As the owner of this site, I often get asked “which is the best shopping cart?”. I also hang out in a few forums where shopping cart software is frequently discussed: “what is the best shopping cart software for my new online frozen banana stand?” etc.
Well, once and for all, I’ll answer the question as to which is best:
It depends.
Sorry folks, I know you are looking for a simple answer, but there is no simple answer to complex questions. What does it depend on?
- What are you selling?
- What sort of complexity do your products have?
- What is your marketing strategy?
- What is your branding strategy?
- What are your in house technical skills like?
- What is your budget?
I talk to and consult with a lot of ecommerce owners. Everyone thinks their store is pretty normal and pretty straight forward. They aren’t. Every single customer has at least one challenge, one unique attribute to their business which I hadn’t seen before/considered before. To them, and for their business, it seems like no big deal.
There are certain shopping carts I would absolutely not recommend to anyone, and there’s a short list of 4 or 5 products which would meet the bulk of the needs of probably 80% of people without major customization. (and before I get deluged with comments saying “what is your short list?”, I’m afraid I won’t blog it as I do need to keep a certain level of neutrality as owner of this site).
The most important thing (which I’m sure Scott blogged about sometime but I can’t find it) is to “work on your shop, not on your shopping cart”.