Feature Set:  

SunShop Shopping Cart Software has just about every feature we were looking for from quick storefront creation wizards to marketing and promotion tools. And this software is incredibly well priced for such a powerful program; you can start with just a single license which comes with a year of updates and a month of free support. In addition, you can use the software forever and there are no monthly or ongoing fees unless you use their hosting service or paid support.

Storefront/Website Design:

This software comes with attractive and up-to-date looking storefront HTML and CSS type templates or you can use your own. And if you do not know HTML, no problem; with this software you can create custom pages and emails with a WYSIWYG editor.

Back Office:

SunShop can support an unlimited number of products with an unlimited number of categories. It also allows you to put as many images in as you want and supports a variety of sizes. It can even export data to QuickBooks and has powerful inventory control tools.

Shopping Features:

This shopping cart software has the ability to sell “hard” goods and “soft” goods (downloadable items). SunShop also has all kinds of sales features like gift certificates, up-sell and cross-sell abilities and more. It can manage your customer address book and can handle bulk email lists.

Payment Options:

SunShop has over 60 different types of payment modules and can accept and process payments through all major payment processors including PayPal, Google Check Out, VeriSign, CitiBank, Bank of America, AuthorizeNet and many more. It also supports other types of sales, such as phone sales, COD, mail, e-checks and such.

Statistics/Marketing:

This shopping cart software can provide a variety of sales graphs and chart reports as well as traffic statistics. It also works with the information provided by Google Analytics. The new iPhone tool allows you to view up to a seven days of sales history and orders on your phone.

Shipping/Tax:

SunShop has the ability to work with seven different carriers including FedEx, UPS, DHL and USPS. The software supports a variety of shipping options, including a shipping estimator, handling fees and more. It also supports an assortment of tax calculating options.

Security:

This program processes all transactions securely using SSL technology and it has an easy to use backup and restore tool to keep you data safe. Other things like fraud protection may be dependent on your merchant account service.

Supported Servers:

SunShop Shopping Cart Software is compatible with any server and operating system that has PHP and MySQL support, though it works best in a LINUX or UNIX type environment.
 

Ease of Use:  

SunShop is easy to use and does not require extensive programming skills to figure out. Its’ editors are WYSIWYG based and sections can be moved around easily.

Ease of Installation:  

This product installs quickly and without glitches. However, keep in mind that it does require other services to get up and running, such as a capable host if needed, a payment gateway or merchant account and integration with your preferred shipper.

Help/Documentation:  

SunShop provides a month of free support or you can purchase “support points.” They also offer professional installation should you need it. Online they provide a forum, a help desk, a searchable knowledgebase, FAQs and a bug tracker. They also host extensive, helpful documentation for all of their products online in HTML or PDF format.

True E-Commerce Solution:
Yes, they also offer web hosting if you need that and they offer PHP Live Helper. However, you will have to acquire a merchant account and find a web host, host on your own servers or use their hosting service.

Is SunShop Shopping Cart Overkill?:
No. This software is affordable and suitable even for small online businesses, yet is capable of running much larger endeavors as well.

We liked the SunShop shopping cart software, it provides everything you need to get your site created and customer interfaces running. We also liked that it provides great templates but also supports full customization. In addition, SunShop is extremely well priced and you don’t have to buy a new license every year. Once you buy it, you can use if for as long as you want.