Feature Set:  

X–cart has many great features. Category Manager is really simple to use. Add as many categories as you wish. To add a subcategory all you have to do is add a "/". For example, books is the category and to create a subcategory in books all you would type in is books/Fantasy or books/mystery which would create a new subcategory. The traffic reports for X–cart are great. The shopping cart conversion funnel report shows at what point potential customers bailed out of the buy process. It begins tracking which customers looked at a product, which added it to their cart, and each step in the check–out process. With this information you can know exactly where the break down is in your shopping cart.

X–cart has a few limitations. They have some great add–on modules, which cost you more money to get. A lot of the other packages just come with this as part of their package deal. X–cart is configurable but it does take some knowledge to edit the templates. If you are a beginner, customization will not be easy.

Ease of Use:  

X–Cart's back–end interface is set up in different sections; Management, Administration, Affiliates, Your profile, Help, and Authentication. It is all browser–based so it's very easy to handle and understand. What's not so easy about X–cart is that it is a box product so you need to setup everything on your server unless you want to pay 50 dollars to have X–cart set it up for you. I recommend that you let X–cart set up everything for you. It's just one less hassle to deal with.

Ease of Installation:  

X–Cart is a package deal. You buy it one time and it’s yours to host wherever you want it. You will need to find a hosting service to run your shopping cart; X–Cart has a list of hosting partners that they recommend.

Help/Documentation:  

The Help is adequate.   To access help you need to use their website.   There are forums, FAQs, and an online reference manual.  They do not have context–sensitive help, which means wherever you are in the program, the help is specific to what you are working on.   This is would be a nice feature, but X–Cart does not have it.

True E-Commerce Solution:

Is X–cart an E–commerce solution?   Yes.   They have hosting partners available (they will not host it for you). X–Cart also gives you the tools to make your website, then gives you the merchant tools to manage your website. They offer the ability for credit card processing and allow flexible shipping options.  A shopping cart is a commitment between you and the shopping cart company.   This is not something you will try for a month and give up.   This is a lasting business that you want to succeed.

X–Cart Pro is a good product and receives our tenth ranking of all the products reviewed. Overall the installation and setup are not very user friendly but they do offer to set everything up for a small price. X–Cart has many great features and add–on modules. You can purchase this software so you can host it wherever you want.