage the day to activities.
Setting up commissions for each Vendor
Another beauty of this multi store cart is the root administer has the option to set the specific commission rate for each vendor. If the specific vendor performs well then you can decreases the your commission rate to the vendor and motivating them to sell more with your website
Global Store Control
The root administrator has global control over the store, they can edit/remove the information present with the vendor stores at any time. This will help to change the information for the particular product/page and not removing the data on the whole store. with this global store control feature ,root administrator can moderate the activities of the store from the admin end itself.
Supports both physical and digital goods
This multi store cart software supports both physical and digital goods so that you can open a market place which is for selling physical goods and as well as provide automated digital goods delivery. For digital goods merchants, they have the option to upload the digital goods from their control panel and start selling software, scripts, themes, templates and much more digital goods.
SEO Friendly URLs
By activating the in-built SEO module, you can make the cart will be available for SEO friendly URLs.Just activate the plugin from the dashboard, now the products page, vendor information, content pages will utilize the pretty URL scheme helps for SEO boost.
SSL Support Ready
Being an e-commerce portal ,your portal certainly require the security of the information present in it. For this you need to encrypt the data transaction, the cart software comes with SSL support ready makes your site runs in the secured layer in minutes.
By enabling the SSL support in the dashboard, you will make this happen with your site in seconds. The best part of the software is you have the option to
- Enabling the SSL global makes your site, runs completely in the SSL mode, every data present in the data is encrypted.
- Enabling the SSL only on required pages you can have the option of turning on the SSL, on the specific pages of the portal ,like registration pages, checkout pages .This will make the other pages open for indexing by search engines (SEO friendly)products pages, website contents …
In-build Affiliate System and Gift Coupons
Affiliate and gift coupons became immense part to boost up the sales. so that this software comes with the best part of affiliate system and gift coupons.
By enabling the feature from the admin dashboard, you can make your site available for affiliate promotion. This feature is included with this multi vendor software, nothing to be installed further to make it work.
And also comes with best coupon management panel where the vendors can manage the coupons effectively like coupons expiry, coupons for specific products and much more.
Plenty of payment gateways and methods supported
This cart supports plenty of payment gateways and methods ,so that you can accept the payments from the buyers with at most ways.
Payment methods supported
- Credit Cards
- Paypal
- Phone Ordering
- Fax Ordering
- Money Order
- Personnel Check
- Business Check
- Government Check
Payment Gateways Supported
- 2Checkout
- Paypal Express
- Google checkout
- Money Bookers
- E-gold
and much more 75 gateways supported
Credit Cards Supported
- American Express
- VISA Electron
- Master Card
- Diners Club
- Mastero
a more than 12 major credit cards accepted
Design mode
Another interesting feature of this multi vendor software is ,you can turn on/off the design mode .Enabling the design mode from the root admin panel enables the administrator can design the layouts/contents from the Front end itself and not by editing the code with the additional software.
The design mode will be available only to the system which has the private session in it
Note:
session will be created automatically when the root administrator turn it on(only available to his/her system on which activated and all others will see the normal front end, so other than the root administrator will make edit with front end when the design mode is active) and the session will be end after deactivation them.
Price: $985 for single license( For additional license ,you need to pay only $845 and you can save $140 )
CS- Cart Pros
- Solid e-commerce software with proven track record
- Built it for multi vendor, feature rich
- SSl Support, Affiliate, Coupons and payment gateways
- Minimal Resource usage runs best even with shared hosting environments
- 40+ professional design templates
- Multiple languages support
- Excellent support and well documented
Cons
Slower web page loading, needs some speed optimization by the webmaster
X-Cart Mall Solutions
X-Cart Multi mall solutions is the next best multi vendor script to set up your own marketplace .Just like prior e-commerce software ,this cart system having some cool features like
- Supports both physical and downloadable products
- Unlimited products and categories
- Multiple payment gateways supported
- Centralized control of the store
- Inventory tracking and management
- User groups/Membership
- SSL support ready
Some other cool features supported are
Photo : X-Cart Multi Mall Demo - Home Page View
W3C XHTML friendly codew
One of the cool feature I have found with this script is ,its produces W3C XHTML Transitional compliant code which makes the website built on latest standards
PCI-DSS compliance
This multi vendor mall software is a complete PCI-DSS compliance cart which makes it the online credit card transactions made with the sites compliance with the PCI-DSS standards
User groups/Membership
You can also further group the vendors as separate user groups and with membership, so that you can offer different pricing and offers for the members. For E.g Free Members, Gold Members, Gold Members
Pricing:
$575 for single domain (With full source code)
X-Cart Pros
- Build on latest standards
- Unlimited products and categories
- PCI-DSS compliance
- Extendable through various modules
Cons
- Affiliate integration requires purchase as separate module
- Mall solutions is a module, not a dedicated release like cs-cart
Iscripts MultiCart
Iscripts Multi Cart
Iscripts multi cart software comes the final place of our review system but it also marks some promising solutions to the multi store requirements. This will be the cheapest priced software ($197 for single license) comes under our review but it also packed with some of the cool features we looking for.
Like the other two carts reviewed here, this shopping cart software is also have its the features of the other two. But unlike other two shopping cart software, the iscripts doesn’t meet all the quality standards ( coding structure, security and the scalability)
Photo : Iscripts Mutli Cart Demo Home Page View
Pros
- Competitive pricing than any other software on our list
- Having most of all the features required for multi vendor system
- Affiliate, Coupons, Separate logins, Templates, SSL support
Cons
- Native PHP code, code not updated for longer time (Last updated on Aug,2011)
- Lacks some security features
- Not a scalable software, may got troublesome with the increased load
Update:
As I we already had given in my review, about the security issues of the Iscripts.
Now i have found more serious issues with Iscripts software (Found some serious security vulnerabilities that directly impacts with premium orders and ownership change)
So i am recommending our members, not to use this software ( IScripts Multi Cart) at this time(I will update the thread ,when the security patch for this iscript product is ready)
So i removed all the hyperlinks that pointing to the particular site from this article to avoid our viewer’s accidently link back to their product page.
Conclusion
After all reviewing the software, i can provide this conclusion, and i hope this will helps for selecting your one.
Cs-Cart Multi Vendor – For those one seriously looking for dedicated multi vendor solutions for immediate /production marketplace
X-Cart Multi Mall- For those who looking for multi cart software with latest standards and trying out the marketplace in coming days
IScripts Multi Cart – For those looking for cart with lot of cool features with cheapest price.(Removed from recommended list due to security issues present in the script)
wow I was looking for an article just like this! I just want to know which ones were most custom and the ones I will have the most control over/feel like its mine or that i really purchased it.
Hi Ayimes:
Both cs-cart and x-cart follows well coding structures .so if someone have the decent knowledge on PHP can easily customize it to your own.
I am an SEO by profession and not having much exp in php, found the cs-cart code much easier to understand and customize, and also you can find some detailed tutorials and guide from thier knowledge base and active forum.
I suggest cs-cart for beginners to professionals.
hello sakthi ganesh,
Thanks for such an informative post. i did reviewed some of the demos. Actually i am planning to start up a dropshipping business in india, with a wide product range. i really like CS-Cart Multi Vendor, but the issue is, how would you add revenue model to that? if a vendor is able to post the product collect the payment, where is my involvement? may be i am attaching that to my dropship model, but what would be revenue model, and how to deal with that. i also request if you can post something related to dropshipping. many thanks.
Hi Shadab
As a portal service provider, you can collect the commission for the vendor products sell with your portal.
Note:
You can set the commission for the each vendor, when you approve their vendor requests. You can also change (Increase/Decrease commission rate later upon member levels)
Its works like an in-house escrow system.
All the payments made for the products goes to the portal owner.
Merchants get the order notification, and they forward the products to the buyers
Portal owner waits for the product refund policy time (Optional, but its highly recommended to set the refund policy to protect the buyers and as well as sellers)
Portal owner releases the payments to the vendors by deducting the commission charges (After the product refund policy time is over)
If you’re planning to do the drop shipping business by your own. You can do the same process but you take away the 100% profits (Not a full product cost ,but the full product margin)
You can just find the quick guideline of doing drop shipping business
Select your niche, profitable products to sell
Find the products from the drop shipping directories or manually verifying from the experienced people contacts
list the products with your website and do the product promotion
Get the orders from the buyers and collect the money
Forward the orders to the potential sellers (By paying partial, full money)
They deliver the products directly to the buyers or you can forward it after receiving it in your end.
I was wondering what your thoughts are on Kodemall? How does it compare to the others you’ve discussed? Thanks!
Hi Myrna Herrero:
There are other solutions are available from WordPress,Drupal,open cart and others like kode mall,PHP Mall but there are all not yet built to work with the production,they are still waiting to apply large kind of maturity models.But any way thanks for suggesting me writing the opinions on this,i will cover these solutions with this review and let you know. Thanks for this.
Do any of these carts support a venue model like etsy.com? They don’t use the escrow model but have a cart that lists all vendors products and checkout in one page. The buyer does multiple checkouts but etsy can see what money they are due for their fees.
Hi, this is wonderful information.
I up until today had a project in the queue with Kodemall to integrate my solution into Kodemall but after they got started they realized it was going to be to difficult for them 3months later… So I have been set back and now finding this review is great.
CS-Cart, Do you have to be the “escrow” or middle man? I would personally rather each Vendor to have their own Merchant account or whatever they want and not have to worry about handling or being responsible for their money.
Hi Aneill:
Yes.In all the scripts that i reviewed here.You(Store owner) will be the middle man to provide escrow service between buyer and seller.
This is what you seen with Amazon,Ebay and etsy market places.
If you rely on third party escrow services it will be an added cost for the products( It will decreases your commision margin?) and if you are planning for a big marketplace you don’t have to mid for the handling and responsible for holding money. It it right?
Great post Sakthi! do you have any experience with phpprobids? I’ve been debating, trying to decide which one to use (phpprobids, x-cart, cs-cart), there are a lot of bad support problems with probids, but the demo site looks great, not sure how easy it is to work with. Thanks for your comments.
Hi Dave:
Thanks for the suggestion.But the phpprobid is build it for auction only. There is no sold marketplace concept associated with it.As you have told the software lacks the support and I have heard the issues from fellow webmasters about customizing the script(The software is not completely open source,some part of the scripts are strongly encrypted) and installing it .If you are seriously looking for auction software means i will write a review on this soon.
But by tomorrow i will add more software related to the category(More multi vendor scripts) here with the full comparison.Thanks for the support.
Hi, I was just about to purchase the iScripts multicart license when I read you’r review, thanks, you may have saved me some money
Can I ask what the security issue with the script is so I can request a patch before purchase?
Hi Colin:
Sure.But cloin there is a multiple security issues present with the script and even the they not followed the structural coding ,i fear it can not be covered in single patch.ok as per request I will surely provide a complete list of it.Before that just look about the “direct SQL injection error” while order
(I am taking the demo for the example)
During the domain order process,it shows the order ID in the URL,by changing the order ID in the browser address bar you can have the store that already belongs to others.I have tested this with their demo site, and i can access their other people’s store and their credentials.
It just an example.There are lot of SQL injection vulnerabilities have been found with all other iscripts products also
E.g
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/512163
If you have the time ,try a Google search with the keyword ” SQL injection vulnerability iscripts”
or try this link below
http://goo.gl/Uyq4L
and you can find a more on your own.
Thanks Sakthi,
I did some googling as per your suggestion and iScripts looks to be vey risky indeed, thanks for saving me money. Have you come across a script by Agriya yet in your research? Script is called BuySell and is based on a Etsy type clone. It looks very good and has all the necessary features but I am not sure if it would be production ready.
Thank
Col
Hi Colin:
Agariya Etsy clone script is looking good as per my experience with fellow webmasters
The scripts from the providers are not 100% open source,most of time the customers are reported problem with the customization and their support system is not so responsive,you have to go for paid support other than you have spent with the original script purchase.
And the script lacking the lot of the features(shipping,merchant control,invoice and etc) needed to work as production marketplace,the script is yet to mature in many areas.
If you have the well experienced development team in PHP, who works independent without aid of the script supplier company means,you can consider this otherwise i would like to say ,stay away from Agriya
Hello. I was so glad to read that you discovered iScripts has issues. I actually purchased the software and found that it has MANY issues, and not just with the security. In fact, I didn’t even get to find out that part. Couldn’t weed through the host of other issues I had with the software. Customer service was very sketchy and they refused to honor their 30 day money back guarantee. I had to go through my bank and file a chargeback. DO NOT buy iscripts. Just don’t. Save yourself the hassle. If you can’t afford a higher priced script, get a part time job and save until you can. Good luck. I’m still searching for something to fill my needs.
I needed multi seller shopping cart software bought one from iscripts. It took them a few weeks to install it (I paid additionally for this service). The software didn’t work for me, I notified the company immediately and asked for my money back because their website says “100% Satisfaction or Money Back Guarantee”. They outright refused and were rude and dismissive. Not the way to treat a customer. The prices are reasonable but the software is limited and their customer service is atrocious. I wouldn’t recommend.