Build Your Own Ecommerce Website!: Interview: X-Cart

Today's interview is with X-Cart, a shopping cart provider.

What do you think is the most important part of a shopping cart?

From our experience, a shopping cart as a standalone product is only a part of what online store owners truly need. In our opinion, it is important that the shopping cart should be accompanied by the whole scope of services allowing its owner to concentrate solely on sales and marketing and be sure that the technical side is handled by professionals.

What do you consider sets you apart from your competitors?

Since the software comes with an open source code, X-Cart can be used both as a ready out-of-the-box shopping cart solution and a powerful shopping cart platform which can be customized or enhanced to suit your needs. While the product can be maintained entirely by the owner, a full range of additional services (including turn-key software installation, custom development, ecommerce website design and shopping cart hosting) is offered directly from our company (in case they are necessary for a customer).

What is your pricing structure?

We have two versions of our product: X-Cart Gold and Pro (multi-vendor version). There is a one-time fee for a lifetime license. You may refer to our web site for the complete up-to-date pricing.

Please name five features that are included in your shopping cart.

- Fully customizable design & layout (including WYSIWYG tools for easy text content modification).
- Extended product specifications (product options and variants, price modifiers, detailed images, extra fields).
- Built-in marketing tools (discounts, gift certificates, special offers).
- Multi-lingual store interface (products, categories, product options, interface
elements).
- Variety of integrated payment systems (including PayPal, Google Checkout, Authorize.Net, 2Checkout and many others) and shipping carriers (UPS, USPS, FedEx, DHL, CanadaPost and AustraliaPost).

Does your solution come with hosting?

X-Cart itself is provided as a standalone distribution which can be installed on any compatible hosting. However, in the beginning of this year we've started offering our own shopping cart hosting service, X-Cart hosting, provided exclusively to X-Cart license owners.

How many shipping options do you provide?

We provide built-in real-time integration with all major shipping carriers (UPS, USPS, FedEx, DHL, CanadaPost and AustraliaPost). Also, we have a Shipping Labels Generator available for UPS, DHL/Airborne and USPS. In addition, you can set up your own custom flat rate, weight, order total and per-item based shipping charges based on destination.

What are your contract term sizes?